[Rocket_Ronny]

A co-worker mentioned these speakers and it caught me off guard. From a company I never associated with high end but more modern decor. After looking into the speaker a little bit I can see they are pulling out all the stops to come up with something truly high end. Scanspeak drivers are involved in the conspiracy.

What is this you may ask.

The Bang & Olufsen BEOLAB 90.





Now before you make the expected comments about driver layout read about what they are doing.

http://www.bang-olufsen.com/en/collection/speakers/beolab-90


Rocket Ronny

[Letitroll98]

I like it, before reading the link.  Wonder what I'll think after reading their copy.

[JLM]

B & O has been hi-tech since 1925.  Their electronics have been ruggedly built and intelligently designed.  The Beogram 4000 was a tangential tracking turntable from the 70's.  More recently they invented the ICEpower amps.  But they integrated all this technology into lifestyle design (in the finest Danish tradition, then unfortunately beyond) and so many "high-enders" have dismissed them.  They're also guilty of promoting the typical Scandinavian "dry" sound across their product line.

B & O has not been completely successful as a business.  Their radio factory was destroyed by Nazi supporters and it took many years to recover.  During the 90's they moved to retailing via company owned stores.  And the 2008 recession impacted them severely.  In 2015 they were acquired by Hewlett Packard. 

I'm a KISS kind of guy, so this speaker is not my cup of tea.

[SoCalWJS]

For some reason, I keep thinking to myself: "Bose 901".   

[Rocket_Ronny]

Those are not any Bose 901s. First they are using Scanspeak drivers, probably the beryllium tweeters too. Might be a great match with the internal amps. They are doing something with the software to deal with phase cancelations of the drivers. I don't know, I sure would like to hear them.

Rocket Ronny

[srb]

For some reason, I keep thinking to myself: "Bose 901". 

I don't because they have little in common besides both having multiple drivers.

Bose 901s had relatively low-quality full-range drivers augmented by a noisy analog equalizer and were only 11% direct radiating and 89% rear reflecting.

These are multi-way speakers with very high-quality woofers, midranges and tweeters from the ScanSpeak Discovery, Revelator and Illuminator lines and are actively driven with 18 amplifier channels (each!).

However, I just don't see how these change too much except maybe for the top 1% income bracket at $80K/pair.  Maybe there will be some affordable trickle-down smaller models.  Also, you might actually have to BE Scandinavian to appreciate their unique über-modern look in your living room!

Steve

[OzarkTom]

Personally,I would rather like to hear the Muraudio ESL omni speakers from Canada, but you must have a very fat wallet to own them.

http://muraudio.com/

[poseidonsvoice]

The Beolab 90 I've known for a few years now and there are extensive polars published in the Loudspeaker Industry Source magazine. It is the ONLY loudspeaker in the world that can completely change its directivity pattern based on the whim of the consumer. You want narrow controlled directivity? No problem. You want wide controlled directivity? No problem. You want the directivity pattern of an Omni like German Physics/Mur Audio/etc...? No problem.

All with active DSP.

There are more expensive loudspeakers IMHO that do not have nearly this level of engineering or performance to match.

Best,
Anand.

[OzarkTom]

B&O speakers is 80K, Muraudio is 63K.