9 LEE wrote:

Frederic wrote:

One of the b&o family member ( I don't remember who) was also in the board of directors of the trust which manages Norre vosborg.

It was Peter Skak Olufsen, an absolutely lovely man who sadly passed away in 2013.  His Son, Mads, runs the B&O Luxembourg store.

Lee

Yes that's right. I met Mads a couple of times in a previous professional life. It is uncanny how much he resembles his grandfather.

And you're right Jette is great, she gave us (my wife and our 4 year old daughter) the tour in April. The Cube was unavailable atvthe time. We know why now 😜

Good afternoon,

I went to the demo yesterday night at Montreal, Canada. Clearly the best speakers I have heard in my life. Perfect soundstage reproduction! They were also set in "narrow" mode.

Congrats to Geoff and his team! 

Best regards,

Jean

Sal wrote:

Barry Santini wrote:

Just went to the US premier intro and celebration in NYC last nite. Spent quite a bit if time talking with an old friend, Dave Zapfel, who is now the longest lived employee at BnO of USA at 30 years ! ( Saw his pin!). Lots of people. Venue was not the most ideal for audio demonstrations because their are endless amounts of hard surfaces. But...very impressive. The demo was set only to narrow beam, for maximum spatial enhancement of source voice and instruments. Speakers are quite beautiful in person.

WANT!

Does anyone know if there's a list of stores in the US which will carry a pair for demo purposes? I'm definitely not in the league to purchase them, but I'd love to see and hear them in the flesh. I hope dealers won't be put off with casual visitors who want to hear them with no intention of purchasing.

 

I believe there are only six pairs in the UK currently. We are very pleased have have a pair in our showroom in Wilmslow, Cheshire. If anybody would like to arrange a personal demonstration please feel free to contact me on 01625 527666 or email: nick.wilmslow@bang-olufsen.co.uk

I know that the question was aimed at the US dealers but thought it would be worth pointing out if you live this side of the pond ;-)

Regards

Opman

 

Lee; thank you so much for taking the time for such a thoughtful and comprehensive review, along with the photos and YouTube videos clips etc it is VERY much appreciated.. :-)

Donning my classical musician hat, (and discarding my audiophile one), that the Beolab 90's have been a project aimed at building the best loudspeaker in the world does not surprise me, given the technical specifications and design brief re the variable directivity etc, and of course the quality of components and design.

I am but a junior member of the B&O family with my Lab 9's, V1-40 etc - but having spent decades in the 'audiophile' club with other brands, going around in ever decreasing circles it seemed at times in pursuit of the 'perfect' sound, I am just so immensely PROUD of B&O as a company for bringing out such an amazing, and engineering lead product to market.

It also instills in me a sense of renewed pride in the modest B&O kit I own, - far and away the best performing and most satisfying HiFi kit I've ever owned, after 40 + years of being involved in this 'hobby'.

I would offer my sincerest congratulations to Geoff Martin and the whole development team on what appears to be an utterly superb loudspeaker, and one that will set the standards for others to follow.

When a pair arrives in Australia, I will be queuing up for an in-depth listen.

Thank you again for a brilliant review Lee.

Kind regards

John... 😐

9 LEE wrote:

Also in the shot is a great guy I met from Canada called Jimmy, who slams trunks!

Ole' Jimmy the trunk slammer! 😁 King of the one-liners!! 😎

jans wrote:

Out of curiosity, which sources were used to drive the Lab90's?

Hi Jan,

In the listening room, because I'm working with early prototype hardware (but the "reference" for the electromechanical and acoustics) I'm doing a large portion of the processing externally. So, I do demos using the XLR inputs of the BL90's with a balanced outputs from my Mac's "sound card".

The sources that feed my Mac are quite varied. I have a Beogram 4500, a Cambridge Blu-ray/SACD/DVD-Audio player, a Sony Professional CD player from the late Jurassic period, an Auralic Aries (used for playing high-res files and Tidal streaming), and I am able to play PCM files directly from my Mac's hard drive. The connection from the Aries and the Sony CD player to the Mac are through the Teac DSD-capable DAC that Lee mentioned. For most of my daily work, I'm using SACD's and PCM audio files on the Mac's internal drive. For demos, I typically use Tidal on the Aries so I can take requests.

The reason for all of this (non-B&O) gear centres around the fact that a lot of the signal processing that I'm using for "my" loudspeakers is done outside the loudspeakers themselves. This is because my job is in development, not customer-like testing.

Cheers

-geoff

Thanks.

I was curious too.

The demo, that I heard was feed from the Avant media player (a mix of video and audio files) and from the Spotify account - using the PowerLink connection to the master speaker.

This might be enough to demo the 90'ies for larger audience - in order to get an impression of the speakers as they are now.

I was impressed ---- when sitting in the sweet spot listening with a few others after the general demoing.

Very promising.

MM

I don't like the design of the Beolab 90. OK, it may sound great but I definitely would not want to have these installed in my living, even if they pay me for it. I found these speakers the ugliest I have ever seen. The design is simply atrocious. I keep my BL 8000, 6000 and 17 instead. If I had the money, I would buy the Beolab 5, but certatinly not the Beolab 90. I think Bang&Olufsen is taking the wrong way with these speakers. I doubt they will sell many of them... 🙁