Bang & Olufsen’s Newest Home Speaker Can Fill Up a Room—and Also Make It Look Better

Martin Lerma
·2 min read

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Bang & Olufsen is synonymous with a particular kind of Danish design that’s as spare as it is functional, and the audio company’s newest home speaker embodies that design ethos.

Inspired by the simplicity of everyday interior objects, the Beosound Balance is among the more elegant speakers you might find on the market. Its streamlined two-part silhouette features an upper speaker area covered in a textural knit fabric, while the base is carved from handsome, solid-oak hardwood. The base unit houses the speaker’s control system, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at it. That’s because the control interface is effectively invisible; it lights up when someone approaches or touches it—allowing the user to adjust volume or music choice—and then disappears completely when the user walks away. The lights dim and only the smooth surface is left visible.

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Of course, the sound’s the thing with any Bang & Olufsen speaker. Though modest in scale, the speaker houses seven drivers capable of delivering room-filling volume. Those drivers are complemented by not one but two opposing woofers that promise powerful bass and also help eliminate any undue vibrations. With this ensemble, the speaker offers two discrete modes: omnidirectional sound (for when you want to bring some boom to the room), as well as a setting geared for more ambient, background sound (because we all need to do homework now and then).

Designed in collaboration with Benjamin Hubert from the British industrial design studio LAYER, the Beosound Balance was intended to be a premium speaker elegant enough to display alongside your favorite furniture. Gavin Ivester, Bang & Olufsen’s vice president of design, described the genesis of the speaker this way: “The vision with Beosound Balance is to make the speaker feel like an extension of the atmosphere in the home—reflecting the place it is in and the person using it. The design is both sensorial and tactile, with a look and feel driven by high-quality interior craftsmanship and materials, as well as highly innovative.”

You can judge whether the brand succeeded for yourself. The Beosound Balance is now available for purchase for $2,250, and you can learn more about it on the brand’s website.

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