Bang & Olufsen BeoPlay A9.

Bang and Olufsen continue the expansion of their BeoPlay range with the announcement yesterday of yet another unusual looking wireless speaker system, in fact, on the face of things Bang & Olufsen have released for their BeoPlay range almost exclusively wireless products, out of four products since the sub-brands launch last year only one, the A3 an unpopular iPad speaker system, has not been wireless.

This latest set-up is designed to be a primary sound system in any setup, it is in fact the most expensive BeoPlay product yet, coming in at £1699, putting paid to the rumour and suspicion, by us here amongst  others, that the BeoPlay range will be a "budget" range, slightly cheaper than the conventional Bang & Olufsen certainly, but not budget products by any stretch of the imagination.

The unit is not small, at 70.1cm by 21.3cm, nor is it light, weighing 14.7kg including it's legs, an optional wall bracket will incidentally be available in the next two months, designed by Øivind Alexander Slaatto every detail has been worked to be functional and attractive, take the volume control, too loud? Remote too far away?  run your fingers along the top of the unit left or right and turn the volume up or down, a real touch of magic if we may say so, which is funnily enough what they have decided to call it, magic touch.  The size of it is also concealing genuine functionality also, two 3"mid range units, two 2.75" tweeters one 8" bass speaker, bass reflex tube, 2x 80w class D amplifier for Midrange, 2 x 80w class D amplifier for the tweeters and a 160w class D amplifier for bass, along with Airplay connectivity, wireless or via ethernet with DNLA, and, finally audio playback via line in, so it can perform as a traditional speaker from a playback source also.

All in all it is a serious piece of all-in-one audio equipment, designed to both look good, and functional equally as well, we expect to see this in the Bang & Olufsen line up for quite some time to come, and it should put pay to the other rumour about the BeoPlay range, that it's products will be "tested" in the BeoPlay arena before being "promoted" to BeoSound, with the exception of the odd little A3, we don't expect to see any of the BeoPlay products going anywhere for a while.