Bang & Olufsen's BeoSound 5 music server / controller demoed on video
By Darren Murph 
posted Feb 8th 2009 11:19PM
posted Feb 8th 2009 11:19PM
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you can criticize that and say how stupid it is for the money, but there's no denying. that thing is HAWT!
Are we looking at the same demo? What exactly am I missing here? It's a silver knob and a black-ish display showing tiny text. It's about the most boring menu I've seen in awhile.
it may be boring, but it's simple and that's what i like. moreover, it appears to be very responsive with some nice graphics. i dunno. to me it seems like a lot of thought went into it. it absolutely absolutely absolutely isnt worth 6k, tho.
These guys make amazing sound systems. But they should have hired Apple or Google for the interface. Apple and Google are really the only two companies that know how to keep things stupidly simple and impressive at the same time.
Wow, talk about the answer to the question no one asked. Why not just use an Airport Express or Sonos with the iPhone/iPod touch as a remote control? More functionality at a fraction of the price.
B&O: banking on the fact some people have more money than brains.
@ Quix
know your role, and shut your mouth. Jabroni.
These products are one of a kind this is Bang & Olufsen not Monster Cables.
^
douche.
^
Has Aids.
Wow, I'm heavily unimpressed. I'm actually so unimpressed, it's impressive. Why's this almost 6k again?
Because it's from a company called "bang and olufsen"....if that doesn't ring a bell, it means you're buying aesthetic literally.
.......Think of it another way, you pay me $6K for my name 'Jimmy Jones' and It's yours to display forever..... come to think about it, I can actually sell you my name as we speak for less .....for say $1500..that's a lot of discount my friend...and you'll get touchscreen with that as well as wifi streaming for free
Well, it is almost half the price of the Sooloos server, plus it's got that B&O aesthetic, if you're into matching components. It might not fit everybody's decorative taste, but I like it. Of course, if you don't already have the BeoMaster 5, you really don't need to worry about buying it...the BeoSound 5 won't work without it.
Please don't make me spend another thread explaining B&O's place in the audiophile spectrum...
Its expensive so yuppies like you don't get a hold of items like that.
There is definitely a market for that artsy fartsy, expensive, B & O shit.
I knew an audiophile that told me B & O was,"nice looking shit".
There is a B and O(I'm tired of shifting to write that fancy AND thing) in my hometown mall and there is never any one in that place. But the local Sound Advice just down the street is going out of business. Never saw any one in there either.
I just hope you got something better than those silly 128kbps mp3's
I'm waiting for the system that will let me digitally archive my multi-channel SACDs and DVD-As.
Any suggestions?
well truth be told, the sac-cd thing was before my time, so i suppose if you can turn them into .WAV files, it's as close as you'll get. but as far as im concerned it isn't possible, not in a consumer oriented method anyways, its a shame really.
I didn't mean that as a personal challenge, but thanks for the reply. I understand multichannel hi-resolution audio isn't popular with today's iPod toting demographic, but it's a long way from dead with continuing releases in all genres. Considering many DVD (and many Blu-Ray) players are SACD capable, you should dip your toe into the waters...
if i'm spending that much money i'd rather have a touchscreen
I just hope the asking $bang for this won't break my bank....just cuz I wanted the best gadget music device and I couldn't find anything else to do with my $bang
Does it come with nice B&O speakers?
b&o, when you just need to show everyone you have enough cash to just set some on fire to watch it burn.
Isn't that thing going to fall over? Or do B&O supply a nice stand for another thousand bucks?
That's why I like apple. It gives you premium design and nice UI for much less =)
In exchange for mediocre sound quality. Unless you're macking a Wadia iTransport...
The guys behind pokemon did this first. xD take a look at the 4th Generation pokedex... works pretty similar to me!!
Yes, I still like pokemon.
Yes, I'm asian.
Ok, stop asking more questions!
We didn't ask you anything, Pikachu ..
Easily the slowest news Saturday Engadget has seen. I mean how many stories where they? 3?
I wish we had more pre-MWC news...
Strangely, the last time I actually saw a B&O system was in an investment banker's office...
Did they use the Palm Touchstone as a base for the display?
Microsoft: Function over design
Apple: Design meets function
Bang & Olufsen: What is function?
B&O make sexy and overpriced products. What I don't get is, why doesn't some other mainstream company come up with similar designs at a cheaper price? I bought the B&O 9000 CD player because I wanted a good looking cd player in my living room. Wanted to buy something cheaper but no-one sells anything like that. B&O can afford to charge this because strangely, no-one tries to beat them at their own game. Strange.
Cheap = tawdry, B&O go for the rich into-art crowd and they sell at low volume for high prices but unlike many others that do they actually put some quality in the mix too.
And there are artsy fancy looking cheap devices from other companies, but since only few people buy a non-mainstream design only few shops bother stocking them.
So get out the dremel and start practising making your own designs if you want something less boring and mainstream.
Yeah well, nice looking B&O stuff does stuff for a lot of money. B&O tends to have timeless designs, employing great materials in superb engineering feats, resulting in products that are a pleasure to use for decades. In this case though, I would rather employ the lauded Apple setup, so Airport Express + whatever you choose to control iTunes remotely. Much more versatile, much more discreet, much cheaper. You could have a dedicated Mac mini + obscenely big external drive and even if you decided to use a Macbook Air exclusively as a remote you would still be miles away from the price of this. All with minimum tinkering. But that is sanity speaking. If you can afford this without effort, you won't care too much about alternatives.
i played with one the other night at our B&O store, omg so nice, if i had the money....
Looks flimsy.
I think it's funny that a bunch of the Engadget readers who have commented above don't realize that they're not B&O's target market. At all. Or even close.
B&O has nothing to do with techno-geeks who hack their Linux kernels and case mod their XBOXes. It's not about what you can smash together with a bunch of stuff you can buy at the Circuit City going out of business sale in between rounds of WoW.
B&O makes high-design, stylish products that fit well into the homes of the extremely affluent. They also cater to people who are not technophiles, even though they are very successful in their chosen field (whatever that is).
What you should realize is, there's a big market for building things that are elegant and easy for non-technical people to use. Just because it doesn't appeal to you, does not mean that it sucks.