beocool wrote:

Puncher wrote:

Not brilliant but at least it's all going to be OK again next year.

Do I sense a hint of sarcasm here? 😕

Me? Never!!👍

Ha! 

Indeed, I do look forward to the "stop being so negative" brigade chiming in.

That aside, might a purchase / take-over by a bigger corporate partner not be a bad thing?

Not saying it will happen, but that event need not be a negative, subject to the usual caveats.

Sandyb wrote:

Not saying it will happen, but that event need not be a negative, subject to the usual caveats.

Absolutely wouldn't be a negative. This is what B&O need - a company with cash to give the R&D and Design departments and let B&O do what B&O do best...  

As it stands, it appears that lack of cash means lack of investment, which will mean lack of new products, which will mean decreased sales, which will mean less cash to spend, etc etc. I believe it's called a 'tailspin'.

I'd love to see B&O taken over, then nurtured - but I think we'd see a huge 'cull' before anything else. 

According to my humble opinion what is going wrong is simply the product line. I grew up in a house that only had B&O appliances (TVs Speakers CD players LP players etc). By the years I realized that the reason why we had B&O products was not just the design. It was the sound, the functionality, the integration of products that made us pick this brand. I bought my first B&O product (Beosound Century) at the age of 16 and I had to save money for three years to do so. Since then I have never bought another brand. I am now in my late thirties and although I have the money to buy more stuff than when I was 16 there is nothing to buy that represents the values I consider that B&O represents. In the past 4-5 years I bought a pair of 18s (new), a beolab 2 (used), a beosound moment (new), a beoplay V1 (new), a pair of 4000s (used), beoremote 6, beoremote one, all in all I have a house equipped with only B&O products. The installation and setup was done by myself and I am really enjoying it. It is now almost 2 years that I am looking to buy a TV. There is nothing to buy. The harmony and eclipse are out of the question cause I am not going to spend a little fortune to buy a product that will be obsolete in 5-7 years. The Horizon has a price tag that it is not super expensive but has many issues (ie no Netflix. And I am not going to pay 5000 euros for a TV just to have another apple tv connected to it). Furthermore if you compare the Beovision 7 generation to the new TVs you feel even more stupid to buy a new one. The 7 series had a video output to connect a projector, the new TVs you need a matrix/switcher to do so, which mean more cables, more boxes, more complicated installations. I fully understand that the TV industry has a super fast evolution but why don't they stick with what they do best? For example produce a Beosystem 5. Or a sound bar with video processing possibilities.

As far as the speakers are concerned I do not understand who is going to buy a monophonic speaker. B&O is a Hi-Fi brand not some lifestyle brand. Design is not enough. I would definitely buy a beosound 1 for my terrace but never for my living room! Not even for my bedroom or my kitchen. In my kitchen I have a pair of 15s and a 16 simply because I love listening to music and by that I mean listening to the highest quality my wallet can afford.

As far as music systems are concerned.....the whole lineup is a laugh. There is nothing. Just the core. The issues I had with the beosound moment are countless. I didn't mind them cause I like playing around with my set up and installation. On the other hand my brother in law who had bought  a Moment he simply sold it.

I believe that the brand has strong values that are sought after many people. They just need to understand that the people who love the brand and its product care for other things than seasonal colors! They care for a superior sound, a superior picture, superior functionality and integration and last but by no means least design.

Puncher wrote:

Not brilliant but at least it's all going to be OK again next year.

Yup, there's a pony in there somewhere!!!

There is one Danisch multi billionaire  .

Let,s ask him if he want to save the company

I love the brand but not right now with the bad software models they bring out.

Get someone from Apple of MS to sort out the  software bugs and let them firestart this brand again.

(i will have a look on July 9th at the new tv from them but the price tag....... 20k !!!)

Over here, at one time McIntosh was on the verge of bankruptcy, when they were bought originally by Clarion. Fortunately for McIntosh, their new owners, up to the present, were willing to allow McIntosh to be McIntosh, didn't try and force them to be something they never were. Unfortunately, even if a new supportive owner were found for B&O, B&O no longer remembers how to be B&O.

Indeed - we can all agree that its hard to make products that remain relevant for 15 years in this age of feat evolving tech, and no physical media.

But, if B&O did more of what their long standing customers want they'd be OK. Look at Apple - yesterday they finally addressed, albeit belatedly, many if not most of the chief missing issues with their line-up, and surprise surprise, the tech community was overjoyed, and gave their WWDC keynote a very enthusiastic response. And there was nothing desperately revolutionary, just addressing the principal concerns the community had about shortcomings with its existing line up.

That all said, B&O are supposed to be coming with a sound bar (a simple one), and a more fully featured one / BS5, so they may get somewhere better line up wise. But its all so painfully slow - the centre speaker / BS5 product is not coming this year, so thats another 9-12m wait.

w5bno123 wrote:

I believe the negative cash flow was partly caused to a share buy back. It’s doesn’t help that nothing other than the BS Edge was launched with a few colour variations

Not being from a financial background, I have a naive question to ask - If I was considering dropping 15K for a TV or else 25K or 54K for a pair of speakers, should I be worried whether ill get full support for the entire duration of my warranty period for my new purchase?

i.e. for those that truly understand these numbers and in context of the companies performance and trends over the last few years, is there a real risk or is it still ok to splash out on the marquee products?