Flappo The Grate:

the bv8 is £3k and doesn't have dvb-t as standard , in fact no bno tv does !!!

the beosound 3 is the biggest joke - no dab on a £500 portable radio . wtf are bno smoking in denmark ?? wacky baccy ??

Actually, the BV7-40 does, in the UK, although they've added this to the overall price of the TV, as standard :)

Flappo The Grate:

the beosound 3 is the biggest joke - no dab on a £500 portable radio . wtf are bno smoking in denmark ?? wacky baccy ??

Good point! Add that to the list of things I don't like about the B&O items I've bought - no DAB.

355f:

I think you have gone way over the top here!!

I agree with some of your points but what about the good products. Lab 3, 9, 5 BS3, BV9 believe me the technology in BS3 is NOT six years behind!!

Being positive here, I'd also agree with you. The BL3, BL9 and BL5 are superb, well-engineered and designed B&O objects. The BS3 is also great, although a tad overpriced perhaps (as a standalone product).

Flappo The Grate:

so you think a company that produces televisions without digital tv built in is up to the minute ?

especially such expensive ones with such limited connections - unless you spend £8k on a bv7/40 of course - or is it £9k ?

for the prices they charge bno gear should be 100% cutting edge , forget the fancy designs and the way diamonds cut the metal round the screen and all that twaddle

concentrate on making advanced equipment

all bno tv's should have a minimum of 3 hdmi's , 3 scarts , freeview built in and a  blu ray player built in

especially at £8k for a 40 inch lcd ... 

Flappo - I think you've hit the nail on the head here.

As someone who got interested in B&O through vintage gear, I can't seem to get my head around the current product line up. For sure the quality feel to the products is there and the design is nice to boot, but with the exception of the Beolab 5/9s, where's the cutting edge products in the rest of the AV range? Ok, I accept that B&O are going to have to source panels from third parties and may never truly keep step with the frantic pace of development in this area, but why is the Beosound 9000 still effectively the premier B&O audio source? I'm not for digital radio at all, and have ranted here before about how I feel as consumers we're being lead up the garden path with this medium, but to not put a DAB tuner in the Beosound 3 is tragically comical in today's marketplace.

When I go home and look at my Beomaster 8000 I see something there that, when it was new, was absolutely top-class - and though B&O have always differentiated their product range to cater for a (small) range of budgets, there's always been the top performer to get people interested in the brand in the first place. I'm sure B&O shifted lots of Beocentre 2002s in the early 80s on the backs of people dreaming about Beosystem 8000s, but how many people nowadays are going to be satisfied with a £500 Beosound 3 (analogue tuner) after walking into a B&O delaership yearning for a (12 year old design) Beosound 9000?

I think that the design and build quality will only count for so much when the technology in much of the packages is out of date, particularly given the price premium B&O seem to take for granted that they will be able to cream off when compared with their less prestigious competitors. I just hope that they arrest this slide sooner rather than later, otherwise the business will be increasingly supported by the premium speaker lines such as the Beolabs 5/9, as consumers demand a premium performance for a premium price.

i agree 100%

i don't hate bno , i love them , but they just seem to have lost the plot recently

stop trying to compete with apple's ipod , even sony couldn't win that one !

forget all the mobile phone stuff , let other bigger companies have that share of the cake

just concentrate on making the best a/v gear they can - as you said the bm8k was an amazing bit of kit , still is imo

that's the kind of stuff we want from bno

the beocentre 9000 , the beocord 8000 , the beosystem 5000 , cutting edge kit that not only looked amazing but was amazing inside too !

 if i want a mobile or an mp3 player , bno is the last place i'd go , looks like the uk market agrees with me too 

j0hnbarker:

Flappo The Grate:

so you think a company that produces televisions without digital tv built in is up to the minute ?

especially such expensive ones with such limited connections - unless you spend £8k on a bv7/40 of course - or is it £9k ?

for the prices they charge bno gear should be 100% cutting edge , forget the fancy designs and the way diamonds cut the metal round the screen and all that twaddle

concentrate on making advanced equipment

all bno tv's should have a minimum of 3 hdmi's , 3 scarts , freeview built in and a  blu ray player built in

especially at £8k for a 40 inch lcd ... 

Flappo - I think you've hit the nail on the head here.

As someone who got interested in B&O through vintage gear, I can't seem to get my head around the current product line up. For sure the quality feel to the products is there and the design is nice to boot, but with the exception of the Beolab 5/9s, where's the cutting edge products in the rest of the AV range? Ok, I accept that B&O are going to have to source panels from third parties and may never truly keep step with the frantic pace of development in this area, but why is the Beosound 9000 still effectively the premier B&O audio source? I'm not for digital radio at all, and have ranted here before about how I feel as consumers we're being lead up the garden path with this medium, but to not put a DAB tuner in the Beosound 3 is tragically comical in today's marketplace.

When I go home and look at my Beomaster 8000 I see something there that, when it was new, was absolutely top-class - and though B&O have always differentiated their product range to cater for a (small) range of budgets, there's always been the top performer to get people interested in the brand in the first place. I'm sure B&O shifted lots of Beocentre 2002s in the early 80s on the backs of people dreaming about Beosystem 8000s, but how many people nowadays are going to be satisfied with a £500 Beosound 3 (analogue tuner) after walking into a B&O delaership yearning for a (12 year old design) Beosound 9000?

I think that the design and build quality will only count for so much when the technology in much of the packages is out of date, particularly given the price premium B&O seem to take for granted that they will be able to cream off when compared with their less prestigious competitors. I just hope that they arrest this slide sooner rather than later, otherwise the business will be increasingly supported by the premium speaker lines such as the Beolabs 5/9, as consumers demand a premium performance for a premium price.

The problem is that a company with just a premium speaker or audio line will not survive in this business, they need to be an av company to stay in the game.

The pricing structure will have to be revisited, the premuim attached to the products is far to high and now we have a canyon of devide on pricing that even the wealthy are begining to question.

As i mentioned in an earlier post, many dealers have survived selling bl8000, bs9000 and bv7- some of these designs are 17 years old with no siginificant mods to date- this is bad news for a technology business!!

Flappo The Grate:

so you think a company that produces televisions without digital tv built in is up to the minute ?

especially such expensive ones with such limited connections - unless you spend £8k on a bv7/40 of course - or is it £9k ?

for the prices they charge bno gear should be 100% cutting edge , forget the fancy designs and the way diamonds cut the metal round the screen and all that twaddle

concentrate on making advanced equipment

all bno tv's should have a minimum of 3 hdmi's , 3 scarts , freeview built in and a  blu ray player built in

especially at £8k for a 40 inch lcd ... 

i agree with you flappo 110%, direct to the point,they already preach how 3 scart in the avant was the way to go why did not b&o  practice what they preach ,lets go back to basic television, vision is crap for the money but the speakers& remote controller are good eh???, i paid 6k+ for bv7-32 is not even worth half of that!!!!and to someone from b&o to tell me it was a bargain literally the dvd was threw in the in the price is laughable.i think enough rope was given to b&o to hang themself i am sorry but that is how i feel ,i have the money to buy their products waiting but not convinced to spend it on out of date products and miss match  too!!!

ed7:

Flappo The Grate:

so you think a company that produces televisions without digital tv built in is up to the minute ?

especially such expensive ones with such limited connections - unless you spend £8k on a bv7/40 of course - or is it £9k ?

for the prices they charge bno gear should be 100% cutting edge , forget the fancy designs and the way diamonds cut the metal round the screen and all that twaddle

concentrate on making advanced equipment

all bno tv's should have a minimum of 3 hdmi's , 3 scarts , freeview built in and a  blu ray player built in

especially at £8k for a 40 inch lcd ... 

i agree with you flappo 110%, direct to the point,they already preach how 3 scart in the avant was the way to go why did not b&o  practice what they preach ,lets go back to basic television, vision is crap for the money but the speakers& remote controller are good eh???, i paid 6k+ for bv7-32 is not even worth half of that!!!!and to someone from b&o to tell me it was a bargain literally the dvd was threw in the in the price is laughable.i think enough rope was given to b&o to hang themself i am sorry but that is how i feel ,i have the money to buy their products waiting but not convinced to spend it on out of date products and miss match  too!!!

 

Why did you pay 6K for a 32 BV7 if you feel it was only worth half that????

Surely you should have voted with your fett and not bought it in the first place!

i had good experience with b&o previously and my heart ruled my head but sold it after a month lol

Once again I agree with Flappo. He says it like it is. Thank god the emperors new clothes are being seen for what they are.

I think that due to the extreme overpricing they did with television-sets it is their own fault that things are going so bad now.

 

They have lost a lot of television-set buyers like me.

And when people are gone and changed their home configuration to some other brand, it is hard to get them back.

Bingo:

And when people are gone and changed their home configuration to some other brand, it is hard to get them back.

Exactly like my landlords who, worryingly, are archetypal B&O customers. Late 40s, property porfolio of 8 flats in Bath, do not really understand modern technology and from the generation who keep their electrical appliances for as long as possible and will always fix/repair, rather than replace.

They have a BeoVision 1 and a 2004-model BeoVision 6. They wanted a TV for their new workout room. As previous B&O customers, their first port-of-call was B&O. They quickly realised that a basic 32" LCD TV would cost them a minimum of £2800, compared to something like £700 for a top-end Sony, which also included installation. They went back to B&O and were told that no negotiation or discounts were available (apart from putting the purchase on the Virtuoso 12-month interest free credit).

They went with the Sony and, to be fair, the picture quality is good through DVB-T.

They won't be going back to B&O and can't understand why I've just invested in a £8.8K BV7-40, when that would be a deposit on a 1-bed flat.

I think B&O needs to go one of two ways.

It can retreat into the pure high-end selling even more expensive products with high margins. That doesn't mean charging more for the current tange of products, but making sure that the next generation of products are good enough  appeal more strongly to people willing to spend 20-30k or more  on a Home Entertainment system.

The other way is to make more accessible products. This is a complicated decision as lower-priced items would have insufficent margins to allow the same levels of customer service that you expect with the high-end stuff.

Currently prices are too high for what you get, and that does not bode well in the long term.

 

Simon

moxxey:

They won't be going back to B&O and can't understand why I've just invested in a £8.8K BV7-40, when that would be a deposit on a 1-bed flat.

 I agree with your landlords on that one! Is the difference between a mid-range flat panel (or recent Avant-DVD) and your BV7-40 so great that you would pass up the opportunity to get on the property ladder just to own the better TV?

 Simon

The advent of flat screen TV has been a big problem for them. There are only so many things - design wise - that can be done with a flat screen, unlike the old CRTs. Another problem is that the LCD technology they use is really, really poor, compared with CRT and even plasma. Their pictures are very ordinary and the prices are way too high now for what is not particularly good technology. They need to get a niche again.

 

Where`s the love??

 Sorry to say this, but it seems to me that almost everything B&O does get you all hyped up with negativity. I remember when the first pictures of BL 3 & BL 9 was showed on this site, a lot of you hated the design, but now they are praised by you for both design and sonic quality. B&O has been as long as I can remember a luxury brand, it`s the Louis Vuitton of hifi. I love my B&O gear, I know can get better for less money, but that is not what I want. I love the integration, the quality, the design, the wow factor when I have guests. So to all of you who complain, don`t buy B&O, buy boose or nad or whatever... this is a site for fans!

"Where`s the love??"

Lost in space.

"Sorry to say this, but it seems to me that almost everything B&O does get you all
hyped up with negativity."

You know, if there are so much people says negativity about them from the fan club - what do You expect from the others? I think it worth 
at least a minute to think about it at B&O headquarters.

"B&O has been as long as I can remember a luxury brand, it`s the Louis Vuitton of hifi."

I can't even agree on it. First of all, the expensive prices not mean luxury, and secondly - 
a hifi is usually not only a trendy thing. 

"I love the integration, the quality, the design, the wow factor when I have guests."

Real strange arguments for me, because the integration is on of the biggest miss against to the former products range. The quality - IMHO - still 
not the same, the design is more trandy then timeless. The Wow factor? I've always 
receive it when somebody see the old fashioned B&O products. I really do not think,
a wow factor (like: "You really can afford it?") is the same as a WOW factor ("which
is coming from the surprise, when somebody firstly can see and touch a Beolink 7000
remote, the floor stand, the wall charger, the sliding doors of the former product range, 
and also the motorised TV stands...").

"So to all of you who complain, don`t buy B&O, buy boose or nad or whatever...
this is a site for fans!"

You are totally lost the point IMHO. I don't know how many B&O products You have,
but I already have a dozen pieces. Is it enough to be a fan, or do I really need to purchase
something I don't like to be as trandy, as the winter fashion in LV?

I offer You a bet in blind:

Find a girl, who never seen a B&O product. Put a Samsung sticker on any new line B&O
product, and simply hide the B&O logo on the Serenata/Serene. Tell him how much they
costs. Ask her what she thinks about these products, and about You. I think, 
she will call You a little bit crazy to spend so much money to a Korean product. For such
a huge money, why don't You purchase some branded product jut like a Nokia?

And let's forget the iPod... iPhone and so on...

Now, put the Samsung sticker onto an old fashioned B&O product. For example onto
a Beocenter 9500 with a Beolab 5000, or even onto a Beosystem 2300/2500/3000/3200.
Ask her to open it. She will fell in love immediately. And she will be surprised about the
system, because she never ever thought that Samsung created these kind of products.

In another, last way:

Which system looks more luxuryar? A full AV9000, or, or... where is the full, up to date 
system now? If You put them together, will it look like at least as luxury? IMHO, no. 

For the record, I'am really happy, that You like the current product range. If I were the
only one, who doesn't like them, then usually it used to be my problem. But when the
company losses so much on the shares, and lost a lots of customers, have no new
technical solutions... then, I think, it's not just a bad thing for the "old fashioned" fan
club, but it's a real bad news for the new line lovers also.

And, for last, I have a real bad feeling about these kind of ideas: "I will say, who is the real
fan, and if he doesn't agree with me, then he can go away".

A real fan club is not about hyping, but talking.

To say, you myst love it, or You can leave it is not an argument, but fate. But for me,
it's clearly shows the REAL problem. About some years ago, there were real arguments
why to purchase a B&O. About 10-20 years ago, there was nothing to compare to B&O. 
In this way, with this fast erosion, the former market and technology leading company went 
down to the "ugly" high-end way to became a religion, which needs a blind fate in the brand?

No questions, no comparisation, but believe or leave?

I think this is the totally wrong way, with a dead end.

Of course, IMHO.

Agree with what has been already said and can only from my own perspective say that I've looked into getting a new TV-set but the price range that B&O has on the larger screen kind of puts me off. And so does the some of the new design of the products; while I have to admit that one often has to learn and like the new product design. For example I really like BeoCenter 6 and would love to see a larger version of it while the current models are to small for a living room. Also I find that BeoCenter 6 for me is a continuity of MX sets. Currently have a MX6000 and MX4200 that I just love and they will be used for several years due to all the flaws and hassle with digital tuners. While BeoVision 8 isn't really my cup of tea and it's hard to accept the design of it.

When speaking of audio system really liked the looks of BeoCenter 2; but it will never replace BeoSound 3200 or BeoSound 9000 (also already pointed out in this thread - what about learning something about what customers actually are buying?) and where I think from a design point BeoSound 4 is a disaster since it's way too anonymous and boring. There is nothing at all with that product that one way or another gets my mind puzzled with how it works or the mechanics behind it. BeoSound 3 I kind of like while it's a bit neutral, but still a great piece of equitment that easy to fit in and has an impressing output even if it's mono. BeoSound 2 I just love; it's to raw and without lots of crappy feature and best of all - I can make use of SD-cards.

As already said I hope that B&O goes backs to the roots what they stand for great design and high quality using great material. While I actually like the new BeoSound 5. But, as said already, put a Samsung or any other asian label on it and most people would notice; while doing the same on a BeoSound 9000. I'm quite sure that stunt wouldn't work. And that might also be the issue here, also mentioned by David Lewis in an interview at B&O home page; design today is all about small and minimalistics and it then starts to get a bit hard to make design that points out; while I still think that BeoSound 2 is a proof of small design item actually works. For example how much design will David Lewis be able to do on a 3-5 mm thick OLED screen...

Going back to basic is a need for B&O and it might be worth mentioning Danish LEGO here that had some really bad years lately and with a new CEO they've gone back to basic and classic lego and actually listened to they customers and fans. They've actually gone that far to hire people from they fan sites as ambassadors and product testers. Something for B&O to consider as well.

kimhav:

Going back to basic is a need for B&O and it might be worth mentioning Danish LEGO here that had some really bad years lately and with a new CEO they've gone back to basic and classic lego and actually listened to they customers and fans. They've actually gone that far to hire people from they fan sites as ambassadors and product testers. Something for B&O to consider as well.

This is a fantastic idea. Do we know if the new guy in charge may think this way? I would like to think he's really working on all these problems. I'd like to see them get away from being a luxury brand to being a Danish brand again. 

spthomas:

 I'd like to see them get away from being a luxury brand to being a Danish brand again. 

I must say, this is one of the better statements. I agree. 

Strong luxury lobby in mgt, I'm afraid. Be interesting to see what the new boss aims for, though the €100.000 BeoVision seems to be an answer, or?

Let's hope the 100.000e Beovision is a leftover.

concerning the bv8 i thought it had a commercial grade panel from sharpe that would add cost and its supposed to be assembled in europe the speakers are also bl4 standard that would add cost regards the bv7 that has a commercial grade panel

when i compared the bv7 in a dealer in 32 inch and 40 inch (non bs3) it was amazing on bbc hd way better than the lcd sony 200hz and pioneeer lcd

although i try to compare with other makes i dont feel there is any comparison -  rolls royce of tvs

 

does any body now the uk best sellers iam told its bv7 followed by bv8 not many plasmas sold

also what hifi and speakers are big sellers