the bs9000 is very beautiful but with wireless access to your lossless recordings easily available it's a bit outdated imo

6 cd's when you can have 666 at the merest touch of an ipod touch ? 

Well if Apple was 5-10 times the cost of a PC, as Beovisions are to their competition, I wouldn't buy Macs.

They're good, but not that good. Nothing is worth 5-10 times the competition.

Apple is about 1,5 to 2 times more expensive than the PC equivalent. If Beovisions where the same, or even 3 times more expensive I wouldn't hesitate. 

Even if you got money, you don't want to overpay. We had a renaissance in our real estate business in Finland especially in our summer cottage/house sales in Finland the last 5-6 years, prices went up, we (finns) thought that we can sell our estates to rich Russians for a price well over the medium. Well this certainly worked for some, but I've been selling a large estate myself for some time, and it's in the price range that only wealthy people will afford it, and my perception of the so called "newly rich" Russians is that they are very well informed of value for money and worth, and many of them have gotten their money fairly easy, but nonetheless  they don't go spend if on anything and everything just like that... It have to feel right and indeed be right. 

Soundproof you read my mind! North American dealers are particularly sensitive to the brand's unwillingness to discuss its heritage since the company has never really established itself here. Seems to be that a Spark To Icon book on the BeoTheater coffee table is enough. The fact that a modest investment can't be made to establish a few working products, as you've suggested, or that we struggle to produce the most homogenous advertising when nearly 9 decades of unique history are right there for the exploitation is beyond reason.

Are you listening Struer?

Good thread Trip!

Many very interesting and positive suggestions for developing our beloved brand. While all the technical aspects are a little beyond my expertise I do agree that I think we need to have the products which are more hardware based rather than simply software based. I also agree that the software would need to be more fluid, adaptable and expandable ... to allow customers to grow with the product.

As many of you know I would also love to see some of the classic masterpieces (timber accents included) reinvented/engineered for the future. But, I am not suggesting however, that this negates the need to design new inventive / cutting edge designs ( like BS 9000/ BL5) which will define our generation of the brand, this MUST continue ....... 

Obviously I also therefore feel that B&O has to honour their history... Jacob Jensen was a master of his craft and I strongly believe, what he did for the brand from the late 60's onwards created the allure and brand identity that endures and defines B&O today .....If we look to all major luxury brands in many catagories, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Bentley/ Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Rolex, Cartier, Fritz Hansen, Knoll etc they all use their unique brand heritage as marketing leverage  ... only just recently Mercedes had a campaign where they showed icons from their history such as the gull wing, SL models and s class etc  to show how you can live and grow with the brand ... this creates a sense that you are buying more than just a single product, but buying into a lineage which has longevity, and is part of a lifestyle lived with passion.

As far as the technology, B&O should define their strengths and focus on them. Where they need to outsource, find the best resources / componants in the world, no matter what the origin. Recognize the market forces that are at work in today's market and not be drawn into the mass market concept of needing to change products so rapidly. B&O should trancend that,  bringing us back to the concept of creating wonderfully designed products of suprerior quality, with enduring longevity, and of course all manufactured in Denmark.

Merry Christmas! 

Laurence.

To me, only B&O can save B&O..

I think - I hope - the new CEO will do that all, after all that's why he was appointed!

B&O simply has to be B&O again, that means:

- great design & not rebadged/rebranded products , but design where form & function are in perfect harmony (some of the latest products do not follow this principle, take Serenata with no numbered keys & an upside down screen covered by your fingers whenever you use the wheel!)

- products that all speak the same language : why releasing digital TVs and digital sources if you connect them with analog SCART??Some BeoVisions have VGA inputs, others DVI, other HDMI: can we have some sinergy here? Same for the audio & video formats: BeoSound 2,6 & Serenata all play different audio formats, how am I supposed to rip my CDs? And same too for direct & remote control: why is the "menu" key on BeoCenter 2 offering something else than the "menu" key on Beo4? Why is the SD card named "A.MEM" on BeoSound 4, but "SD" on BeoSound3"?Why do I have to press the blue key on Beo4 to access DVD menus, instead of simply pressing, er..."menu"??The list is long..and this is not what B&O has accustomed us to.

 - an update on the BeoLink technology: integration was B&O's strength, Masterlink is more than 10 years old, and NOTHING new has come out yet! No digital Masterlink, a BeoLink Wireless that could do 10 times more than what it does, you still can't play 2 audio sources with one audio master, and still can't show digital pictures on a link TV..wake up!

- finally, come back to earth in terms of prices, I presently only buy second hand products, the only items I bought new are accessories like BeoPort, telephones like BeoCom 4 & speakers like BeoLab 4 PC.. all the rest is reaching stellar prices..

I'm not waiting for new products, I'm waiting for the present range to be perfect: is it so hard to fit DVI or HDMI to BeoCenter 2, make all digital players play lossless WMA, and fit all BeoSounds with digital audio outputs for connecting BeoLab 5?Are we asking the impossible?