Good point Jeff,

But I think it's also because we listen to music in a different way these days - whereas 30 0r 40 years ago, a person would sit in their home a listen to a gramophone record on something that was part of the furniture. Nowadays music travels with us.

In the home, for a lot of people especially in apartments, a music player is a secondary device. We are used to driving our cars with a minimum of 8 speakers fitted as standard or in many case 10, 14 or 17 speaker systems PLUS of course with international headphone culture the stereo experience is certainly there. Of course, the fans on this site are not the typical home music system customer and will never agree to the little music player that fits in with the bijou apartment - although the A9 seems to totally defy this concept :)

In conclusion, the way in that the world is listening to music has evolved. When I was a lil shorty, 100% of my music listening was at home now it's probably less than 2% at the very most.

Second what you wrote Paul, excellent post.

Music is digital,and travels with us...this is the truth and B&O must adapt his pilosophy to these facts...

But for me the Fi-Fi and the'old' dedicated music player concept will be more important that digital compressed files and such.

:)

The A9 seems great! I love it. 

Couple of days later ... I like the black fret, and love the brown fret option!

Still hoping for a better wall mount pic rather than the site's head-on one -what were they thinking?

Hopefully the A9 Encore with revised pricing will make it in time for Xmas!

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Yes I am a salesman and have worked for several dealers over the last 30 years. I find your comment about "salesmen being biased" patronising. You have never met me so how can you possibly make such a sweeping statement?

Over the years I have tried to offer advice on this forum where questions have been posted about products or technical queries. I have never blatantly plugged a product and I have tried to remain neutral preferring to stick to factual responses.

I take exception to your comment that I would “eulogise over a BeoTurd”. I simply made a suggested that before everybody jumps to conclusions, they wait to see the A9 in the showroom and make an informed judgement then.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When I first saw the Avant I wasn’t sure about it but then the sample colour was red. I, like many thousands of others, now regard this as a classic. Over time I have owned three.

When I saw A9 for the first time I thought “that’s different”. The sound is not lacking but that is just my opinion.  You feel the current designs are crap and that is your opinion. I wouldn’t presume to speculate if you have an axe to grind. We can’t be all things to all people. But we can respect each others opinions.

Agreed! Recent B&O designs take more time for people to warm up too. They tend to provoke more which is kinda in line with Miuccia Prada's design philosophy actually. B&O is more of a trend setter than a follower. One thing that Beoplay9 seriously lack is a digital input! Omg! How can they miss that?! You can omit the RCA inputs but definitely not digital inputs these days but I guess this speaker is really meant as a Airplay oriented product which I must say is pretty bold commitment itself. No wonder Apple is reserving shelf space for this giant. I just realized how beoplay 9 is designed as if to float visually like its beosound 8 counterpart. Despite being a serious audiophile products like the beolab 3, beosound 8 are proving to be almost irreplaceable for their form and function. What works better than beolab 3s as high end computer speakers? I think Beoplay 9 will soon proof to be irreplaceable for me too. 

AirPlay, DLNA, USB are all digital. But you're right, it really shouldn't be seen as a speaker that's designed to be connected to some hifi elements. It's a music system in itself that plays music stored in mobile devices.

I like it.  No, it's not a b&o design.  It's a b&o play design (which is starting to make more sense).  Unlike any thing out there. It's not for me because my home is fully masterlinked, but it is good to see b&o continue to innovate.  Clearly, it is not for everyone, but universal appeal tends to be boring (see most Asian cars).  

To all the stereo naysayers, this seems more like a very large Beosound 1 - a system I've enjoyed for 10+ years. No, it will never sound quite as good as separate speakers, but I think simplicity is a decent compromise 

wonderfulelectric wrote:

Recent B&O designs take more time for people to warm up too. They tend to provoke more which is kinda in line with Miuccia Prada's design philosophy actually. B&O is more of a trend setter than a follower.

I doubt that.
Since the late 60's B&O has been a trendsetter. Just think about the slide rulers on the Beolab 5000 set from 1967. That was trendsetting -later copied by a lot of other companies. And the Beomaster 1900 from 1974. That was groundbreaking - and shocking to a lot of people. A complete new way of making a receiver. And a timeless design that with a few modifications was in the product range for almost 20 years. And it still looks good.
The 'column' speakers is another design that was groundbreaking (and copied over and over again by others).

IMO many of the new B&O designs are more based upon what is trendy now. As mentioned earlier in this thread, 'retro' is in, when talking about interior design -and fashion. But fashion changes every year -and with a time cycle of 10-15 years they start all over again. Then it's 60', then it's 70's again, etc...
Look at the Beolit 12 - inspired by a portable radio from the 60's. The V1 looks like something Loewe has made. And now this A9 that looks like something from the 50's/60's with those wooden legs...(or looks like a dart board -or a IKEA folding table -or a sattelite dish on a tripod...or, or, or...) 😂 

Nothing new and groundbreaking here. Will it be trendy in 5 or 10 years..? Is it timeless..? 
Shocking...Yeah, maybe...Shockingly bad design.😜

I think what a lot of people don't realise is the HUGE size of this thing. It's the size of an old ASTRA Satellite dish - those huge things that we had bolted to our houses at the end of the 1980's - early90s!