Bang & Olufsen: Technology with nice design
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
As visitors enter a room in the hifi outlet that is designed as a living room and sit casually on the sofa, Arief Hadianto presses a button on his remote control.
Within seconds, a wide screen rolls down from the ceiling, covering the wall in the front. At the same time, a section of the ceiling right above the sofa descends, exposing a projector.
Then, scenes from the spy movie Die Another Day appear on the wide screen.
"Welcome to BeoLiving. With one press on this remote control, we can transform this living room into a movie theater within seconds," said Arief, the general manager of the Bang & Olufsen (B&O) outlet, at the relaunch of the outlet at the Plaza Senayan shopping mall here recently.
The home theater -- consisting of Denmark's B&O audio set, U.S.-made Stewart screen and a Korean-made Samsung projector -- produces incredible sound and picture.
This BeoLiving room is part of the new design to provide customers with full access into B&O products. From this room, customers can experience the high-quality picture from the LCD TV or the wide screen as well as impressive sound from the audio system.
The impressive sound results from the B&O audio set -- a combination of two BeoLab 3 rear speakers, two BeoLab 6000 front speakers, a central speaker and a subwoofer.
A full sound spectrum, from the roaring jet engine to a clanging metal, can be heard from BeoLab 3 speakers.
Just 16.2cm x 13.5cm x 22.3cm in dimension, BeoLab 3 proves that it does not take a big box to produce 250 watts of astonishing sound. Besides, it is compact enough to fit in anywhere.
This incredible sound is made possible with the adoption of a built-in ICEpower amplifier and acoustic lens on top of it.
Meanwhile, Arief boasts that BeoLab 6000 is a speaker designed to be lived with and listened to.
Standing 110 cm tall and 10 cm in diameter, the slim column appears as a thin line in the air that assimilates neatly into any space.
What differentiates BeoLab speakers from others is that the heat released from BeoLab speakers is transformed into power to drive the amplifier.
"It is like the turbo system in a car engine. No other electronic brands have it, only B&O does," he boasted.
After watching the movie for a while, Arief then demonstrated another "attraction".
He said that B&O not only offered high-qualified sound, but also other advantages to customers. Users, for example, could watch movies from the living room, the library or the kitchen.
With only a smooth press on the remote control, the monitor of our computer in the library can display the same movie. The remote also enables us to watch the movie from a TV monitor in the kitchen.
According to Arief, the B&O can connect about 16 rooms without reducing the quality of the picture or sound.
Fueled with advanced technology, B&O has produced a wide range of home appliances, from television sets, CD players, radio, speakers and telephones.
Generally, the present product is a modification of the products from the past. The compact disc player called BeoSound 9000, for example, is a modification of a stereo set from the 1970s.
Having unique features, the BeoSound 9000 is an extraordinary CD player.
For example, the CDs always stop in exactly the same position as they are loaded. The control panel is changeable to best suit the chosen direction.
BeoSound 9000 can memorize the titles of up to 200 CDs and display them as they are played.
With all these features, people have to dig deep into their pockets. To bring home a 32-inch LCD television, customers have to lay out S$13,900 (the firm sets prices of its products here in Singapore dollars).
Meanwhile, the BeoSound 9000 CD player and BeoLab speaker cost S$8,575 and S$6,350 respectively.
Despite the expensive prices, Arief said he believed more customers would come and purchase B&O products. Moreover, the newly-design outlet would attract more customers.
So far, B&O has seen a steady growth of sales since it opened an outlet in 2001.
"Principally, with this new design we want to give customers more information and to show the performance of our products optimally," he added.