B&O held a press event on its booth and explained that for the company, when designing products, it put ‘people first’. It also tries to take into account ‘domesticity’ – that is to say, how people want their homes to work and look. They also look for a balance in providing features – the TV should be easy to use and should not distract from the content that is being consumed,
Design & Sound remain key components – sound can also be used ‘on the move’ around the home and you may want to take music with you to help create an atmosphere or in a special situation, like an impromptu party. At other times, the user may be listening carefully.
In 2015, the BeoLab 90 audio system was introduced as ‘the best of the best’ – described at the event as ‘a delightful monster’. Each speaker weighs 137kg and the total power is 8,200 watts. It’s a flagship product! Now there is a new BeoLab 50 ‘little brother’ – described as ‘beautiful on the outside – beast on the inside’. Like the recent B&O TVs it uses aluminium, wood and cloth. An acoustic lens can modify the spread of the lens to focus (for a single ‘sweet spot’) or spread the sound (for multiple listeners). The system has active room compensation to automatically compensate for different room topographies and the system has 2,100W of power. A beast, indeed.
There is a new “Beosound Shape” system for wall mounting which uses modules as speakers, amplifiers or for connectivity. There are also versions that are passive acoustic absorbers to adjust the acoustics of the room. The system can be multi-room and it was described as a ‘Band on the wall’. The modules can have one of ten different coloured cloth coverings.
In TV, sound is very important, it’s like hearing a story, the company said and can be very engaging. Now there are more screens in the home than family members and that means that social ‘rules’ change.
Time is the most valued commodity now and watching a movie is a dedication of this valuable time. The sound must be good and image must be involving, so B&O has worked to add 450W of audio to an OLED TV in the new BeoVision Eclipse – the name was chosen because the sun and moon come together. The OLED display is available in 55″ and 65″ with extra speakers also available for surround sound and with support for Dolby Vision.
There is a very innovative movable stand which both rotates the TV moves it away from the wall so that the TV can be changed to suit either different watching directions, or to mean that the TV is moved out of the way when not in use. There is also a motorised wall bracket. The system uses a single ‘universal’ remote control which also supports third party devices.
Multiple audio sources are supported and wireless connectivity is possible via Bluetooth, Airplay etc and the TV can join a B&O multi-room system.
Booth Tour
Bang & Olufsen was highlighting its partnership with LG Electronics which supplies the TV chassis and, of course, the company sources the OLED panel from LG Display. The TV uses the LG Web OS SmartTV platform, although B&O provides its own ‘skin’ for the front end. This allows B&O to exploit LG’s TV scale.
The partnership was announced in March of 2016 and has now resulted in the debut of the new B&O flagship product. It features an integrated sound bar in the design, which is also very slim. The partnership allows much of the display engineering to be dome by LG with B&O focusing on the sound, overall design and craftsmanship, plus supply chain logistics – all to improve the long term profitability of the company.
As illustrated in the photos below, the Eclipse TV can be wall or stand mounted. They also had a very nice cut-away of the TV to reveal some of the components within. The soundbar and electronics are all packaged in the lower bulge. This features a 450-watt three-channel speaker system: a 1-inch 50-watt tweeter, two 2.5-inch 50-watt full-range drivers, and three 4-inch 100-watt midrange/woofers. The fabric speaker cover is offered in aluminum or in five colors: purple, green, gray, blue and black.
The Eclipse also comes with built-in Apple AirPlay, Bluetooth, DLNA and Chromecast for audio streaming from mobile devices, as well as LG’s WebOS 3.5 operating system. Unsurprisingly, it also supports multi-room audio with other B&O speakers.
Suggested retail is $10,990 (55-inch) and $15,990 (65-inch), with availability slated for next month.
The motorised stand can rotate the TV, but the eccentric motion moves the centre of the TV away from the wall as the TV rotates.
