Mike Agerbo: Well if you’re looking to break of an audio here, I can’t think of a better brand than Bang & Olufsen.
AJ Vickery: Well nobody makes stuff as beautiful as these guys. They definitely make some of the most premium sound and video product on the marketplace.
Mike Agerbo: We’re going to have a look at a few different components here including some speakers, TV and also this music player as well. Right off the bat, this is the BeoSound 4. This is actually a CD in a digital music player with a built-in radio tuner as well.
And again, this is all just beautiful gear. You can see AJ has put his hand underneath there and it automatically recognizes as it lifts up the controls.
AJ Vickery: I think what these guys is more about – I mean it’s more than just looks too, it also – so the design feature and how you interact with it –
Mike Agerbo: The function here.
AJ Vickery: Yeah, the function is a piece that you want to have in your house.
Mike Agerbo: So right on the front here, you can see – we’ve got the two controls here. Here’s the volume and this is to select things like tracks. It’s got a built-in digital music player so it takes SD cards. As you can see, you got your digital music on here. Also a built-in CD player and they – and the radio as well.
AJ Vickery: And the radio as well and you simply just press the load button and you can put the CDs in there to load it. So again, a very cool design.
Mike Agerbo: And you can also hit the record function and it’ll record or rip all the tracks off your CD right on to the SD card which is a nice feature. But you know as far as the sound quality, it’s pretty doing good and you know the price point – it’s up there. It’s about $3400, you know when you compare that to a lot of other high-end stereo equipment. And yes, it is a premium but you’re paying for the components inside as well but also the design and the form.
AJ Vickery: Absolutely. And one of the things that we should note here is part of that incredible sound is actually coming out of the speakers here, which are sold separately. The speakers have a price point of about $4600, so a high-end premium speaker. But let’s take a look at the few reasons why they cost so much.
First of all, the design in them, again superior bang & Olufsen always does an incredible design. They also have 250 watts per speaker and this is pretty incredible to see a speaker especially this size. They have a 125 watt active driver and then they’ve also got 125 watt twitter, if your true audio file is spending this kind of dollars on speakers, you probably will go with like a subwoofer. But again, just on their own incredible sound.
Mike Agerbo: Yeah, and up here on the twitters got an acoustic lens that it’ll spread the sound at 180 degrees and you know you were talking about spreading that sound. Now typically with speakers, they’re kind of directional with that 180 degrees, it makes kind of the whole room a sweet spot essentially.
And if you want to take things on the road, they’ve got the BeoSound 2, but this is basically a digital music player. You can stick an SD cards here on the back. As you can see, just lift up the lid. And great audio – it comes with some really high-end headphones as well in this fit right over the ear. And again, you can see the design that’s gone into this.
AJ Vickery: Yeah. And one of the things that Bang & Olufsen have done, you can see on the back here. They’ve gone with the SD card for the media player as well. So the idea is, as you recorded your songs on to your little player in your home system, now you take it as Mike said on the road with you into your Mp3 player. Again, design functionality – quite a beautiful little player.
Mike Agerbo: So again, I think it have to be in the design. I think this particular Mp3 player, digital music player goes for you know in the $500 price range and obviously, you can compare that to iPod. You can get like two or three iPods, that price.
But you know, if you’re someone into design and a real-end audio file, it’s something that you might want to have a look at. Well let’s have a look at their TV.
This is a 32-inch LCD screen and again, the price point we’re looking – I think around $4500.
AJ Vickery: Sure, for 32 inches.
Mike Agerbo: For 32 inches. Probably notice one thing right of the bat as far as the overall picture quality, it’s got really nice contrast. You can really see the blacks on that, that’s one of the limitations of a lot of LCD screens on the market. And what Bang & Olufsen has done to you know take advantage of having this higher contrast is putting a high gloss screen over top of that.
You’re going to get more reflection happening on the screen. But you know, if you’re in a room that doesn’t have a lot of ambient like coming in, it really does improve the picture quality.
AJ Vickery: Yeah, and it is a 720p television, so again an HD signal – it’s not 1080p but at 720p in a 32-inch monitor size, it does help keep that cost down. And once again, the cost on this television is about $4500 –
Mike Agerbo: No again the premium but – also, you got to take into account the speakers on this. It’s got the front speaker happening on the unit here and on the bottom, it’s got a bass driver as well. So you know, if you wanted to put this in the bedroom or you know second room, a nice – you don’t have to worry about hooking up a whole bunch of speakers and receivers and things like that.
AJ Vickery: They definitely are a higher end type of thing that you’d want to have it in household. So it’s just as much as about the performance as it is about the design.
Mike Agerbo: So, you can get this for a Christmas for me?
AJ Vickery: Yeah, exactly.
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