THE QUARTERLY GRAND tour of company introduction for new Bang & Olufsen employees was up today. Having started at Bang & Olufsen just this January, I attended this all day event.
The introduction day included various speakers from the executives hall, a tour, and visiting various technical experts that did a “show and tell” on their respective area of expertise. All in all It was a really great and informative day.
Three things stand out from the day as having made huge impressions on me.
- The level of production quality control.
- Trying a BeoLab 3 “blind” sound test.
- A BeoLab 5 sound demonstration.
The production facilities were quite impressing, but especially the resources put into quality control was staggering! The company motto is “perfection, no less” (although in more words in the official slogan ;-)) and I begin to understand that they really mean it.
We attended a blind test where a curtain hid the speakers being used to play different types of music. I seriously would have bet my car on, that it could not be that same speakers playing both the classic piece and the rock music. The sound image portrayed by the speakers was so different, that I (as well as the other attendees in the group) was absolutely chocked to see two tiny BeoLab 3 being unveiled behind the curtain. Impressive and great fun.
The tour also included a stop in the Bang & Olufsen show room. The room featured a fully equipped home theater with a BeoVision 4, four Beolab 5 speakers, DVD player and CD player and then a Beo4 remote-control for controlling everything (including the lights, window shades, the door and the elevating projector screen). And whau! The sound coming out of those BeoLab 5 speakers was just amazing. Not matter what kind of music was played, or at what volume, they just played perfectly! As others have discovered before me no distortions are audible even when the volume is cranked to “eardrum popping levels”.
I was perfectly happy with my NAD T743 amplifier and my old Dali 104 speakers before today – sigh…
2 Comments
xmonk · 2008-03-31 at 4:52
When I was a kid, my parents had a Bang & Olufsen sound system, I used to listen to record on it every day, amazing system it was, kind of space age futuristic theme at least it was for the 70’s.
I like their music system a lot, being a musician and music lover, I’m always on the look out, however they are on the expensive side, and we don’t longer have a distributor in my country, so I haven’t auditioned the new line. Don’t kick the NAD they make killer amps and CD players, of course they might not be in the same league, this days there is a lot of good audiophile quality equipment in the market, China is producing some really nice equipment, and so is Japan at the boutique level.
I’m sure they give an employee discount, or at least I hope they do, so you might get one of those systems, and maybe write a review.
monzool · 2008-03-31 at 15:58
B&O indeed gives employee discounts and finance options, but a couple of BeoLab 5’s are still in the range of a decent used car (even given our 25% sales tax + 180% duty on cars) – thats somewhat out of the price range I want to spend on HIFI equipment.
:-/No biggie though. I’m happy enough with my NAD ampl. and was thinking of buying a NAD DVD player; although I guess buying a PlayStation 3 has taken priority now
;-)Comments are closed.