Chris Townsend wrote:

When I'm handing over my credit card, all the trendy pictures and lifestyle images pale into insignificance, when compared to this sort of technical description of what work goes into the speakers.

I could not agree more, and would also like to extend my grateful appreciation and thanks to Geoff for both his forum contributions, and now his Blog, where he is outlining some of the details as regards B&O tech.

I've been reading his blog with great interest, and am looking forward to the latest articles.

Well Done Geoff and B&O!

John... 😐

Couldn't agree more with blog but doesn't active also give far more control of driver which gives headphone like clarity 

I'm finding Geoff's participation here, and the blog, very informative and valuable, as well as just interesting and provoking some good conversations.

If you go back in time and look, it's been a long, long time since B&O concentrated on playing the engineering specs and sound mag review game, having a history of advertising in design and architecture mags instead. Unfortunately, this has too often led to a lot of the audio buying public spawning a belief that B&O is pretty but basically mediocre technically. Those of us who know more about the brand and have followed it for decades realize how wrong this belief is, and while B&O like any firm has had some products that aren't as high a performance as others, in general they know how to engineer for sound as well or better than many allegedly high end companies.

That's one reason I cheered when the Lab 5's came out, here was a statement product from B&O, a monumental technical achievement that can stand with any other "high end" speaker and trounce it IMO. And at what for that market is a bargain price (not that I've been able to rationalize the cost yet).

Having listened to the old active speakers, and with the info available on the upcoming new ones, this is probably a golden age for B&O speaker design. Unfortunately it occurs yet again at a time when B&O is struggling, as are so many consumer electronics firms. I hope Geoff's blogging will do some good and not just wind up as preaching to the choir.

Thanks for spotting that MM.

Geoff's article is well worth reading, and I agree with Jeff's analysis above. B&O have spent so much time and effort on selling to the design conscious groups that all technical merit is dismissed by the audio savvy crowd without proper examination. The beolab 5 probably does blow away all the competition and has the bonus of unique design. I regularly use a 40 year old Beomaster with Beovox speakers that never fail to impress visitors with their output. When they see that it's B&O they also think that it's a current model!

No matter what politicians utter about growth and recovery, we seem to be in a worldwide economic decline where a shrinking proportion of people can actually afford quality goods. (I'll contradict myself here by saying that I can't understand how so many people have expensive mobile phone packages and find the need to upgrade every year! It's probably part of that thinking that high monthly payments can be tolerated for many products and services, but a one off capital cost is not worth saving for.)

Quality and innovation carried B&O through the 30’s depression. I hope they are in a position to repeat that act now. Geoff needs to keep working on getting the right message out!

Graham

Maybe the article was triggered by one of my questions in the posting that Geoff made a while ago?

Anyway this theme (or the approach to this thematic) is  - as Jeff points out - very important, as it states how B&O work with sound (and have worked now for decades). They just did not tell that part of the story.

It is time that the tech-focussed get the possibility to learn what B&O is capable of - time to have 'brushed off' the image of 'being technically behind all others'.

What interested me the most in the article was, that I got a rather 'simple' explanation of the differences in 'old school' crossover technology and the new DSP-based way of handling sound, driver, cabinets...  (I see noone but B&O doing it with this expertice).

Now it is easier for me to explain (to someone else), why we don't need the huge (as a frige) 20th century loudspeakers with dozens of drivers (and external poweramps / bi- or tri-amped) to get good sound anymore.

Imagine 6 of those LS in a 7.1 setup 👍

Though I must confess, that I did not succeed in convincing the 'die hard' Penta lovers, who believe that the Penta (Vox) is the best LS B&O ever made, and think that the modern DSP-based crossover technology is just an excuse to make smaller (and cheaper) loudspeakers with bigger WAF.

Greetings Millemissen

Jeff wrote:

I'm finding Geoff's participation here, and the blog, very informative and valuable, as well as just interesting and provoking some good conversations.

If you go back in time and look, it's been a long, long time since B&O concentrated on playing the engineering specs and sound mag review game, having a history of advertising in design and architecture mags instead. Unfortunately, this has too often led to a lot of the audio buying public spawning a belief that B&O is pretty but basically mediocre technically. Those of us who know more about the brand and have followed it for decades realize how wrong this belief is, and while B&O like any firm has had some products that aren't as high a performance as others, in general they know how to engineer for sound as well or better than many allegedly high end companies.

That's one reason I cheered when the Lab 5's came out, here was a statement product from B&O, a monumental technical achievement that can stand with any other "high end" speaker and trounce it IMO. And at what for that market is a bargain price (not that I've been able to rationalize the cost yet).

Having listened to the old active speakers, and with the info available on the upcoming new ones, this is probably a golden age for B&O speaker design. Unfortunately it occurs yet again at a time when B&O is struggling, as are so many consumer electronics firms. I hope Geoff's blogging will do some good and not just wind up as preaching to the choir.

Jeff I wholeheartedly agree.

I'm thinking that if Geoff is comfortable, that I might link his website/blog, with the B&O articles, to a number of other Hifi forums that I occasionally contribute to, so as to get the message out - as you say, there is still so much of a perception about B&O being all about a pretty face with not much (HiFi) substance.

In fact I'm sure most of us here are members of at least one or two other HiFi forums, so it could be a real help to B&O and to Geoff to get the message out by linking to other sites perhaps.

Kind regards

John... 😐

John wrote:

(...)

In fact I'm sure most of us here are members of at least one or two other HiFi forums, so it could be a real help to B&O and to Geoff to get the message out by linking to other sites perhaps.

Kind regards

John... 😐 

I'm already doing this: 

John wrote:

I'm thinking that if Geoff is comfortable, that I might link his website/blog, with the B&O articles, to a number of other Hifi forums that I occasionally contribute to

I'm cool with that! Please spread the word!

However, I would prefer it if you simply linked to my site - instead of copying-and-pasting into another site. I often go back and make small edits after the fact, so just re-pasting on another site is probably a bad idea - not to mention somewhat questionable with respect to IP.

;-)

Cheers

-g