[quote user="claudiu"]

When I was in London a few months ago, I had some time on my hands and was in Selfridges. Decided to head down to the basement and have a look at the B&O stand, which I used to visit all the time a few years ago.

On the way to visit B&O, I was distracted by the Loewe stand. No idea if it was there before or has simply been upgraded, but I was impressed. Ended up spending 20 minutes looking at the TV options, the stands and had a demo of a 3D TV.

Was surprised by the combination of great design, superb B&O style (Beo4) remote, motorised stand option, built in PVR/HD, a media centre and more.....at what appeared to be half the BV10 prices! A 46" with the options was about £5000.

Walked over to the B&O stand - my original destination - and realised it looked dated, was staffed by an old bloke with white hair and looked exactly like it did over three years ago. Didn't even bother talking to them. Looked at the BV10-46 in a glass unit and thought "sure it's well made", but it's just the design. It's a good picture, with good audio in a well designed case.....for £9000.

I then realised how quickly companies like Loewe are moving forward and how slowly B&O are evolving.

moxxey wrote:

I then realised how quickly companies like Loewe are moving forward and how slowly B&O are evolving.

Actually Loewe have once again posted a loss for the second quarter. Loss for the first 6 months €7.8 million with a turnover of €147 million, down 20%.

Sharp are now the major shareholders and are having to pump money in to keep them alive.

My son once had a top of the range Loewe TV.  The paint on the remote started to peel off after about 18 months, the rubber then disintegrated. The telly lasted about 4 years in all.

I do agree however that B&O need to review their video range in particular. I was hoping we may get a BeoSoundAndVision5Encore sometime in the near future.

regards

Tim

Why is it so hard for B&O?

-Mainly because they were the first brand to release a full-featured multiroom system in the 80's. Now they NEED to go to the digital age and forget any backward compatibility with this old system. But by doing that, almost all their customer base will become furious. (just look at the B&O Facebook page when they released the BS5Encore : immediately a fan commented "no masterlink? This is a joke!"

-Because the copy protection of HD signals is just a stupid piece of cr*p and need to realise some stupid workaround just to do exactly what ML did, but with HD.

-Because the BeoNet seems ready (I have big hopes on that), but B&O is really small, so they can only release one product at a time (the BS5E is the first, it feels a little bit alone now)

-Because European companies that already do that kind of things haven't found the key to combine profitability with great tech (Philips sold the TV branch, Loewe is not profitable... )

Why is it so hard for B&O?

They continue to stand by their foolish policy of not handing over full control to me.

But seriously...

There was an article in (I believe) Businessweek a few years ago about how certain companies are guided by a single vision, usually that of a charismatic leader. Jobs was mentioned and, believe it or not, so was David Lewis. It was seen as a tremendous short-term strength and a longterm liability, as the fate of the company waxed and waned with the creative energy of its animator. 

It's my personal belief that for a company like us to survive, there has to be some clear path laid out for what we want to offer, not just 7 CICs or core competencies, but a comprehensive plan of what our version of the connected home does. 

I have reason to believe that more relevant concepts will be shipping very soon, but the key will be how we maintain the pace and whether our products continue to have a feeling of "well there's B&O's version" or whether we can recapture the "what the **** is that??" feeling that accompanied some of our most iconic products. 

Sevilsivle wrote:

Actually Loewe have once again posted a loss for the second quarter. 

And they've probably spent a fortune on adverts and promotional campaigns. Definitely more "in your face" these days. Do B&O even advertise on TV?

But seriously though, I was impressed, but I'm not saying that B&O do everything wrong. Far far from it. Some things I've bought recently are really impressive - the Beocom 5s, the Beosound 8 are two examples.

I guess B&O are a relatively small company hit hard by the 2008 recession. Didn't they lose something like a quarter of the workforce? As they have to specialise in TVs, speakers, phones, iPod docks and other devices, I can see why they may have taken their eye off things like retail, promotions and the "gloss" required to sell product.

Maybe B&O just need to polish up a little more. Generally great products, but lacking the visual sparkle to get consumers to notice. I was easily distracted :)

tis a great shame, I was once a very loyal fan (and customer of B&O) , I bought my first Ouverture in 1997, then a second in 1998 with Beolab 4000 speakers (one of the best combinations for easy listening in my humble opinion) , and Avant TV's, etc etc, then multilink all the rooms at a house we no longer live at, blah blah........

but then I heard a multi room system at a friend's house, it was based around a stupid low cost receiver from Logitech, called the Squeezebox Receiver, and a remote called the Duet, he had 8 of them, 4 downstairs and 4 upstairs, running off a mix of RJ45 ( Cat5 ) ethernet and wifi, and could transport the conservatory one to the garden jacuzzi area if he wanted to.

One of these receivers were connected to a pair AVI ADM9.1s active speakers via optical digital connection (Toslink) and it sounded better than my Ouverture and Beolab 4000's, so I was a bit miffed to say the least, when he synced all 8 players around the house, all connected to different types (and makes) of active speakers, it sounded just as good (in fact better) than any B&O multilink system that I have heard, and I have heard 30 or 40 such multilink systems over the years.

rant over :-) 

TripEnglish wrote:

There was an article in (I believe) Businessweek a few years ago about how certain companies are guided by a single vision, usually that of a charismatic leader. Jobs was mentioned and, believe it or not, so was David Lewis. It was seen as a tremendous short-term strength and a longterm liability, as the fate of the company waxed and waned with the creative energy of its animator.

Very interesting reading. 

+1