Yes....it competes with other Brands. It does not get laughed out of the park in the price point it is in. The Beolab 8 I think competes with integrated speakers at that price point.

1. Good clean-looking speakers, no gimmicks
2. Integrated All-Digital Amp (no need for Amp or cable matching)
3. Integrated DSP Unit (no need for Dirac box)
4. Integrated Streamer (no need for Wiim or Eversolo or Bluenote box)
5. Integrated Pre-Amp (The Speaker switches between source and controls volume well albeit not as well as the Big Beolabs)
6. An App that (now) works.

So the product sans gimmicks is a good one. With the bass driver, the BL28 would make a compelling case at its price point (less a few grand) without the gimmick. Marketed well to those who would be embarrassed to own B&O and you create a sale outlet you have not had for a long time. It is reasonably WAF acceptable made of clean-looking non-bulky design......on and on and on. I think many Beofans have to understand times are always changing and fancy mechanisms add a lot of visial, a lot of price and in many ways, take away some credibility of the product AT THE PRICE POINT IT IS AT    

Interesting; to extrapolate, why buy a Rolex when something 1/8 price does the same job and is as stylish.

In fact using this thought process, there would be no premium brands in any product

A Rolex is an interesting comparison - an outdated technology that no-one buys for its superior functionality in the 21st century. A beautiful and intricate item that some adore and some see little point in, owned and used primarily as a status symbol. Is that how we feel about B&O?

One positive about luxury watch ownership is that they might be a reasonable investment and be worth more in fifty years' time than they are now. Rarely true of consumer electronics although if you'd bought a crate of Beogram 4000s in the 1970s and stored them well you might be on to something!

To be fair to the Beoconnect Core, it does include some more advanced signal processing for certain B&O speakers. They've hidden this information because that's what B&O does, but it's not quite a WiiM equivalent. Is it worth the 3-4x price, that's up to you (it wasn't to my son) .

link

A Rolex is an interesting comparison - an outdated technology that no-one buys for its superior functionality in the 21st century. A beautiful and intricate item that some adore and some see little point in, owned and used primarily as a status symbol. Is that how we feel about B&O? One positive about luxury watch ownership is that they might be a reasonable investment and be worth more in fifty years' time than they are now. Rarely true of consumer electronics although if you'd bought a crate of Beogram 4000s in the 1970s and stored them well you might be on to something!

  Interesting comparison. And to the point of the thread. Look at Rolex as a luxury status symbol. They have more customers/wannabe customers (or until recently) than they have watches for. ADs could charge premiums (either internally purchasing the watches at Rolex's pre-set price and reselling them to grey Dealers at often 50% or 100% margin) or they could simply tell the Customer to buy $20-50ks worth of Jewellery etc...now, and they would find themselves very near the top of the mythical 5 year wait-list" in 3-6 months time. Omega on the other hand (and is perhaps more luxurious and definately more technologically advanced than Rolex) thought they could bypass ADs (who rather then selling them at a premium HAD to DISCOUNT to shift the watches) and open-up disastrously under-performing luxury boutiques (who never discount btw). So there is a magic "something" which makes a product "luxurious" and desirable, in demand and technologically acceptable........one can simply not just raise prices in their swanky uniform mono-brand stores until only the very wealthy can afford it and make think it will be better than the competition either in quality or technological advantage or in the looseness of terms "as an investment".      

are you sure of that.

which speaker?

Sorry…….but are you sure, that you are in the right thread 🤔

MM