A really good loudspeaker - I would place them in the range as an equivalent to the old S45.2 - a speaker that performed better than one would expect but be (for B&O) reasonably priced, especially second hand, and able to be used almost anywhere. If you ever take a trip round Struer, you will see these everywhere. I have two pairs and am very happy with them.

Peter wrote:

an equivalent to the old S45.2

Exactly.

Like the passing of a faithful hound ... they will be missed.

So... BeoLab 14's around the corner? 😳

Sad that they are ending...

Lots of products terminated... 

Seems B&O end more products than they introduce these days...

jc wrote:

Seems B&O end more products than they introduce these days...

I thought Tue said, he would be speeding up B&O's release of new products.
Right now he seems to be more busy terminating products...😠
🤔 Wonder if that's the way to save the company..?

There's very few of the B&O products introduced in the later years (except BV 11) , that I would like to buy.
To me, it's simply boring to walk into a B&O store these days...Mostly B&O play - and then a few speakers and some TV's...
Let's just hope there's some new exciting things coming up...

Truer words could not be spoken, Steffen. I grew up in the late 1980s and 1990s and to me, at that time, Bang and Olufsen and Sony were the untouchable brands of the day. Now mind you, Sony has taken a far more dramatic slide than B&O ever could, but I do not find much in the current range that is of interest to me. Ironically, those things which ARE of interest, are really just decade or longer old products that have been in the line-up for some time. 

I WAS a little to disappointed to see that my later generation 4ks are made elsewhere in Europe per the "country of Origin" sticker, but I guess that's just what happens with near end of life products many times that have had the production methodologies fine tuned and honed to where they can be more mass produced. 

I built my entire system around the Beolink 7000 which i find to be one of B&O's greatest achievements of all time and much as I love it and my BeoCenter 2500, I would be lying if I said I'm not SERIOUSLY tempted with a Beosound 9000 even though I don't even listen to CDs anymore. It's a complete statement and would go great my BL4ks.

The good news is that all the B&O gear I really want is old enough now where it's attainable in some form or fashion. With the likely exception of BeoLab 5, which are still precariously expensive even used.

I always felt the 4000's were a very underrated speaker but perhaps they have been around so long they are taken for granted.

Are B&O downsizing ?

At the risk of being to conservative;

I walked into a B&o store yesterday, and I still find the Beosound 9000 unrivalled. The speaker lab 3's, 9's and 5's are very nice too, but the recent designs like the lab 12's just haven't the 'artistic' factor of B&o. If you look back at all the products ever made by B&o, there are multiple items that also didn't really 'have it'., so I think (and hope) nothing has changed in that respect. In product design it's trial and error, and B&o never proved to be immune to errors...

 And about the lab 4000's; the only reason to stop producing them would be that sales are too low? As a design these are far from dated from my point of view. (Compared to the above mentioned Beosound 9000, which is dated form a functional point of view, despite being a design icon/classic of everlasting quality). Speakers do not as easily 'age' as other products like TV, or music centers.