It looks like a cable modem or a wifi router. :)

(I’m surprised they managed to get a 4” woofer in there, however, so I hope it sounds good and as always, I hope it sells well!) For a smaller space as they suggest, however, I’d much prefer BS1. Though, yes, the cost is much more.

Much better looking than the M3 and M5. Let's wait for the first reviews.I guess the sound will be good for the size. I would have liked to have more color combinations choices.

benoit wrote:

Much better looking than the M3 and M5. Let's wait for the first reviews.I guess the sound will be good for the size. I would have liked to have more color combinations choices.

Agree,

There are already some reviews and they are positive.

link

link

Curly wrote:

It looks like a cable modem or a wifi router. :)

Yes, in particular to a generation that don’t know how a book looks like ;-)

benoit wrote:

Much better looking than the M3 and M5. Let's wait for the first reviews.I guess the sound will be good for the size. I would have liked to have more color combinations choices.

I can't understand that kind of comment: why is it "much better looking" and why are suddenly M3 and M5 looking not so good?

Because the emerge has an undefined shape that make it "not look like speaker"?, because it's an intriguing appliance that will certainly raise questions on fancy diners? or only because wood is a so forgotten material that now everything wooden is suddenly "so disruptive"?

I'm sorry, but there was a saying or maybe it is just a website catchline that said "form and function". Lets say I cant really appreciate the function part for whatever reasons, the form isn't there and it clearly not serve the function. B&O lately come with too much useless fancy tricks maybe to hide the lack of true and real novelty:

- Harmony is just a joke.
- Balance, by the name, make us believe that some B&O magic would happen around the feet, but its just a flower pot shaped speaker (even if a good one).
- Edge was… What was edge. Oh yes, you can adjust volume by tilting the speaker…
- Beolab 28 are "we tried to include a bass driver because nobody wanted to spend 3500€ more after 5000€ to have a bass punch, but we didnt manage to do it while keeping the slim, iconic, beautiful design of the 18's. We even didnt managed to keep the signature ALT, visible."
- Contour, was an attempt to update the very beautifully designed useless Beovision Horizon, but making it more desirable and reliable… Bof, it looks like an expensive fake Beovision Horizon.
- And so on…

Of course people may argue about the ecosystem: interaction, linking, integration… But what's really left from that? Networklink is dying at the best, dead actually. People who praise B&O is either an old (analog) stuff collector (I am), a sick man (I am), or someone who relies on an old Masterlink/NL system and frenetically browsing classified ads to keep is system future proof (I mean "in working condition").

Sorry, I'm drifting from my actual answer which was in short:
"Does a fridge look cool, because he looks like a washing machine, or is iconic design something else?"

(Sorry guys for raising my tone)

Matador43 : "Much better looking" was maybe not that appropriate or that much understandable but by telling this I mean that according to my taste I prefer a design that doesn't immediately reveals what it is and I like the use of wood that gives a more classy-natural-sensitive look to the device. I personally would not spend so much more for something that is not that much better if the design was not to my eyes much better. M3 and M5 to my taste just look like speakers that I could find in every shop and especially the M3 is just a plastic box with a small aluminium part. Maybe I attach too much importance to the fact that I like a different design but that's my opinion. If I can afford it, when I'm looking for something new, most of the time I try to find something different, less common, to bring a part of poetry or mystery, like a Methven Aio shower, an extra-flat hood that doesn't look like a hood, or an Ingo Maurer flame electronic candle, ... I really think that every object or furniture in my environment are a part of it and "interact" together to create a peaceful living harmony.

LOL matador43 thanks for this great post! You made me smile a lot :)

Say it how it is!

Actually I do also agree with benoit that the Emerge is a more interesting shape and design over the M3/M5 speakers but that’s just to my eyes; of course we are all different. I love your description of the Balance being a flower pot!! That was good! The Harmony... well I do like it and if I can squeeze such a large TV into my small lounge I might get one, I am twiddling my fingers all the time over this one. The Edge... what is it? LOL again brilliant! I could go on but... Your humour is fabulous, thanks for making my day!

@ benoit.

Of course. Even if my post was a little "cavalier" it wasn't intend as a judgment.

It's just that nowadays design seems to have been replaced by "unexpected form": you take anything, you give it the shape of something else, you drawn it in any wording shenanigans and you declare it is iconic, like movies that are "cult" even before reaching the audience.

It's too easy and it sometimes cover a lack of novelty. Can you believe the last groundbreaking feature of the revolutionary (in his time) VW golf is… you can adjust volume by weaving your hand in the air ?

Now let's be honest: if the Emerge has some feature or use that is new, efficient, never seen or well engineered, ok, Why not: all tastes allowed.
If its just another speaker with a weird form factor (that wording must never have been go public), I cant see the point and rather and M3 or an M5 that looks like a speaker because they are speakers.

(wasn't there a movie or tv show or ad, where appliance were so designed that they did'nt look what they were and a guest was keeping confusing them?)

matador43 wrote:

M3 or an M5 that looks like a speaker because they are speakers