vikinger wrote:

@ Duels,

It's probably a generational thing. Some remember moving up from transistor portables to true Hi Fi. 

Later generations are moving from ear buds to something very similar to the portable transistor radio, albeit with better streaming sources.

B&O have to follow the trend. Some of us choose not to.

Graham

I believe I agree with everyone. As a child we had a small home stereo and I had my own transistor radio. In my 20s I had walkman and boom box as well as my own component system. Marriages pushed me into lifestyle products and media players with headsets, and now phones with bluetooth and streaming services. Most of that today is the same as it ever was.

Branding really started in the USA in the late 50's with television pushing annual changes in automobiles. In the mid 60s, American cars quit changing every year and companies started sharing components and divisions shared platforms, to the point where each company was selling several versions of nearly the same car to different customers and competing against themselves. Just one example, but maybe the biggest one. Of course, Sony, B&O, Marantz, McIntosh, etc, were VERY different from each other back then. 

What has changed? Only the media and the medium have really changed. Third world manufacturing and third party distribution has allowed companies and people to look at €300 and up as throwaway price. Isolating oneself from other people in public via headsets is even more popular in urban setting. Branding has not changed, and brand equity is no longer something that is technically explainable. Audio and video products are almost identical in looks and performance. And one particular company owns nearly all the entertainment brands for automotive. 

For me, that is why BeoPlay grows (to its limit) and B&O is on its last legs, sadly. Tarting up a TV is a probably €1000 proposition, at most, and everyone except B&O figured that out a long time ago (Give Loewe credit; their sinister stock manipulations and eventual buyout got them a credible ownership group). BeoPlay products will one day do all that Sonos does and might even interact correctly with Google. Then there will be no reason for it, either.

@poodleboy, sadly I think you're right. The home electronics market has changed markedly, and I doubt it ever will be what it was. The days of "real" stereos, or even full home theater setups, seems to be fading quickly. In many ways we are going backwards to the days of large, single radios/consoles instead of component stereos, only the modern replacements are smaller and smaller (aka homepods rather than big wooden console radios). B&O as a brand hasn't handled this well with the exception of Play, and Play has suffered from poor quality and a slapdash throw anything and everything against the wall to see what sticks product development approach. Whether Play survives depends on how long B&O can get away with this approach or if they finally get an integrated product portfolio approach together.

The traditional forte of B&O, beautifully designed, stunning, and well integrated home setups like the Beocenter 9500 and BS9000 have little relevance to the modern world. For some reason though companies like McIntosh and Marantz seem to be able to field full lineups of traditional components. Same for Yamaha, Denon, but many of the old names are either gone or have product lines a traditionalist would not recognize.

I have heard you complain about the A6 before..

Muffled sound flaky behaviour etc...

I find the A6 anything but flaky and anything but midrange...

The bass alone is phenomenal.

Sure the A9 can go much louder but I like the newer enforced domes on the A6..

How they managed to fit a speaker of this calibre in such a thin enclosure amazes me.

I don't think that HomePod will kill BeoPlay, because both of them are for different music playing. As for me I love to

Jeff wrote:

For some reason though companies like McIntosh and Marantz seem to be able to field full lineups of traditional components.

I think this is a side-effect of being a "lifestyle" brand.  When the "lifestyle" moves on, then so must the products. 

I haven't looked lately, but aren't most of these brands now owned by large conglomerates so, at some point, they will just "turn off the lights" on a brand when it is no longer viable because of their shrinking pool of customers.  B&O doesn't have this luxury.  

Stan wrote:

Jeff wrote:

For some reason though companies like McIntosh and Marantz seem to be able to field full lineups of traditional components.

I think this is a side-effect of being a "lifestyle" brand.  When the "lifestyle" moves on, then so must the products. 

I haven't looked lately, but aren't most of these brands now owned by large conglomerates so, at some point, they will just "turn off the lights" on a brand when it is no longer viable because of their shrinking pool of customers.  B&O doesn't have this luxury.  

You may be right, but what exactly is a "lifestyle" brand? What differentiates the B&O of old from other stereo companies, say? Both produced components and speakers, the main difference is B&O products were better integrated when used as a system and were far better looking. Meaning if you were design conscious you didn't need to hide them in cabinets. That's one of the main things that first attracted me to the brand, and upon further investigation I found their performance to be good to excellent depending on the product, certainly not the claim of Bang And Awfulsound so many elitist audio dealers tried to foist upon them.

Many of the old firms are indeed owned by megacorps of course, or are megacorps themselves (e.g. Yamaha). It's sadly unusual for a large corporation to not interfere with the company after they buy it, one counter example is McIntosh, first bought by Clarion, have no idea who owns them now, but they have been allowed to continue to be McIntosh and not cheapened or diluted. Other brands have not been so lucky. Perhaps it would have been better if when the troubles hit B&O had been bought by a company who was willing to let them continue to be B&O, but the chances of that were small, and we're seeing even B&O is not letting B&O be themselves.

I know Bose is often called a "lifestyle" brand as well, the term still puzzles me as to its exact definition.

Jeff wrote:

@poodleboy, sadly I think you're right. The home electronics market has changed markedly, and I doubt it ever will be what it was. The days of "real" stereos, or even full home theater setups, seems to be fading quickly. In many ways we are going backwards to the days of large, single radios/consoles instead of component stereos, only the modern replacements are smaller and smaller (aka homepods rather than big wooden console radios). B&O as a brand hasn't handled this well with the exception of Play, and Play has suffered from poor quality and a slapdash throw anything and everything against the wall to see what sticks product development approach. Whether Play survives depends on how long B&O can get away with this approach or if they finally get an integrated product portfolio approach together.

The traditional forte of B&O, beautifully designed, stunning, and well integrated home setups like the Beocenter 9500 and BS9000 have little relevance to the modern world. For some reason though companies like McIntosh and Marantz seem to be able to field full lineups of traditional components. Same for Yamaha, Denon, but many of the old names are either gone or have product lines a traditionalist would not recognize.

 

Thanks for your detailed statement.

But I have to say for me it's not an either-or solution.

I have a strictly analogue stereo system including an excellent dac for streaming hi res. With a "sweet spot" I enjoy listening when I'm alone. And I love it.

But having guests I love the option to go for "party mode" ...

No sweet spot anymore, but the whole and large room filled with music, wherever a person is standing. Quite nice. Including my BS2 and Beoplay A6 via Chromecast, playing simultaneously with my analogue stereo system.

Much better than my superior analogue system playing alone, for guests.

And I still like B&O aesthetics, don't want to hide some huge and ugly cube formed stuff in my lounge or living room.

Just have a question for the moderating  team:

Why does my post need to be approved  by you?

Happened several times delayed like this until I got an answer:

Thanks,

Ulrike

Ulrike, personally I don't find the "new" B&O to be nearly as attractive styling wise as the Jensen/Lewis stuff. To each their own though, it's personal taste. And at least the speakers aren't the traditional monkey coffins.

I have two rooms Masterlinked, my main system is setup for proper listening in the living room, using BL9s, in the next room with a large open space between them is the kitchen/dining room/sun room area, which has BL8000s. That covers any entertaining I do. For the rest of the house I had planned on Masterlinking it, I have enough stuff to do that to 4 more rooms, but haven't found it a high priority. I have a Beolit 15 which I find very useful to carry to whatever room I'm doing something in for music separate from the main system. We often have family dinner parties downstairs in an apartment we have there due to the fact my mother-in-law is confined to a wheelchair now, and the BL15 works very well for music there. I just select Spotify on my iPhone, sit it in the tray on top and carry it downstairs. It's funny, before buying the BL15 I would have thought I was going to masterlink the whole house, turns out I don't feel the need. Should try and ebay my spare gear I guess.

Jeff, your collection is quite impressive.

Me, I have been looking for B&O just during the last two years and so I have to stay out, not knowing about the good old times.

It seems a lot of things have changed, since. Sadly. At the moment I will restrain from buying something more because of the many software issues. Sadly.