An uncle of mine lived in a nice bungalow with a large living room. Enter the room and there was no stereo. He opened a small hidden door in the wall and behind it were a Quad amplifier and a record player. He started a track. Sound came from a pair of subwoofers in a fireplace that appeared converted. Midrange and highs came from within cylindrical lamps standing on the floor and hanging from the ceiling. Only after hearing the music I realized the lamps were just a little bigger than most. It was the greatest sounding invisible system I've ever seen.
I done some work on a late 90's B&O set. Very clever and it is obvious they really know what they are doing. When those engineers would not had to deal with very challinging design constraints (the unit I've seen needs to be compact like a car stereo and perform like higher end), they could turn out some amazing devices I think. Hat of for Paul on this vid, very respectful and objective.
I ve had a lot of high end speakers , currently a set of full Volti modded Klipschorns , ATC SCM 40 A s and anancient set of B&O MS 150 s which have : big dead wooden cabinets ,moulded resin front baffle , “phase correct” design ,they are from the 80 s and are amazing loudspeakers . Great bass , imaging and unfatiguing detailed mid range . Make me smile when they re doing their thing 😎
I worked in the B&O R&D department ages ago and I have some sincere respect for this brand. They created the icePower technology that PS Audio is using btw. It later became an independent company. I still have their Beolab 1 prototypes from ages ago with first gen icePower in them and they work perfectly 25 years later as my home theatre stereo speakers. As member of their listening test team I even had to undergo regular hearing tests by a professional audiologist and it was quite a rigorous listening test process with radar plots capturing different metrics of the audio qualities. Is it best brand in audiophile performance? Perhaps not, but possibly best in esthetics and audio fidelity as a combination. Some of their products are highly innovative such as Beolab 90, but also very expensive.
Dig a little deeper and you will find they are nothing but a troll company out to steal the hard earned money from audiophiles. They get no respect from me.
I used to sell B&O gear in the 70s and 80s. Its expensive for the sound quality which can be obtained for much less expense but its undeniably stylish. they did invent the "Icepower" power amplifier module which many manufactures use, including Bel Canto. I have a pair of their power amps and they are fantastic. Their linear tracking turtntable was a rather special too.
They have good sound, I used to go the B&O shop and listen to some of their stuff. The sales team knew I couldn't afford their stuff being a young professional but were happy to chat about music/HiFi. The sales team were passionate about music & HiFi...
As someone who’s loved high quality music for decades with my high end Linn system, I’ve bought a few portable B&O A1 (2nd gen) for friends and family, and I ended buying one for myself as a travel option.
No bulbs, lamps. Could be the lamp, could be the ballast, ... oftentimes newer electronic ballasts are junk. Bring back the old PCB filled ballasts that can last 20yrs! You knew they were bad when they began ooozing brown goo.
Anybody remember that scene in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation where the ice goes flying into the neighbor's house smashing through their window? That was a b&o system it destroyed. That just dawned on me.
@@keithposter5543 99% yes is inaccurate, but better than 75% certainly possible. This from a historical dealer for B&O as well as many other esoteric turntable and cartridge lines. It's a shame they don't make them anymore, of the 3 turntables I own the B&O tangential is fairly unmatched with acoustic isolation, So if I'm going to really blast, I use the B&O cause I'm guaranteed to NOT get any acoustic feedback. They had some very good engineering, such as the eddy current drive in the 8000 class turntables and they had essentially the lowest effective tip mass of any turntable in the industry, so they were great for maintaining quality of your records. It's funny to me how many folks have negative comments but clearly have never owned or compared the product to competitors. The biggest downside to B&O is the cartridge limitation, they engineered the tonearms and cartridge as a unit, so you have very limited selection and B&O only, they made a range, and some were very good, but there could be a matching problem either with speakers or preamp and there would be no solution for the mismatch. My Speakers are ADS L1530's which work well with my MMC1 cartridge, they're old but I still love them, but so is my B&O, and my other 2 turntables are a Linn and Sota so I'm not comparing it to junk.
I have a Beosound one portable speaker and it's amazingly good for the size. We had a beach party over a bonfire and that single speaker provided enough sound for dancing. The caveat is that the max volume decreases after a while when the battery depletes so we had to charge it after a while to keep the volume up.
Just restored my B&O S45-2 loudspeakers. They are not only cool looking but the Uni-Phase front panel design was very unique. I always thought that sealed cabinets sounded better for hi-fidelity. B&O really made that happen and did it well IMO.
The reality is Paul and most are commenting here have never really experienced the entire line or legacy lines of what BNO have created over the last 50 years. Their turntables to this day or some of the finest turntables ever made, and were the absolute best to this day at protecting your vinyl records. I had to be an old turntable that you could close and literally drop tennis balls on it and the arm would not skip or scratch your vinyl.The truth is banging Olson just don’t make for lack of a better word novelty pieces. Paul has never heard obviously the mini pairs of stereo floor standing speaker systems that Bang and Olson have produced. You will find very few brick and mortar audio stores carrying bang and Olson as they are very particular. But to say they sound pretty good overall is a fast understatement Paul, and you should’ve been honest about not really hearing much of any of the equipment that they have ever made. Another truth about B & O, is they were the pioneers of the all in one system! Producing some of the most beautiful gear you have ever seen, including CD players, tuners, and cassette players. Paul should do himself a favor and visit a retailer that actually has most of the B&O line and then give us an honest review. Expensive yes as anything else out there, but with unique designs, rock, solid, build quality and very, very good sound for those who can afford it. It’s just really fun gear to own.
I agree sans the turntables. The slim towers , thier 90's sliding glass mini systems and standalone Bluetooth speakers all sound very good. Ive owned thier headphones and thier my favorite.
@@jeremywhittler8591their price tags are eyewateringly expensive now a days.$20,000 and more. For something i could get 5 years earlier in cheap brands . This goes for flatscreens. I do not even like their modern design. I used to own B&O for 40 years ago. The beolabs back in the day was smashingly beautiful and the 8000 and 5000 was actually high on my list. But if you want the best B&O were almost always playing catch up to the really good, but as always your kit must fit your music choice and B&O were really really good playing music that did not contain a lot of powerful rock, not bad at all but back in the 70.ies and 80.ies they made some of their best designs that were still obtainable for average wages. Their take on integration and the fact you could have a remote that would do everything and very well designed to make a statement The design was always top back then. Jacobsen who designed back then was a genius. Their target buyers now are for those with a large income. Their old tvs with tubescreens were miles ahead of anybody else and contained a circuit that measured light and and picture quality and guaranteed the same picture quality for lifetime of tv. And it worked , had an LX 2800 that never changed and the topmodel vcr that was good but did break and would have cost more to fix than it cost brand new. I would still like to have those Beolabs speakers and the complete 8000 seperate units. Still just the most beautiful set they made in my eyes. Only downside as a 20.ish lad was other people calling you a show-off.
Paul, in Europe we would love that 1-piece PS Audio product. I live in a small apartment and I've given up (not forever) my conventional stereo system. I now have only a cool Sony SRS-RA3000 with an omnidirectional woofer and stereo tweeters. Bought it as a temporary solution and was so impressed with its quality. Very spatial sound, articulate, built-in room correction, looks good, accepts streaming through chromecast and can reproduce instruments with proper scale, for such a tiny thing. The only thing missing is a large soundstage, but I listen to pretty minimal music anyways and rarely is it dedicated listening.
Let me try to translate. You're happy that as a legacy brand B&O has not been bought and resold by companies who make bread machines and hollowed out the name for brand recognition. And just to stoke the fire a little bit Yamaha hasn't either.🤣
Dear Paul, nice to hear, that you're not an audiophile who automatically hates products like B&O, but acknowledge that B&O have there place in the market 😀. And i general - thanks for being nice and positive👍
Some PS Audio products use B&Os ICE class D power amp modules and they’ve become an industry standard powering hi end audio products to bass guitar amplifiers.
The nice thing about B&o is that they seem to have a product for almost every design taste. I could easily live with a pair of Beolab28 in a normal room. Those are expensive stuff, but the Beolit 17 and 20 is probably the best portable speaker ive come across for reasonable money. Its not every day you get an almost fullrange sound in a lunchbox size package with excellent sound dispersion.
Many years ago, What Video UK magazine the MD of B&O was being interviewed. In the interview, he openly said you are paying 40% extra for the styling, but there is no shame in that, as our designs are unique in the marketplace. I don’t think to much has changed 30 years later.
Gotta keep the wife happy right? Mine wasn't happy when I stuffed a pair of Klipsh LaScala's in the living room. And then there was that time with the PA cabinets with the crown amps. I thought they looked great but she didn't. She came with me to an av store in Ithaca and looked at a bookshelf set of B&W's and told me I should get them. They looked cute. Lol. b&o is like art I must admit.
Treat them like high end gears and they will reward you with exceptional sound quality. With a pair of carefully positioned Beolab 17 (setup for my relative), I’ve been able to impress an audiophile especially in terms of orchestral imaging, clarity and bass extension and control. When I told him the price (around $4000) he was surprised and said he was expecting over $6000 judging from what he heard. The guy only use floor standers including Tannoy and never gave a glance at B&O stuff. So he had no idea what brand of loudspeaker he was listening to until I told him (and be honest the BeoLab 17 look quite ordinary). I find that B&O speakers generally like more than a little bit toe-in to perform. Funny their showrooms always have them facing straight forward… so it’s no surprise most people couldn’t really experience how good they sound.
Paul, I understand and envy where you are coming from with your views and opinions. However, I am a 75 year old with obviously deteriorating hearing ability and I have to admit that listening to really hi end speakers is way beyond me now, To that end I now have a 9.1 Denon 4311 amplifier with a complete lineup of JBL speakers (4 x JBL SD310ii, 5 x JBL 4900s and a JBL TLX 170 as a centre speaker(upright). This system is completed with w x 12 inch JBL subwoofers (model number unknown). All these speakers are pointed directly at a single comfortable chair. Despite owning in the past Kef and KLH (that will probably make you shudder LOL) I am probably the happiest I have ever been with my current system because of my overall hearing loss, and my interest now is in having music surrounding me in lieu of absolute sonic perfection within my financial means. I have also introduced an AKAI GX400D, an AKAI GX1900D (I really do not know why) an AKAI cassette and a Yamaha direct drive Turntable with a shure cartridge. I guess the recorders and turntable are very much nostalgic but I have loved them for years now. My audio room is a 6 x 4 metre room lined with 2 inch sponge and carpet. This, for me, is a very selfish hobby. My question is, do you think that my transition is almost natural given the aging process and the capabilities of modern audio visual systems. Finally, I really want to thank you for all your comments and advice over the couple of years that I have followed you and to wish you the very best in the future.
They are still very popular among the wealthy and rich with their TVs and more expensive items in their range, their headphones are big sellers across the board and they are used in several expensive cars (might just be a licensing deal I'm not sure). They haven't gone anywhere they just don't seem to advertise much now.
@ruk2023-- Yeah the advertising is different today for sure.. I just haven't heard that name in quite a while.. back in the late 70s here in the Northeast they were advertised on the FM radio stations a lot by the different hi fi shops in Connecticut & Massachusetts. They were way out of my range money wise and I had to settle for Ohm Acoustics & JBL. I really do miss those days.
@@ruk2023-- after watching this I roamed over to their website. Their cheapest tv is 7700 dollars and it's only a 48 inch screen. yea... not for me. It's an OLED and looks pretty and the speaker is probably better than most peoples stereos, but hot damn!!!
I had an 1800 table back in the 80s. It sat during the '90s when I was in Europe. It needed a tune-up when I got back. I bought new. I wish I would have kept it. Loved the look. Never could afford a whole system, though. The speakers were always a question mark for me.
yes but like another guy said, it's like asking one of the Ford kids to talk good about Chevy...now his son the Hi Fi engineer has a pair of the B and O $90,000 speakers...another interesting fact... PS Audio does business with B&O!
Does PS Audio have any product in the museum for modern art. Don't think so, B&o has. They did a lot of inovative stuf both in audio and video equipment. Yes it's expencive, but high profiled. Even old turntable with tangential pickup arm from the 80s, are still refurb, and cost more than the detail price when it was produced. And the speakers both passive and active sounds great, and if you messure them in a sound proof test facility you will know why.
B&O's focus is more on design aesthetics rather than pure audiophile perfection. Their Beosound 6-disc CD changer is such a stunning piece if visual art, especially when vertically mounted. Pair that CD source with your own favorite amp and speakers and you now have the best of both worlds!
I mean you say these modern MP3 boxes don't sound great but consider the source (literally): the kind of trap-hop or ping-dance or whatever the kids are listening to these days isn't going to sound any better on a high end system. It's engineered with "low-fi sound" and designed to be played in mono.
I use Onkyo Integra M-504/P-304 separates to drive a pair of B&O RL 6000 with an Integra DSP-9.1 CD player and an EverSolo DMP-A6 Master Edition streamer/DAC as sources. I'm quite happy with the sound of my current system, especially given the sub 5000$ price point.
I sooo wanted a pair of their Redline speakers when they were first released. Years later (maybe early 2000s), I bought a pair of Beolab 8000s. Still have them and they still sound fantastic.
B&O always sounds good to me, too. Quite a historic old company in the Stereo World. I am sure Mr. Paul would agree that because everyone's ears, tastes and training are different, tastes in loudspeakers must be different too.
Thanks for the video I'm going to fix an electronic stereos for 50 years I found B&O speakers do sound good I like some of their products some of their turntables sound great I took an old piano turntable and put a real toner on it and now I can use any cartridge I want still sounds fantastic no feedback or funny sounds B&O stuff is very hard to work on some of the equipment is just ugly radio turntable yikes have a great day I'll keep watching don't know what I'm going to try to fix next
I had the Beovox S30 and S45.2 and CX50 quite good speakers for the price, you can get them for 50/100 euro used. Solid build quality and good looking for 70's speakers. Only that Philips tweeter they used is not the best.
I currently have a PS Audio Dac with Mcintosh preamp and amps and B&W 802D2s speakers. I recently bought some beolabs speakers locally that were too cheap to pass and just for the heck of it I plugged them in front of the B&Ws to compare, I was blown away.. so much that now I only want to listen to the B&Os. I will probably be selling all my HI END Stuff and just stay with this all in one solution, I like it better.
If you scroll up in the comments someone apparently did get offended. lol. I was gonna comment back to him but he probably would have just snarled back at me. This guy left a half page comment about Paul not knowing and Paul not ever hearing b and o products. lol. and bla bla bla.
Love my vintage Beovox 2200 (1969) and Beovox 1100 (1970), which with a nice little class a, sing really well against my modern heavy powered speakers. Most of the B&O products look good, but the price is too high, and quite irrelevant if the sound quality is the goal.
I actually prefer B&Os older speakers using Scandinavian drivers, mainly large treated paper cone woofers, midranges and soft dome tweeters (sometimes cone tweeters but very good ones). Similar drivers to what Dynaco used at the time. Sometimes, Vifa, Peerless, Scanspeak or similar units. Very rich, neutral, crisp and clear sound.
I think that the JBL portable bluetooth speakers aren't that bad. Sure, my home system is much better, but on weekend trips I think the JBL is OK. Not for great listening experiences but as background music when we have conversations or do other activities.
Same here, I have a decent stereo that sounds glorious if you sit around the “sweet spot” between the speakers, but if we have friends over sitting elsewhere a Bose bluetooth speaker is honestly better to use.
@@BrianJ-oz5tj I don't own this JBL myself. But I guess it has it's own DAC, so you stream digital into it. Haven't heard the Bose one. I guess most people stream high resulotion tracks these days and it's the receiving device that decides the quality.
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I agree. For the size and price, they are pretty impressive. Not Hi-Fi, of course, but pretty good for what they are meant for.
ruclips.net/video/zVhztbO5MBk/видео.htmlsi=drVCngMNIYhwo4a0 Here is an AES lecture given by a B&O tonmeister for those who want to criticise B&O without knowing much about B&O. They might take very different approaches from traditional “audiophile“ companies (somehow like electric cars vs petrol cars) but they are obviously respectable and knowledgeable in acoustics R&D.
I have the car speakers of B and O and they are the best speakers I ever heard beating Bose and Advent. But some dumb engineer put a center channel in the top dashboard and you cannot hear the full effect of the stereo. So you can hear the music in the right side and the dash not the left side
I have always thought that B and O is mostly style over substance. They may have some decent products but have found them to be overpriced for what you get. I did buy a B and O phono cartridge a few decades ago that I thought was quite good.
i have not heard the newer B&O, i owned one of the earlier models that looked like a normal passive box speakers. those where great. they can do what ever they want with their speakers, unless its goes all wireless crap, that trend need to be stopped.
B&O are ok. It’s Bose that are a con. The headphones they make with noise cancellation aren’t that good. Switch the system completely off with closed-back over-ear headphones and they cut a lot of sound out already, like an ear defender. Switch them on and the microphone is blatantly amplifying and pumping in ambient noise. Switch the noise cancelling feature on and it only reduces drones / engine hums.
@@owenoneill5955the tech was specifically developed to deal with airplane & drone hum, now the complaint is that is all that it’s good for? It’s Bose Derangement Syndrome.
100% Agree! Bose [along with B&O] are another example of over hyped, mediocre, lifestyle products!
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Well that's how I've been led to believe noise cancelling headphines work. The electronics handle the lower end, and the closed cups mute the upper range.
Honestly for the price , I could buy a Chinese class A valve amp , DAC and pr of Kef Q Meta and a stremer/CD player. So altho they look pretty cool but sound is nowhere near audiophile for the price.
@@sn4rl277 Sounds like you don't really know what you're talking about. I bet it has been decades since you listened to a B&O system The fact that B&O makes gear that looks great and is easy to use, that doesn't mean it also delivers when it comes to playing music. In fact if you go for their higher model powered speakers like the 28's what you is not even that expensive since you can leave on amps and more.
They mostly make headphones, portable speakers, sound bars, and a few tv's now. They still make really and I mean really high end speakers. I think most of them are powered to. I was just on their website but no record players, systems, cd players. I was kind of bummed. I liked that cd player that hung on the wall and you could see the cd's spinning. And that one record player they made, hot damn that was nice. It was just all to darn expensive for me. Most of it cost more than the cars I have driven.. lol
@@djzoloft as a former dealer that sold b&o as well as other esoteric turntable lines, I would disagree on the turntables, as far as speakers, they were competitive to other European speakers slightly below their price point, the recievers were a trade off, mid fi performance but a significant amount of feature content not available elsewhere. Thanks for your misplaced comments, but you're allowed your perspective as hi fi it totally subjective.
@@djzoloft again, you're entitled to your opinion but you will not get universal agreement from many folks that are in or from the industry. And while you are correct that B&O used a limited amount of Phillips components, that could be said for virtually every vendor out there, Every CD player is optically based on either Sony or Phillips. All Cassette decks were based on Phillips patents, even though the manufacturer that turned it into hi fi was Nakamichi. B&O used both Phillips and their own speaker components. At the time the introduced their link system for multi room multi source, long before anyone else, the were one of the only amplifiers out there that could drive a virtual dead short, those amps were of their design in a long line of in house amplifier engineering. B&O have a very extensive engineering patent portfolio, much of it pertinent to current products from virtually every vendor on the planet. Your bias is not validated by facts.
An uncle of mine lived in a nice bungalow with a large living room. Enter the room and there was no stereo. He opened a small hidden door in the wall and behind it were a Quad amplifier and a record player. He started a track. Sound came from a pair of subwoofers in a fireplace that appeared converted. Midrange and highs came from within cylindrical lamps standing on the floor and hanging from the ceiling. Only after hearing the music I realized the lamps were just a little bigger than most. It was the greatest sounding invisible system I've ever seen.
Or ever NOT seen! 😆
I done some work on a late 90's B&O set. Very clever and it is obvious they really know what they are doing. When those engineers would not had to deal with very challinging design constraints (the unit I've seen needs to be compact like a car stereo and perform like higher end), they could turn out some amazing devices I think. Hat of for Paul on this vid, very respectful and objective.
I ve had a lot of high end speakers , currently a set of full Volti modded Klipschorns , ATC SCM 40 A s and anancient set of B&O MS 150 s which have : big dead wooden cabinets ,moulded resin front baffle , “phase correct” design ,they are from the 80 s and are amazing loudspeakers . Great bass , imaging and unfatiguing detailed mid range . Make me smile when they re doing their thing 😎
I worked in the B&O R&D department ages ago and I have some sincere respect for this brand. They created the icePower technology that PS Audio is using btw. It later became an independent company. I still have their Beolab 1 prototypes from ages ago with first gen icePower in them and they work perfectly 25 years later as my home theatre stereo speakers. As member of their listening test team I even had to undergo regular hearing tests by a professional audiologist and it was quite a rigorous listening test process with radar plots capturing different metrics of the audio qualities. Is it best brand in audiophile performance? Perhaps not, but possibly best in esthetics and audio fidelity as a combination. Some of their products are highly innovative such as Beolab 90, but also very expensive.
I believe they are lifestyle products
@@MasterofPlay7Some would say the same about PS Audio, all fancy cable cos, and over priced DACs that add distortion.
@@MasterofPlay7 yep they are
@@noahbirdrevolution yea to problem with these lifestyle products are once the company no longer support the firmware/software updates, they are junk
I have had to replace SO many ice power modules...
B&O probably has the longest list of patents in the hifi business, huge respect for them.
Dig a little deeper and you will find they are nothing but a troll company out to steal the hard earned money from audiophiles. They get no respect from me.
If only they sounded better!
Meaning they have the largest army of lawyers to file for patents.
@@IainMacUKSounds a lot better then anything you can afford
I cried laughing when you said you would rather listen to the birds. Good stuff.
Was it really that funny you cried laughing??
My humor must be broken
Totally dig the flashing light, so post apocalyptic science fiction-y...
haha, i missed it first watch, but now i see it.
🤣
It's like asking one of the Ford kids to talk good about Chevy.
I used to sell B&O gear in the 70s and 80s. Its expensive for the sound quality which can be obtained for much less expense but its undeniably stylish. they did invent the "Icepower" power amplifier module which many manufactures use, including Bel Canto. I have a pair of their power amps and they are fantastic. Their linear tracking turtntable was a rather special too.
This is called damning with faint praise…
Ha….ha…..ha…. Well said …., bit silly question , but i love how Paul composed the words to politely deliver his thought …..even with bit struggling
Haha he basically said: "One day I'll build something that's not high-end but sounds ok. It'll be still better than B&O though"
That blinking light would drive me bananas. Room full of engineers who can't boil an egg ;-)
In my dining room, I have beolab 1 with beocenter 2,and it looks and sounds fantastic 👌
They have good sound, I used to go the B&O shop and listen to some of their stuff. The sales team knew I couldn't afford their stuff being a young professional but were happy to chat about music/HiFi. The sales team were passionate about music & HiFi...
As someone who’s loved high quality music for decades with my high end Linn system, I’ve bought a few portable B&O A1 (2nd gen) for friends and family, and I ended buying one for myself as a travel option.
That flashing Flourescent light in the background LOL made me laugh!
Might be an LED with a wonky driver.
Paul, please fix the light bulb in the back, it drives me mad. 🙂
And the blinds, they look terrible from outside.
😂😂😂😂😅
No bulbs, lamps.
Could be the lamp, could be the ballast, ... oftentimes newer electronic ballasts are junk.
Bring back the old PCB filled ballasts that can last 20yrs! You knew they were bad when they began ooozing brown goo.
Change them out to LED fixtures and save money, Paul!!
OMG… me too…now!! 😂😂
I still have my B & O turntable from the 80s. Still use it.
Anybody remember that scene in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation where the ice goes flying into the neighbor's house smashing through their window? That was a b&o system it destroyed. That just dawned on me.
Must be a slow day for Paul if he's commenting on emails about someone else's products. 😆
I have a stereo pair of Beosound Balance and i absolutly love them, if you can get a chance to listen to them please do, you'll love the sound
Please change out the flickering fluorescent light behind you. As always you are such a gentleman answering our questions.
It's good they added the &, otherwise they would really stink.
I still use my Dad's late 70s Beogram turntable that he handed down to me and it's better than 99% of new turntables today with a bit of servicing.
"..... it's better than 99% of new turntables today....". I'm really sorry but that's nonsense!
Have you heard or used all of those other turntables?
@@keithposter5543 99% yes is inaccurate, but better than 75% certainly possible. This from a historical dealer for B&O as well as many other esoteric turntable and cartridge lines. It's a shame they don't make them anymore, of the 3 turntables I own the B&O tangential is fairly unmatched with acoustic isolation, So if I'm going to really blast, I use the B&O cause I'm guaranteed to NOT get any acoustic feedback. They had some very good engineering, such as the eddy current drive in the 8000 class turntables and they had essentially the lowest effective tip mass of any turntable in the industry, so they were great for maintaining quality of your records. It's funny to me how many folks have negative comments but clearly have never owned or compared the product to competitors. The biggest downside to B&O is the cartridge limitation, they engineered the tonearms and cartridge as a unit, so you have very limited selection and B&O only, they made a range, and some were very good, but there could be a matching problem either with speakers or preamp and there would be no solution for the mismatch. My Speakers are ADS L1530's which work well with my MMC1 cartridge, they're old but I still love them, but so is my B&O, and my other 2 turntables are a Linn and Sota so I'm not comparing it to junk.
Those late 1970's B&O turntables are beautiful. Would not want to have one but their components of that era are stunning visually.
comming from Denmark im proud every time i hear bang and olufsen
I have a Beosound one portable speaker and it's amazingly good for the size. We had a beach party over a bonfire and that single speaker provided enough sound for dancing. The caveat is that the max volume decreases after a while when the battery depletes so we had to charge it after a while to keep the volume up.
Just restored my B&O S45-2 loudspeakers. They are not only cool looking but the Uni-Phase front panel design was very unique. I always thought that sealed cabinets sounded better for hi-fidelity. B&O really made that happen and did it well IMO.
I have a pair of these and I am very pleased with them. I added a sub-woofer and that really made my system sound better.
The reality is Paul and most are commenting here have never really experienced the entire line or legacy lines of what BNO have created over the last 50 years. Their turntables to this day or some of the finest turntables ever made, and were the absolute best to this day at protecting your vinyl records. I had to be an old turntable that you could close and literally drop tennis balls on it and the arm would not skip or scratch your vinyl.The truth is banging Olson just don’t make for lack of a better word novelty pieces. Paul has never heard obviously the mini pairs of stereo floor standing speaker systems that Bang and Olson have produced. You will find very few brick and mortar audio stores carrying bang and Olson as they are very particular. But to say they sound pretty good overall is a fast understatement Paul, and you should’ve been honest about not really hearing much of any of the equipment that they have ever made. Another truth about B & O, is they were the pioneers of the all in one system! Producing some of the most beautiful gear you have ever seen, including CD players, tuners, and cassette players. Paul should do himself a favor and visit a retailer that actually has most of the B&O line and then give us an honest review. Expensive yes as anything else out there, but with unique designs, rock, solid, build quality and very, very good sound for those who can afford it. It’s just really fun gear to own.
I agree sans the turntables. The slim towers , thier 90's sliding glass mini systems and standalone Bluetooth speakers all sound very good. Ive owned thier headphones and thier my favorite.
@@jeremywhittler8591their price tags are eyewateringly expensive now a days.$20,000 and more. For something i could get 5 years earlier in cheap brands . This goes for flatscreens. I do not even like their modern design.
I used to own B&O for 40 years ago.
The beolabs back in the day was smashingly beautiful and the 8000 and 5000 was actually high on my list.
But if you want the best B&O were almost always playing catch up to the really good, but as always your kit must fit your music choice and B&O were really really good playing music that did not contain a lot of powerful rock, not bad at all but back in the 70.ies and 80.ies they made some of their best designs that were still obtainable for average wages.
Their take on integration and the fact you could have a remote that would do everything and very well designed to make a statement
The design was always top back then. Jacobsen who designed back then was a genius.
Their target buyers now are for those with a large income.
Their old tvs with tubescreens were miles ahead of anybody else and contained a circuit that measured light and and picture quality and guaranteed the same picture quality for lifetime of tv.
And it worked , had an LX 2800 that never changed and the topmodel vcr that was good but did break and would have cost more to fix than it cost brand new.
I would still like to have those Beolabs speakers and the complete 8000 seperate units.
Still just the most beautiful set they made in my eyes.
Only downside as a 20.ish lad was other people calling you a show-off.
Paul, in Europe we would love that 1-piece PS Audio product. I live in a small apartment and I've given up (not forever) my conventional stereo system. I now have only a cool Sony SRS-RA3000 with an omnidirectional woofer and stereo tweeters. Bought it as a temporary solution and was so impressed with its quality. Very spatial sound, articulate, built-in room correction, looks good, accepts streaming through chromecast and can reproduce instruments with proper scale, for such a tiny thing. The only thing missing is a large soundstage, but I listen to pretty minimal music anyways and rarely is it dedicated listening.
Love the fact the B&O recreated 1970's Beogram 4000c turntable where the sourced and restore original units. Very cool.
I wish they would just start selling them again. That is the one thing they sold that I loved. They go for crazy ass money on Ebay.
Will you ever replace that blinking light? Its been like that for months!
It's because of ... time dilation. He records 5-10 videos every weekend and posts them over two months. So, what we see could be a weekend glitch. :)
i think the B&O beolab 90 speakers would qualify as "high end"
I am just happy that they, as a legacy brand, not became yet an other zombie brand :)
Let me try to translate. You're happy that as a legacy brand B&O has not been bought and resold by companies who make bread machines and hollowed out the name for brand recognition. And just to stoke the fire a little bit Yamaha hasn't either.🤣
Although big parts of the company have already been sold the remaining company can celebrate its 100th birthday next year.
@@InsideOfMyOwnMind Well at least they are not selling kitchen scales yet 😋
@@Fastvoice Yes, their independence is on par with McIntosh.
@@hugobloemers4425 Not really, as the McIntosh Group has just been acquired by Bose. So it's not independent any more.
Dear Paul, nice to hear, that you're not an audiophile who automatically hates products like B&O, but acknowledge that B&O have there place in the market 😀. And i general - thanks for being nice and positive👍
well said!
Nearly a decade ago, B&O launched the Beolab 90, I auditioned them at Axpona, after hours.
They're extraordinarily capable.
Some PS Audio products use B&Os ICE class D power amp modules and they’ve become an industry standard powering hi end audio products to bass guitar amplifiers.
B&O sound is very very good. But it’s also very very expensive.
Thanks, Paul! ❤
"That drives me bananas" with the flickering light in the background...
The nice thing about B&o is that they seem to have a product for almost every design taste. I could easily live with a pair of Beolab28 in a normal room. Those are expensive stuff, but the Beolit 17 and 20 is probably the best portable speaker ive come across for reasonable money. Its not every day you get an almost fullrange sound in a lunchbox size package with excellent sound dispersion.
Many years ago, What Video UK magazine the MD of B&O was being interviewed. In the interview, he openly said you are paying 40% extra for the styling, but there is no shame in that, as our designs are unique in the marketplace. I don’t think to much has changed 30 years later.
Gotta keep the wife happy right? Mine wasn't happy when I stuffed a pair of Klipsh LaScala's in the living room. And then there was that time with the PA cabinets with the crown amps. I thought they looked great but she didn't. She came with me to an av store in Ithaca and looked at a bookshelf set of B&W's and told me I should get them. They looked cute. Lol. b&o is like art I must admit.
Treat them like high end gears and they will reward you with exceptional sound quality. With a pair of carefully positioned Beolab 17 (setup for my relative), I’ve been able to impress an audiophile especially in terms of orchestral imaging, clarity and bass extension and control. When I told him the price (around $4000) he was surprised and said he was expecting over $6000 judging from what he heard.
The guy only use floor standers including Tannoy and never gave a glance at B&O stuff. So he had no idea what brand of loudspeaker he was listening to until I told him (and be honest the BeoLab 17 look quite ordinary).
I find that B&O speakers generally like more than a little bit toe-in to perform. Funny their showrooms always have them facing straight forward… so it’s no surprise most people couldn’t really experience how good they sound.
But what does Paul think of my beloved L. Acoustic PA speakers?
Paul, I understand and envy where you are coming from with your views and opinions. However, I am a 75 year old with obviously deteriorating hearing ability and I have to admit that listening to really hi end speakers is way beyond me now, To that end I now have a 9.1 Denon 4311 amplifier with a complete lineup of JBL speakers (4 x JBL SD310ii, 5 x JBL 4900s and a JBL TLX 170 as a centre speaker(upright). This system is completed with w x 12 inch JBL subwoofers (model number unknown). All these speakers are pointed directly at a single comfortable chair. Despite owning in the past Kef and KLH (that will probably make you shudder LOL) I am probably the happiest I have ever been with my current system because of my overall hearing loss, and my interest now is in having music surrounding me in lieu of absolute sonic perfection within my financial means. I have also introduced an AKAI GX400D, an AKAI GX1900D (I really do not know why) an AKAI cassette and a Yamaha direct drive Turntable with a shure cartridge. I guess the recorders and turntable are very much nostalgic but I have loved them for years now. My audio room is a 6 x 4 metre room lined with 2 inch sponge and carpet. This, for me, is a very selfish hobby. My question is, do you think that my transition is almost natural given the aging process and the capabilities of modern audio visual systems. Finally, I really want to thank you for all your comments and advice over the couple of years that I have followed you and to wish you the very best in the future.
"....do you think that my transition is almost natural given the aging process.....?" 😂😂😅 I think I love this guy @himmelhorse 😊
I haven't heard that name for a while.. they were big in the 70s & 80s. I love how you've described it as this Big Brown Thing 😁
They are still very popular among the wealthy and rich with their TVs and more expensive items in their range, their headphones are big sellers across the board and they are used in several expensive cars (might just be a licensing deal I'm not sure). They haven't gone anywhere they just don't seem to advertise much now.
@ruk2023-- Yeah the advertising is different today for sure.. I just haven't heard that name in quite a while.. back in the late 70s here in the Northeast they were advertised on the FM radio stations a lot by the different hi fi shops in Connecticut & Massachusetts. They were way out of my range money wise and I had to settle for Ohm Acoustics & JBL. I really do miss those days.
@@ruk2023-- They're one of the main sponsors for Ferrari in Formula 1. That's the only place I've seen them advertise
Big Round Thing, if I may correct you. Beosound A9.
@@ruk2023-- after watching this I roamed over to their website. Their cheapest tv is 7700 dollars and it's only a 48 inch screen. yea... not for me. It's an OLED and looks pretty and the speaker is probably better than most peoples stereos, but hot damn!!!
2:18 - "Attention PS Shoppers! White Light Special now going on to Paul's left!"
I had an 1800 table back in the 80s. It sat during the '90s when I was in Europe. It needed a tune-up when I got back. I bought new. I wish I would have kept it. Loved the look. Never could afford a whole system, though. The speakers were always a question mark for me.
Yes.... I always wanted one of those linear tracking tonearm record players. Was that the 1800?
@ No… Simple belt drive B&O.
Have used B & O from time to time over many years …
As you say, ‘they’re okay.’
I have redline 60.2 and beovox S55 and the 9300 beocenter. Love it! Also love the beolab pentas. I am not a fan of ICE. Sounds to clean and polished
I am sure you are familiar with the phrase, “damning with faint praise,” and today’s video shows that you are also a master of the practice.
My thoughts too!
Definitely
yes but like another guy said, it's like asking one of the Ford kids to talk good about Chevy...now his son the Hi Fi engineer has a pair of the B and O $90,000 speakers...another interesting fact... PS Audio does business with B&O!
Doesn't B&O equipment have Philips electronics ?
I love my B&O Beoplay S3. I've been using it for almost 9 years and it is still in mint condition and sounds great. Worth every penny.
I 💙 the B&O dalek shape speakers. My dalek shape speakers that I build are inspired by the B&Os, 🎉
The flickering light doesn’t bother you though?
Does PS Audio have any product in the museum for modern art. Don't think so, B&o has.
They did a lot of inovative stuf both in audio and video equipment. Yes it's expencive, but high profiled.
Even old turntable with tangential pickup arm from the 80s, are still refurb, and cost more than the detail price when it was produced.
And the speakers both passive and active sounds great, and if you messure them in a sound proof test facility you will know why.
B&O's focus is more on design aesthetics rather than pure audiophile perfection. Their Beosound 6-disc CD changer is such a stunning piece if visual art, especially when vertically mounted. Pair that CD source with your own favorite amp and speakers and you now have the best of both worlds!
Are you talking about that cd player that hung on the wall. If you are that was really cool. And yea.. B and O is more of an art form. I dig it.
Yup, the Beosound 9000 mkii.
Nothing worse than fatigue when just doing something simple like listening to Music. Enjoyed the Birds comment.
C’mon Paul, Go for that iconic flagship model!
How about two AMT tweeters flaring outwards, like the Nakamichi Dragon 11.4.6?
This video was the dance of the year.
I mean you say these modern MP3 boxes don't sound great but consider the source (literally): the kind of trap-hop or ping-dance or whatever the kids are listening to these days isn't going to sound any better on a high end system. It's engineered with "low-fi sound" and designed to be played in mono.
Exactly
Thats so depressing, makes me think "no future"
@@paulstubbs7678 Why? Music quality in the 60's was worse and the Beatles did alright.
@@ruk2023-- When I first heard the Beatles, the audio bandwidth reminded me of telephone quality, 300 to 3400Hz bandwidth
I use Onkyo Integra M-504/P-304 separates to drive a pair of B&O RL 6000 with an Integra DSP-9.1 CD player and an EverSolo DMP-A6 Master Edition streamer/DAC as sources. I'm quite happy with the sound of my current system, especially given the sub 5000$ price point.
I sooo wanted a pair of their Redline speakers when they were first released. Years later (maybe early 2000s), I bought a pair of Beolab 8000s. Still have them and they still sound fantastic.
You can still find RL speakers
of all sizes second hand.
The RL 35 are surprisingly good.
B&O always sounds good to me, too. Quite a historic old company in the Stereo World. I am sure Mr. Paul would agree that because everyone's ears, tastes and training are different, tastes in loudspeakers must be different too.
I spent quite some time on their website poking around their history. It's an interesting one they have.
Thanks for the video I'm going to fix an electronic stereos for 50 years I found B&O speakers do sound good I like some of their products some of their turntables sound great I took an old piano turntable and put a real toner on it and now I can use any cartridge I want still sounds fantastic no feedback or funny sounds B&O stuff is very hard to work on some of the equipment is just ugly radio turntable yikes have a great day I'll keep watching don't know what I'm going to try to fix next
I had the Beovox S30 and S45.2 and CX50 quite good speakers for the price, you can get them for 50/100 euro used. Solid build quality and good looking for 70's speakers. Only that Philips tweeter they used is not the best.
I currently have a PS Audio Dac with Mcintosh preamp and amps and B&W 802D2s speakers. I recently bought some beolabs speakers locally that were too cheap to pass and just for the heck of it I plugged them in front of the B&Ws to compare, I was blown away.. so much that now I only want to listen to the B&Os. I will probably be selling all my HI END Stuff and just stay with this all in one solution, I like it better.
Very good answer Paul, without making people angry...😇
If you scroll up in the comments someone apparently did get offended. lol. I was gonna comment back to him but he probably would have just snarled back at me. This guy left a half page comment about Paul not knowing and Paul not ever hearing b and o products. lol. and bla bla bla.
@teddine7366 I don't mind, it's just my experience with the brand at my work. Ofcours aren't people not agreeing with me if they have B&O at home...😌
Be honest Paul.. when was the last time you listened to any B&O gear other than your son's "big round thing"...
Splinters off the fence reply, They sound 'pretty good' whatever that means..... But not a patch on the 'Aspens' .😁
Love my vintage Beovox 2200 (1969) and Beovox 1100 (1970), which with a nice little class a, sing really well against my modern heavy powered speakers. Most of the B&O products look good, but the price is too high, and quite irrelevant if the sound quality is the goal.
I actually prefer B&Os older speakers using Scandinavian drivers, mainly large treated paper cone woofers, midranges and soft dome tweeters (sometimes cone tweeters but very good ones). Similar drivers to what Dynaco used at the time. Sometimes, Vifa, Peerless, Scanspeak or similar units. Very rich, neutral, crisp and clear sound.
Doesn’t that light going on and off bother you? 😅
"For the LOOKS, they have a very good sound". Lol. OK. 👍
I think that the JBL portable bluetooth speakers aren't that bad. Sure, my home system is much better, but on weekend trips I think the JBL is OK. Not for great listening experiences but as background music when we have conversations or do other activities.
Same here, I have a decent stereo that sounds glorious if you sit around the “sweet spot” between the speakers, but if we have friends over sitting elsewhere a Bose bluetooth speaker is honestly better to use.
@@BrianJ-oz5tj I don't own this JBL myself. But I guess it has it's own DAC, so you stream digital into it. Haven't heard the Bose one. I guess most people stream high resulotion tracks these days and it's the receiving device that decides the quality.
I agree. For the size and price, they are pretty impressive. Not Hi-Fi, of course, but pretty good for what they are meant for.
An active Aspen FR speaker done right ❤️
That could fill a lot of living rooms that have wife approval laws.
ruclips.net/video/zVhztbO5MBk/видео.htmlsi=drVCngMNIYhwo4a0
Here is an AES lecture given by a B&O tonmeister for those who want to criticise B&O without knowing much about B&O.
They might take very different approaches from traditional “audiophile“ companies (somehow like electric cars vs petrol cars) but they are obviously respectable and knowledgeable in acoustics R&D.
I have the car speakers of B and O and they are the best speakers I ever heard beating Bose and Advent. But some dumb engineer put a center channel in the top dashboard and you cannot hear the full effect of the stereo. So you can hear the music in the right side and the dash not the left side
I use quadral amun 4 way ad home it sounds nice.. And in my music studio event opal .you can hear al details. It sounds super
hope B&O will NEVER be bought by Bose or KLipsch...
I have always thought that B and O is mostly style over substance. They may have some decent products but have found them to be overpriced for what you get. I did buy a B and O phono cartridge a few decades ago that I thought was quite good.
i have not heard the newer B&O, i owned one of the earlier models that looked like a normal passive box speakers. those where great.
they can do what ever they want with their speakers, unless its goes all wireless crap, that trend need to be stopped.
B&O are ok. It’s Bose that are a con. The headphones they make with noise cancellation aren’t that good. Switch the system completely off with closed-back over-ear headphones and they cut a lot of sound out already, like an ear defender. Switch them on and the microphone is blatantly amplifying and pumping in ambient noise. Switch the noise cancelling feature on and it only reduces drones / engine hums.
How can the company that actually pioneered the noise cancelling tech be a con lol
@@mikeg2491 The same way Listerene can sell floor wash lol
@@owenoneill5955the tech was specifically developed to deal with airplane & drone hum, now the complaint is that is all that it’s good for? It’s Bose Derangement Syndrome.
100% Agree! Bose [along with B&O] are another example of over hyped, mediocre, lifestyle products!
Well that's how I've been led to believe noise cancelling headphines work. The electronics handle the lower end, and the closed cups mute the upper range.
A company that has 100 years on their back still taking a premium price for their products cant be that bad
"Danishi"? Never heard that before ;-)
I can't take Paul's advice on anything audio. Conflict of interest since he owns PS Audio
Paul, many of us are now mobile. You need to build a great mobile battery powered amplified blue-tooth stereo speaker unit.
As soon as he said "Consumer Audio" I knew he doesn't care for B&O. In a vehicle as a factory system, sure. But home Audio, I'd pass as well.
Honestly for the price , I could buy a Chinese class A valve amp , DAC and pr of Kef Q Meta and a stremer/CD player. So altho they look pretty cool but sound is nowhere near audiophile for the price.
PS Audio active streaming speakers? Yay!
It's a mindless company. Don't call companies brands!
Even a pr of Genelec G3 with an Eversolo A8 streamer/DAC/EQ would sound way better.
Betcha hes never heard the quality of Hifi IEMs
High end is BS but a very good businessmodel
How about the softspeakers?😅
I would be interested in your opinion about isobaric speakers. Just a general question realy.
B&O= electronic furniture ( not Hi-fi)
Paul's speakers made in China are much better...
When money and looks are the words people use to describe speakers, then they're missing the point.
@Paulmcgowanpsaudio
I think you should give your son a nicely wrapped pair of PS Audio speakers for Christmas this year! 🎁🎄😀
I didn't even know that company was still in existence. Their early stuff was less than impressive to me.
As in their products from before WWII?
B&O has been around since 1925, they started out making radios and then it grew from there.
It's a brand for folks that have money to spend, but know nothing about Home Audio.
@@sn4rl277 Sounds like you don't really know what you're talking about. I bet it has been decades since you listened to a B&O system
The fact that B&O makes gear that looks great and is easy to use, that doesn't mean it also delivers when it comes to playing music. In fact if you go for their higher model powered speakers like the 28's what you is not even that expensive since you can leave on amps and more.
They mostly make headphones, portable speakers, sound bars, and a few tv's now. They still make really and I mean really high end speakers. I think most of them are powered to. I was just on their website but no record players, systems, cd players. I was kind of bummed. I liked that cd player that hung on the wall and you could see the cd's spinning. And that one record player they made, hot damn that was nice. It was just all to darn expensive for me. Most of it cost more than the cars I have driven.. lol
they are impossible to work on...more about design than getting to the point.
only for the novice
@@sounddoctor5decades well...they sound like shit also. and i had many..speakers, amps and systems.
@@djzoloft as a former dealer that sold b&o as well as other esoteric turntable lines, I would disagree on the turntables, as far as speakers, they were competitive to other European speakers slightly below their price point, the recievers were a trade off, mid fi performance but a significant amount of feature content not available elsewhere. Thanks for your misplaced comments, but you're allowed your perspective as hi fi it totally subjective.
@@sounddoctor5decades they used a lot of philips components in their stuff...get off your high horse buddy...you sold bs. sorry for that
@@djzoloft again, you're entitled to your opinion but you will not get universal agreement from many folks that are in or from the industry. And while you are correct that B&O used a limited amount of Phillips components, that could be said for virtually every vendor out there, Every CD player is optically based on either Sony or Phillips. All Cassette decks were based on Phillips patents, even though the manufacturer that turned it into hi fi was Nakamichi. B&O used both Phillips and their own speaker components. At the time the introduced their link system for multi room multi source, long before anyone else, the were one of the only amplifiers out there that could drive a virtual dead short, those amps were of their design in a long line of in house amplifier engineering. B&O have a very extensive engineering patent portfolio, much of it pertinent to current products from virtually every vendor on the planet. Your bias is not validated by facts.
B&o Beolab speakers are great, and when they made passive, the beovox
one should have asked Arnie Nudell :)