355f:

well im talking more of a worldwide situation than the Uk  market specially. The case you mentioned is rather unique in any event individuals feel less wealthy when its clear house prices are not moving up! and all audio brands i know in the prestige sector are feeling the ill wind blowing. In any event the B&O pricing strategy makes seriously wealthy individuals think about the pruchase and if it is wise to 'invest' in BnO.

One thing I was thinking of is that the Beovision 8 may appear to us to be poor value, but not to the average customer (incl my brother, who is in to his gadgets). The irony is that, to him and many others, the BV8 appears to be 'good value' compared to other B&O TVs. The point I was trying to make above is that DVD players cost £50. Blu-ray standalone DVD players cost £300. B&O are charging £2800 for the Beocenter 2, which is effectively an analogue-based DVD player. It can't upscale, it has no HDMI output etc, yet was only revised in the second half of this year. It's products such as this that makes potential customers wince - as how can you justify the value of this device?

I must admit, you're completely right about the BV4 though. I completely forgot that this costs £12,000, which is effectively a Panasonic 50" screen worth £2000 (empiredirect.co.uk), plus a BS3, which has now been built in to the BV7-40 and really isn't worth more than £2K. The BV4 + BS3 combo should be around £6K tops. I recently evaluated buying a BV4-50, BS3 and BL9's. The price was around £17K, for a plasma screen, a box to relay the image and mid-range speakers.

I agree. to be successful during what looks as if it will be a recession, B&O have to offer something that is unique, and repackaged products will not be enough. Products akin to the Beosound 9000 and AV9000 which stood out as something different are needed. I do hope the Beosound 5 will be such a product - but I am not sure!

I think that, in the hardware sense, the games lies squarely in the speaker arena. All media is now digital (terrestial TV, CD, Streamed/stored music/video from internet or server etc). B&O have set their stall out with active speakers only and so it would make sense to me to incorporate the final conversion process in the speakers themselves as in the BL5 thus minimising the number of data conversions and preserving the integrity of the source data. I see little point in a Full B&O system of providing a high quality analogue source for use with BL5's - what is required is, in essence, a digital mixer than can accept all the various digital audio sources, control them seamlessy and can distribute them as required in your particular system. This would, for me, be the Beosound 5 (this does not disclude the BS5 from having a drive for reading of CD's or other disc based data)

Peter:

I agree. to be successful during what looks as if it will be a recession, B&O have to offer something that is unique, and repackaged products will not be enough. Products akin to the Beosound 9000 and AV9000 which stood out as something different are needed. I do hope the Beosound 5 will be such a product - but I am not sure!

I am not getting my hopes up about the BeoSound 5 at all. Looking at the clues from the Star of the Day competition it seems to me it's modelled on the BeoSound 3 in terms of the buttons, wheels, colour and general styling. This adds nothing to the range from a design perspective so it will only be what it offers in features that will give it a chance of selling. This will be a good chance for those customers who choose functionality over design. While most of us would hope to get both functionality and a unique design, I feel this isn't going to come into fruition given B&Os offerings in recent years. This then leaves an easy choice for people and I suspect there will be just as many who, like me, would choose design over functionality, hence they will not end up buying the BS5, regardless of its functionality. We will see.

Simon.

The Beonic Man:

I am not getting my hopes up about the BeoSound 5 at all...

Simon.

It sounds like it's going to be darned expensive, too. Now, from what I can understand, it sounds like a BeoMedia type app, within a controllable and good looking exterior. Fine, but that sounds like another overpriced BeoCenter 2 to me. Apart from being able to drive my B&O speakers, it doesn't sound like it will be able to offer anything I can't already control and manage from my iMac. At the moment, I can manage my music in iTunes, stream to an Airport Express through the house and then connect directly to my B&O equipment.

The BeoSound 5 is going to he have to do something rather funky to draw attention for the price point previously mentioned.

Yes, I too think that the Beosound 5 when it finally does arrive will be a bit of a disappointment. After what seems to be an etrenity of waiting for it to be released.

 

Craig

moxxey:

The Beonic Man:

I am not getting my hopes up about the BeoSound 5 at all...

Simon.

It sounds like it's going to be darned expensive, too. Now, from what I can understand, it sounds like a BeoMedia type app, within a controllable and good looking exterior. Fine, but that sounds like another overpriced BeoCenter 2 to me. Apart from being able to drive my B&O speakers, it doesn't sound like it will be able to offer anything I can't already control and manage from my iMac. At the moment, I can manage my music in iTunes, stream to an Airport Express through the house and then connect directly to my B&O equipment.

The BeoSound 5 is going to he have to do something rather funky to draw attention for the price point previously mentioned.

I have a nasty feeling that you are correct. Having now experienced the delights of two way communication with my iTunes using my iPod Touch as a remote, I am not convinced that it will offer me anything more - or even as good. I am however very happy to be proved wrong!