While using good but not extravagant speaker drivers in their $80,000 BeoLab 90 speaker system they have certainly achieved what are probably the most electronically complicated home speakers ever produced.
Borrowing technology professional makers such as Meyers Sound, JBL and others have been using for several years now, B&O has produced a loudspeaker with a user selectable radiation pattern or beam steering. Beem stearing technology can only be achieved with Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and an amplifier per loudspeaker driver. Those of you with expensive tube or solid state amplifiers will find yourselves scratching your heads and wondering where the speaker cables go.The real issue with this technology is that it's completely out of place in a home. If you were doing a travelling show, ending up in a different room each week, then this type of very high tech approach to sound steering makes sense, but in a fixed listening room, where you can adjust the location of the speakers and room treatments I'm still trying to find a reason for these being considered consumer devides.
The speakers are technically interesting and the array of high quality drivers and amplifiers alone would justify the cost but the styling is unforgivable. All I can think of is they remind me of a cross between a body bag and a Dalek from Dr. Who. B&O would have to pay ME rent if they wanted to keep a pair of these plywood refugees from a House of Horrors in my living room.
Honestly, don't they give you nightmares?
