New Loudspeaker Eliminates Distortive Influence

fejrskov writes "The Danish audio/video company 'Bang & Olufsen' announced a new loudspeaker which promises to eliminate the bad influence from walls, floors and ceilings on the sound. This is achieved by using two technologies: ALT (Acoustic Lens Technology) uses sound dispersing lenses to make sound travel equally in all directions. ABC (Adaptive Bass Control) involves sliding a tiny microphone out at the base of the speaker, playing a series of test sounds, and adapting the bass according to the measured acoustic response. Each active loudspeaker contains amplifiers for a total of 2500W (!) output using B&O's patented ICEPower concept. The price? Approximately 55.000 Danish kroner (8.000 Euro) each."

Comments

Quite the look

[Oculus Habent]

Wow, the BeoLab 5 is one unique speaker. Aside from the price tag I couldn't afford if I wanted, I wouldn't have anywhere to put it. It's much more intrusive than the BeoLab 6000, but then, if you can afford 16.000 Euro for the speakers, you can probably re-design the room to match.

Additional note: the first B&O page linked has some display issues on Safari.

What about 'Sony'?

[Ponty]

I hear they make 'stereo' equipment as well.

Seriously, though. I listened to some very, very expensive B&O speakers in their showroom, and I was astonished at how awful they sounded. No midrange and bass everywhere. Maybe it's just my ears, but it would take a vast improvement for me to ever consider spending that much money on their speakers.

What would rule

[Evil Adrian]

What would REALLY be neat is if they could make microphones that weren't affected by room dimensions, walls, etc. Doing home recordings can be a giant pain, especially when recording drums... the room contributes so much to the sound, and since most home musicians can't afford gigantic rooms, you wind up recording in a tiny room which, for those of you that know acoustics, makes things very boomy and difficult to control. Then we have to go and spend hundreds of dollars on bass traps for the room corners, which still don't fix the problem, they just make it less noticable... sigh.

What does this do that a serious audiophile can't?

[mhesseltine]

Seriously, "acoustic lens" is just a fancy term for a horn, something that has been used for years to control dispersion and distortion. Also, a mic extended from the base to measure the low-end response? Has anyone heard of a Real Time Analyzer (RTA)? Linear X makes a PC based RTA for around $900 (PCRTAjr). If you can afford a $16,000 pair of speakers, you can afford to buy an RTA to set it up, or find a dealer that has one.

Uses?

[DarkBlackFox]

Are these loudspeakers designed for use in say, a PA system? Or for use in home theater, or theater theater? Perhaps for DJing purposes? What exactly is it intended to do that a well equalized set of JBL speakers can't produce?

Seems like it's only prominant feature is the ability to produce 360 degree sound, but for that price, you could easily get 5 or 6 high quality speakers and arrange them in a circle.

The flash based site doesn't yield any useful specs either.

Bose already has something similar

[bluestar]

Check out the latest Bose Lifestyle systems with Adapti-Q(sp?).

They include special "headphones" (microphones you wear on your head). You sit in five locations where you normally listen to music/movies and play the special CD. It listens to itself and adapts the system to your living room. Yes, the change is clearly audible.

It also means your speakers don't have to be in a perfect rectangle. Place them anywhere you want and it will adapt.

I got the Lifestyle 35 (integrated DVD/AM/FM) for $3000 US. RF remote, sounds awesome and the speakers are *tiny*.

Re:Bose already has something similar

[rabtech]

Bose sells cheap crap made in china... Paper cones, inferior woofers, etc. They are selling moderate home theater gear at high prices, all based on some gee-whiz marketing and most folks don't know any better.

I promise you, $3,000 spent could get you something much better than the same money spent on a Bose system.

P.S. that little microphone gimmick is just that, without reference grade microphones to run the measurements with.

think I'm full of it? Go post on some of the pro audio newsgroups, or check the forums at www.prosoundworld.com. Heck, even ask around on some of the home theater groups. Or ask the folks at FOH magazine. People that make their bread & butter dealing with sound. People who have real equipment that can accurately measure system response. People who do real research.

All of them will tell you that Bose is overpriced mediocre gear. Most people buy Bose and think bose is cool because of the marketing. They wouldn't know dbspl from dbv if you knocked them upside the head with an audio textbook.

Re:8.000 Euro vs 8,000 Euro

[Idarubicin]

Then I remembered that European countries have the odd habit of using decimal points to seperate thousands rather than commas... blah.

As I understand it, SI recognizes the ambiguity of the decimal vs. the place value separator. I believe that the encouraged convention is to use a nonbreaking space every three digits to mark place values--this way, either a comma or a period marks a decimal. No ambiguity.

As an aside, the European system makes more sense from a design standpoint. You use the smallest possible symbol (period) to mark groups of three digits. The most important place value you tag with a larger symbol (comma), so it stands out. For the record, I grew up in Canada, and we use the 'American' convention for decimals.

Of course, real /.ers should use scientific notation for everything.