Bang & Olufsen (B&O) is a Danish company that designs high end audio products, television sets, and telephones. Sound reproduction is the electrical or mechanical re-creation and/or amplification of sound, often as music. ... Jump to: navigation, search A telephone handset A touch-tone telephone dial Telephone Complex relay used in a telephone switching system. ...

Products from B&O are intended to reflect cutting edge industrial design, both in appearance and in operation. B&O products' "retro-contemporary" design style are designed to change the way people feel about electronic goods and their space in our homes. Many of B&O products were designed by Jacob Jensen (reference Jacob Jensen Web Site), whose design firm is still in operation today. Jump to: navigation, search Industrial design is an applied art whereby the aesthetics and usability of products may be improved. ...

Past Products

B&O products often have a unique appearance and user-interface and as such even early models are collectibles today. Information about prior B&O product can be found on "unofficial" or "fan" web sites (See External Links).

B&O used a naming nomenclature for many of its products.

• Beocord referred to cassette decks. B&O was a pioneer in cassette technology, having had design involvement with Dolby HX Pro.

• Beomaster referred to receivers. B&O's more recent receivers featured the ability to receive complex programming. The 5000 series through the 7000 series featured two-way communication with the remote controller, called the "master control unit."

• Beocenter referred to whole system audio. B&O, at one time, made elobarate products that incorporated amplifiers, tuners, record players and cassette decks into a single, large, whole music system, called a "Beocenter."

• Beogram referred to record players and later cd players. The more recent Beograms had tangential tone arms.

• Beolab referred to loudspeakers. Many of B&O's speakers have built-in amplifiers, claimed to help eliminate the signal degradation which occurs by having an external amplifier.

• Beosystem referred to a line of products that worked together.

Many B&O audio components did not use RCA connectors, instead using multipin DIN Connectors which had pins that were not standard in the audio industry. A typical consumer hi-fi cassette deck from late 1980s, features full electronic transport, separate playback and record heads, Dolby B, C and HXPro noise reduction A cassette deck is a type of tape deck for playing or recording compact audio cassettes. ... Dolby NR is a noise reduction system developed by Dolby Laboratories for use in analogue magnetic tape recording. ... Jump to: navigation, search For the device which is a tuner (radio) and a amplifier and/or loudspeaker, see receiver (home stereo). ... Jump to: navigation, search It has been suggested that Direct-drive_turntable be merged into this article or section. ... Jump to: navigation, search This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... For guitar amplifier, go to Instrument amplifier An amplifier can be considered to be any device that uses a small amount of energy to control a larger amount, although the term today usually refers to an electronic amplifier. ... A panel of four RCA jacks, and three RCA (cinch; phono) plugs of various quality RCA jack in PlayStation 2 An RCA jack, also referred to as a phono connector or CINCH/AV connector, is a type of electrical connector which is commonly used in the audio/video market. ... 5 pin 180° DIN connector 4 pin Mini-DIN S-Video connector Speaker DIN line socket (left) and plug DIN connectors are multi-pin electrical connectors based on a DIN standard. ...

The Present Day, Related Companies and Current Products

In the '90s, B&O stopped selling its products to retailers, and opened exclusive B&O stores. The company also ceased to manufacture its audio separates, instead the company's audio offerings were expensive mini-type audio systems.

In addition to consumer products, B&O operates a facility for high precision aluminum manufacturing (reference [1]) and itself uses aluminum in many of its products. Aluminum is a soft and lightweight metal with a dull silvery appearance, due to a thin layer of oxidation that forms quickly when it is exposed to air. ...

In 1999, B&O, with Dr. Karsten Nielsen, formed ICEpower A/S. This company is devoted to the development of switching type Class D amplifiers. Reference: [2] These types of amplifiers have improved efficiency compared to traditional amplifiers. Jump to: navigation, search An electronic amplifier is a device for increasing the power of a signal. ...

One of B&O's most successful recent products is the A8 Earbuds (designed by Anders Hermansen), which gained popularity as the Apple iPod reached prominence. Jump to: navigation, search Headphones (also known as earphones, stereophones, headsets, or the slang term cans) are a pair of transducers that receive an electrical signal from a media player or receiver and use speakers placed in close proximity to the ears (hence the name earphone) to convert the signal... Jump to: navigation, search A grayscale fourth-generation iPod with earphones. ...

In the UK, one product in particular entered the public consciousness as a regular feature in Irish comedian Graham Norton's late night chat-show: 'So'. Every week the host would prank-call someone somewhere in the world on a provocative B&O banana-shaped telephone, the BeoCom 2. Graham Norton, real name Graham Walker, (born on April 4, 1963) is an Irish actor and comedian. ... The BeoCom 2 is a model of cordless telephone designed by David Lewis and supplied by Bang & Olufsen. ...

B&O's flagship speaker, the US$16,000 BeoLab 5, uses digital signal processing to calibrate its response to the room in which it sits. A pair of speakers also use 2500 watts of power in four self-contained ICEpower modules. The midrange and treble drives are vertical, and radiate at horizontal discs, using so-called "acoustic lens technology" (licensed from Sausalito Audio Works) to disperse the sound in a horizontal plane of 180 degrees. References: [3], [4], [5], [6].

External links

• Official website
• Beoworld An unofficial web site devoted to B&O.
• Thogersen A collector's website with photos of B&O products throughout the decades
• Beocentral A reference site containing descriptions and photos of B&O equipment

See Also

• BeoSound 2