It's safe to say that Bang & Olufsen isn't about to trash its reputation for head-turning, high-end speaker design with the new BeoLab 90. Named in honor of the the Danish company's 90th anniversary, the gargantuan BeoLab 90 stands 4 feet (123.5 cm) tall, weighs in at over 300 pounds (137 kg) and delivers an earthshaking 8,200 watts through a complex array of drivers and amplifiers ... all for just under US$40,000.
This is a loudspeaker that breaks the traditional form. Buried within the beautiful 360-degree design are 18 speaker drivers (7 tweeters. 7 mid-range and 4 woofers), each with its own custom designed amplifier.
The BeoLab 90 isn't all about brute force though. Getting the best auditory experience in the home usually requires the careful placement of an assortment of amplifiers, drivers, soundbars and standalone bass units, but the BeoLab 90 is designed to turn that notion on its head. The key is a combination of technologies that take into account room acoustics and give the listener far more control over the actual direction and width of the sound that comes from the loudspeaker.
Active Room Compensation technology adjusts the sound output according to factors like room composition, furniture location, and the placement of the loudspeaker relative to where you’re sitting. In addition, Beam Width Control allows you to select a different "sweet spot" to suit different listening locations and the number of people in the room. These features, along with various presets, can be controlled using a smartphone app.
The BeoLab 90 sports an array of wired connections along with WiSA-compliant wireless connectivity, which uses the 5.2 - 5.8 GHz band for the transmission of uncompressed 24-bit wireless audio at sample rates of up to 96 kHz in.
All of this weighty performance doesn’t come cheap. Be prepared to shell out around US$78,000 for a pair of BeoLab 90's when they hit the market in mid-November. Yes, that’s almost 40 g’s each. Not the most expensive speaker we've seen by a long shot, but still, you could buy a decent car for that ... even though it probably wouldn’t sound as nice.
Source: Bang & Olufsen
