Walk into any Bang & Olufsen store worldwide and you'll surely be dazzled by the glamour, design and tech specs on offer. But behind the scenes the company has been going through some tough times in the last few years. To begin with, it has had to face common-place brands such as Philips, Samsung and Sony who are dishing out significantly more design-led products at much more affordable prices. Moreover, recent figures in the Nordic Business Report revealed that, "during the first half of 2009/10 a total 25 B&O shops were opened or upgraded, while 64 shops were closed or converted to shop-in-shops".
A couple of years ago, in summer 2008, the company had announced that its sales had sagged in Europe and the US, which had been its main markets, and more losses were recorded in 2009. Nevertheless in 2010 things are starting to take a turn for the better as the company has launched a set of new products with the expected heavy-duty design and high-tech wizardry that you just cant find anywhere else. Confirming what we generally know about the brand, Cesar Debbas of B&O in the Lebanon says that every product "must be founded on substance: If it's just looks, it doesn't last."
If you examine the specs of any B&O product, you find that Debbas' claims do ring true. Take, for example, one of the latest television sets the company has dished out. A trained eye can usually spot weaknesses in TVs such as imperfect contrast or picture drag, but the BeoVision 7-55 (the 55 stands for size of screen in inches) seems to be flawless in virtually every respect. "The LED lighting makes the black blacker, which raises the contrast to the maximum" says Debbas. "The signal is processed in so many different ways so that you get the best possible picture and sound," he adds.
Apparently, the full-HD television actually monitors the lighting conditions and optimises itself accordingly, using "highly efficient, super intense LED backlighting". Others have used a similar strategy, but it hadn't amounted to such progress before the advent of LED. (B&O's solution is to dim the LED lighting behind the black spots in any given picture to create superbly dark blacks, with micro-processing power reacts immediately to consolidate this effect). Combine this with an anti-reflective screen and a motorized tilt/swivel stand, and you're in for one superbly designed 55-inch TV that delivers better than most in the same class.
Another new success story is the BeoVision 10-40, the square-shaped 40-inch TV that hangs in the living room like another picture frame, complete with powerful yet discrete speakers. Apart from discrete thinness, its best feature, though, is probably the 200-Hertz refresh rate, which in simple language means absolutely no motion blur when there are ultra-fast scenes on the screen.
Keep in mind, however, that despite these novelties B&O doesn't create new models every few months. Unusually, for this market, it releases them every few years – which could work for its disadvantage as consumers are getting used to 'upgrading' more often than before. In its defence, the brand has a loyal following of clients who like the folks at B&O also believe that a good product is timeless. Take, for example, the BeoSound 2300 standing CD player design of 1991. In 2004 it was reinvented as the BeoSound 3200 with a CD memory that stores 400 albums, but the basic design is still the same.
Simplistic features and technology have proven to be the saving grace of B&O, which is known for spending a comparatively high 10 per cent of sales revenues on research and development. This is why B&O audio has also joined its video realm in delivering high fidelity and daring design. The BeoSound 5 which is a somewhat tactile home entertainment system featuring a large 1970s-like dial to visually rotate digital album covers so you can find what you want. "We all like to keep the physical relationship with our music" says Debbas, referring to that large shiny dial that begs to be turned. "Most people are more comfortable with something physical," he explains. More importantly, it features ingenious technology which compiles playlists based on any given song by analyzing beat, pitch and rhythm, then searching your music library for More of the Same – or MOTS as the people at B&O call it. "It's like your own playlist generator," says Debbas. "You put a lead song and it prepares a selection for you based on that song." And if you're not satisfied with the 500 GB of digital music it could hold, the system can access some 8,000 Internet radio stations worldwide. The Internet also provides software enhancements or upgrades, the latest being an Arabic menu which was test-marketed in Beirut and passed reviews with flying colours. With ADSL Internet technology now widely available across the Arab world, this sleek machine can open doors quickly to any genre of audio possible, from Jazz stations in Beirut to spiritual sermons in Mecca.
Beyond the audio-visual realm, there are multidirectional floor speakers that B&O claims are "as close as you can get to a live performance", as well as colourful tabletop speakers that strike a pose. Then there are a variety of remote control models that will even close your curtains and dim the lights if you set them up right. The Beo5, for instance, let's you wander from room to room with wireless technology, controlling everything and your bathroom (with a BeoVox 1 speaker embedded in the roof). The moral of the story is that while sleek design has remained constant from the brand since the 1930s, technology such as HD, LED, Internet and wireless have reinvented B&O and prepared for the Arabian home as well.
Speaking of Arabia, and to further pre-empt financial challenges, B&O has recently concentrated on new markets beyond Europe and America, not least of which is the Levant. With the success of B&O in Beirut, the brand is setting up shop in Amman and Damascus.
Lastly, it's worth mentioning that less of a clutter in buttons and features has given way to simple yet powerful control, even for the non-technically minded. Less, after all, still is more.
www.bang-olufsen.com
