Getting back to the main question............ I have had 10yrs of people saying the problems with B&o as have most people with any experience of bang & olufsen, The crux is what makes a valid reason for buying something? It is purely if someone wishes to buy it it is a personal choice. and that is all!  Salesmen should advise and answer questions but so many sell boxes and forget.

No one can say that sound quality or amount of inputs or ANY other factor is a more valid reason than it looks nice, it suits my room or using it as a status symbol, They are all reasons for people to buy and no one else should tell someone what to do with their money, every item out there has an audience and every audience have there own reason to buy it and all these reasons are as valid and individual as the next.

Anyway thats my two bits so Ha!

 Dave

I've used many B&O speakers over the 15 years that I have owned B&O.

But I'm also an Audiophile, and B&O has nothing to prove in the world of High-end audio. Period.

Lab5 are nice, but lacking a good signal source is the biggerst problem.

My B&O system is separate from my High-End system, consisting of Meridian, Pathos and ELAC.

Love B&O, but it's not high-end.

In Finland a HiFi magazine had a test between design speakers, and Beolab 8000 was on par with a set of satellites with a Subwoofer costing less than 1000e.

So B&O is very overpriced, but we like it this way. Without the price, stunning design, and pedigree what would we like about B&O? Other manufacturers are overpriced too. It's not only B&O.

Lab5 are the first B&O speakers that have actually been taken seriously in the Hifi community.

My take on this is two-fold:

Firstly the problem with B&O equipment is that it can't be interchanged with third-party equipment, which is something that a lot of people like to do. Connect B&W speakers to a Primare AV unit and so on. At least this is the perceived perception - that you need to buy a B&O hifi, speakers and so on, and this can prove to be expensive and audiophiles might think that you've copped out of making a hard decision, by buying the kit from one source.

The other problem is the type of people that B&O stores traditionally attract. Our local store quite rightly say that the majority of B&O customers are seeking quality, ease-of-use, support and installation over state-of-the-art, latest features, competitive pricing etc. The typical B&O customer seems to be 40 upwards, has a high disposable income, has no interest in looking around for the best deal and simply wants to walk in to the store, make a decision, then get it installed. For this reason, so-called experts or technophiles are wary of B&O kit as they see the type of customer attracted to B&O kit - I feel the same way. Many a time I've been in to my local store to see a couple in their 50s, with £10K to spend on a TV and speaker combination, getting a demo of the various B&O TVs. It's very rare to see someone <35 in the store, making a purchase. Indeed, if I'm ever in a B&O store looking at kit with another person <30, they often feel overwhelmed by the pricing to the point they do not return for a long time.

It's weird. Some people would never dream of buying B&O kit. My brother is one of these people. Both him and his GF are professional architects, sitting in a superb modern self-designed house. For some reason, when I asked him about the tech kit he was planning for his new house, B&O kit was now way down on the list. He has been in to a local B&O store, but wasn't overly impressed with the picture quality - he loves the design of the Beovision 8, and the Beocenter 2 and was tempted to buy, until he was told how much the Beocenter 2 was - add the two together and it is a £5600 purchase for a DVD player that connects via scart (!) to a low-end TV that's made in China. To be fair, you'd have to be absolutely flush with cash to justify that decision.

Its true to say that many individuals would not buy BnO and rather interestingly that includes many former customers who bought the products because they offered ease of use and were aguably the best- in the avant days.

Now many are amazed by the pricing and simply wont entertain the costs now involved- the arguments about ease of use and quality dont apply in the same way- buy any panasonic products with Q link and that shows how connectivity should be done.

Many  high end audio brands source from China and in order to compete and produce outstanding products they have to. In the case of BnO though they are sourcing from an avergage supplier a product which has been designed by them and then made very cheaply, with a performance level to match. I doubt that the buying cost is more than $250 on that product. This is a mistake. If BnO want to manufacture in China fair enough- but use that to produce technologically superior products and then charge the premuim for it- not source it and brand it.

With worldwide economies changing and a stagnating property market BnO had better learn quickly.

I don't think the market is stagnating as much as people feared. In the UK, most of the people I describe above make money from the rental market, rather than selling property. My landlords are classic examples. Aged between 45 and 50, eight apartments in Bath, bought for around £50,000 each around 15 years ago, all rented, and their most affordable apartment is now worth a minimum £200,000.

However, these guys don't have a huge salary (from their day work), but are property rich, if they decide to sell. Even if the property market stagnates and drops by 15%, these guys would easily be in the position to capitalise - they're still going to make a hefty profit and, guess what, as property owners, are also in a very good poisition to captilise on a declining market!

Conclusion is that the average B&O customer I mention above isn't the kind of person who will be affected by any property crash. Indeed, they're the people who would be first in line to buy new property if they do come down in price..