Is it time B&O gave up on making audio systems?

99 replies
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Whatever B&O does should be interesting.  Change is happening quickly and sometime is very unpredictable.  Look at this audio system from the Google company Chromcast.  These devices are easily compatible with B&O speakers and TVs.  Definitely this is competition for Apple TV and maybe Beosound essence.

https://www.google.com/chromecast/speakers/

linder wrote:

Whatever B&O does should be interesting. Change is happening quickly and sometime is very unpredictable. Look at this audio system from the Google company Chromcast. These devices are easily compatible with B&O speakers and TVs. Definitely this is competition for Apple TV and maybe Beosound essence.

https://www.google.com/chromecast/speakers/

Ditto from Sonos ... article makes very interesting reading - many parallels / lessons for our favourite brand ...

http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/29/sonos-play5-trueplay-making-of/

elephant wrote:

Ditto from Sonos ... article makes very interesting reading - many parallels / lessons for our favourite brand ...

Many companies are nowadays working with some kind of room compensation/speakers correction through DSP.

The great question is - is B&O ahead of this development or behind?

Looking forward to hear results of, what Geoff Martin has been writing about in his recent articles.

Next up will be the BL90.

MM

Location: Flensborg————Danmark

linder wrote:

Whatever B&O does should be interesting. Change is happening quickly and sometime is very unpredictable. Look at this audio system from the Google company Chromcast. These devices are easily compatible with B&O speakers and TVs. Definitely this is competition for Apple TV and maybe Beosound essence.

https://www.google.com/chromecast/speakers/

See Puncher's thread on this topic ... and this "review"

http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/29/chromecast-audio-hands-on/
DSP room correction works best when the speakers themselves are optimally placed sonically for that room. Unfortunately, this placement is often unacceptable for the speaker in question, or the WAF. Pick 'em right. Put 'em wright. Then compensate. Understand that certain bass frequency peaks and suck outs will not be able to be addressed.

Actually you can do something about the peaks, it's the nulls that are impossible to correct just with eq. Double the loudness at that freq and you get twice as much cancellation.

My Infinity sub has a built in, one band parametric EQ and came with a test disc, SPL meter, and graph paper and a protractor to measure the Q of any peak. It works well for that, damping out a bad peak, but even they point out it's useless for a null, you need to move the sub to address that.

Andrew wrote:

Hi guess what I meant was some indication that it is a danish company, although Bang & Olufsen is probably enough - didn't realise it was a legal requirement in some countries to have the country of manufacture on products. 

Chris - the Leica is gorgeous, congratulations.

Oh. Yeah, it has to be there regardless. But still, what you're saying is that if you didn't have to see the made in China indication you'd be ok with them making it wherever they want, and my counterpoint is that no matter what, quality and workmanship is not typically the same as it is when a brand or product that WAS manufactured to high standards in the home country of a given company is moved to a mass production line in countries known for mass production. And moreover, when it just allows said company to just reap more profits without reducing prices, it's even worse. I'm OK with B&O play being made in China because they are targeted at a different audience than traditional B&O equipment. 

Even Swiss watches only need to be 60% Swiss by value. Provenance is not always clear.

This recent article is interesting http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swissness-test_tighter-rules-for--made-in-switzerland--label-by-2017/41639236

Simonbeo wrote:

Even Swiss watches only need to be 60% Swiss by value. Provenance is not always clear.

This recent article is interesting http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swissness-test_tighter-rules-for--made-in-switzerland--label-by-2017/41639236

60 percent is a lot more domestic part content than anything made in China. And I assure you no Rolex is under probably 99 percent, if not 100. If you've ever visited their laboratory, they pretty much self produce every material they use. Exception is Tudor which uses Swiss ETA movements. 

There's also the issue of where the parts that aren't domestic come from. I mean sure, if you put an Italian leather strap on a swiss watch that's a perfectly acceptable reduction in domestic part content because the outside part is also coming from a place known for high integrity and craftsmanship. I doubt any Rolex has a single solitary part from Asia *unless* some Asian country is either the only place to source something, or the best. 

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