Things i like about the beoplay line : A6 and A9. I think they are both fantastic and they sound wonderful and look great. I do not like the other products to be honest except the H8 and H9 headphones.

I don't like the M5 and i don't see why they axed the A8 it was iconic and the last wonderful design by David Lewis. I thought it was the fastest selling product ever made by b&o. It lasted less than 5 years.

That is not the b&o way...products used to last for a minimum of ten years in production.

Lets be honest , after David Lewis passing the products will be good but not iconic like they once were.

The A9 beolab 17,18 would not even exist without David Lewis. 

I like the Beosound 2 as well ..the light touching the tweeter has that "magic" touch in my opinion.

But i feel that there are too many products in general. 

I don't think that as a company they are now less premium. They have many products that will swiftly empty a bank account.

moxxey wrote:

Also, don't mix 'fickle fashion' with a desire to style up your home. Truth be told, I've seen some of the shots here inside homes with expensive B&O equipment and the equipment looks a) more modern and b) not in keeping with the room style - it's very rare to see a room on here which actually looks stylish. You should never plonk a £10K Eclipse in a room where you've spent about £1K on the room itself - it shows, trust me.

That comment is so toxic and have no place here. What good will that comment do for a forum where we hope that people put pictures up of their equipment?

I dont know what you where thinking? bring some joy to the world instead of bashing peoples homes. It really provokes me, and I am sure that is your intension. You have a busy time on this forum to tell people what to think and do. Say your opinion, dont stuff it into others! (But I see the irony as that is my opinion, but this forum is going from Fan forum to bashing forum, negative post everywhere)

moxxey wrote:

Truth be told, I've seen some of the shots here inside homes with expensive B&O equipment and the equipment looks a) more modern and b) not in keeping with the room style - it's very rare to see a room on here which actually looks stylish. You should never plonk a £10K Eclipse in a room where you've spent about £1K on the room itself - it shows, trust me.

I have had a couple of times in my life where all I had was my B&0 stuff. And I probably didn't have much more than £1,000 to spend on a sofa, table and a few bits. 

The joy I got from owning and listening to my BS9000 at those times was beyond measure and description. 

If this forum had been around I would still have posted pictures. And if people judged my style or wealth at those times I wouldn't have cared at all. 

My house is cute but it does not look like the ones in a B&O catalogue lol.

Emil Jensen wrote:

moxxey wrote:

Also, don't mix 'fickle fashion' with a desire to style up your home. Truth be told, I've seen some of the shots here inside homes with expensive B&O equipment and the equipment looks a) more modern and b) not in keeping with the room style - it's very rare to see a room on here which actually looks stylish. You should never plonk a £10K Eclipse in a room where you've spent about £1K on the room itself - it shows, trust me.

 

That comment is so toxic and have no place here. What good will that comment do for a forum where we hope that people put pictures up of their equipment?

I dont know what you where thinking? bring some joy to the world instead of bashing peoples homes. It really provokes me, and I am sure that is your intension. You have a busy time on this forum to tell people what to think and do. Say your opinion, dont stuff it into others! (But I see the irony as that is my opinion, but this forum is going from Fan forum to bashing forum, negative post everywhere)

 

Great post Emil. Agree completely.

I am sure Moxxey would run away screaming...

...should he happen to visit ny home 

MM

moxxey wrote:

Puncher wrote:

I would also add that style is timeless whereas fashion is for sheep (numpties, fickle, feckless, ....insert your own description here).

Depends if you really believe the latest products are 'timeless'. I'm not convinced, personally.

Also, don't mix 'fickle fashion' with a desire to style up your home. Truth be told, I've seen some of the shots here inside homes with expensive B&O equipment and the equipment looks a) more modern and b) not in keeping with the room style - it's very rare to see a room on here which actually looks stylish. You should never plonk a £10K Eclipse in a room where you've spent about £1K on the room itself - it shows, trust me.

While I agree some of the photos seem a tad jarring, I'm consistently impressed at, in the picture threads, just how many modern and stylish homes Beoworlders seem  to have, overall I've been most impressed. Even things not my style are fun to see, just to see how people live and use their B&O. And I've seen a few where the modernist B&O has been made to match up with older styles well, which always surprises and interests me. But I don't take your comment badly as some of the more sensitive snowflakes seem to, post your pics away everyone, no one should care if they think someone might not like or appreciate it, be self confident in your own choices.

So, MM, run screaming...is that from your design style or your company? 😁

I think B&O has already peaked sadly, and I have doubts the company will survive. It's interesting, they have been down before and slung some substandard products in a hurry to try and address shortcomings. In the past, remember the wildly popular use of a Sony car CD changer to provide CD changing functionality to their products? Definitely the kind of decision that would have drawn the same kinds of comments we see today about lack of design and such, but they followed that up with the BS9000, a stunning iconic statement piece of a CD changer. Quite a recovery, but I don't see that on the horizon today, especially not with the current designers. The Moment is NOT B&O to me, though I have to admit the software is very B&O.

But today hardware is no longer where its at, the world is all about streaming. Which, if you think about it, is the final evolution of the radio model, it's a radio station that has the largest library of albums of any station in the history of the world, and you are the owner of the station and can call up the DJ any time of the day or night and change the playlist, or just let the station curate it for you. I find I play physical media less and less, but you'll get my BS9000 from me when you pry my cold dead fingers from it.

As with all once relatively large companies, B&O will struggle to keep re-scaling its business to a shrinking market sector where the competition is ever increasing. Jacob Jensen and David Lewis had real problems to solve concerning physical bulk and a market full of metal boxes, and they were incredibly successful with their elegant solutions. The future is surely in the speaker sector, with television connectivity. I still believe that B&O made a mistake by dropping most of their passive speaker designs so early, but now we are in the era of streaming the active speaker should come into its own. The BL90's and 50's might be technically superior to the outgoing models, but are they design icons?

Graham

chris wrote:

I don't like the M5 and i don't see why they axed the A8 it was iconic and the last wonderful design by David Lewis. I thought it was the fastest selling product ever made by b&o. It lasted less than 5 years.

The A8 was doomed the moment Apple changed their docking standard (and as it now seems, docking went out of business altogether). While I can at least stand the looks of it now, I can also remember how it was hated on the forum when it first came out. As was/is every new product, every time...

Regarding people's setups... I just recently went through about the first half of the "Flash your B&O" thread - now 100+ pages! While it has suffered greatly from link rot due to external image hosting (not just because of the recent PhotoBucket disaster), it is a nice view into the close history of B&O.

I can see some different classes of posts:

- People wanting to show off their design furniture.

- People genuinely happy of their new B&O kit and wanting to show them to everybody.

- Plain old attempts at interesting photography featuring some B&O. There are some great shots in the thread.

- Some folks just want to show what they just bought, in the hope that others will be interested as well - often they are. In this category, even pictures of a 40 yo cassette deck laying on the floor surrounded by garbage will serve a purpose.

In any case, I find it very interesting to see into people's homes - no matter how (un)polished they are. You can travel the world, but very rarely do you get to visit a "normal home".

Finally, taking a good interior shot is incredibly difficult. Don't expect fashion mag quality from a guy who just bought a pair of speakers and possibly wants another opinion on where to put them.

vikinger wrote:

As with all once relatively large companies, B&O will struggle to keep re-scaling its business to a shrinking market sector where the competition is ever increasing. Jacob Jensen and David Lewis had real problems to solve concerning physical bulk and a market full of metal boxes, and they were incredibly successful with their elegant solutions. The future is surely in the speaker sector, with television connectivity. I still believe that B&O made a mistake by dropping most of their passive speaker designs so early, but now we are in the era of streaming the active speaker should come into its own. The BL90's and 50's might be technically superior to the outgoing models, but are they design icons?

Graham

It's been ages since I've been at the forum. To answer your original question I think B&O has had many ups and downs during the years, but today's B&O and todays products are hardly appealing to me. I can't see the company coming back to its former glory any time soon, so yes, I'm afraid B&O won't peak anymore.