B&O Beolab 90

VITAL STATS

Drive Units	18 drive units per unit 7 Scanspeak tweeters, 7 Scanspeak midrange, 4 Heliox woofers
Amplification	Sufficient? 14 x class D amplifiers (one per channel)
Sensitivity	126 dB (123 dB bass)
Frequency response	15 Hz – 43 kHz
Power handling	N/S. More than sufficient.
Dimensions (HxWxD)	1253 x 747 x 747 mm
Weight	137 kg

 

PRICE R4.4M

SUPPLIED BY BNC Technology

IMPORTERS SABC Africa / 082 301-4440 / g.payne@asbcafrica.co.za

 

The price is right. If it makes you feel any better you can customise the finishes on them to a properly eye watering R15M if you opt for a pair of one of 50 limited edition variants. With that out of the way let’s get into what we’re dealing with here.

The Beolab 90s are not new. They were released 10 years ago for B&Os 90th anniversary (there is as yet no indication of Beolab 100s coming for their centenary because I’m not entirely sure how you top the 90s to begin with…).

The 90s are active speakers. This means there is no amplifier needed and all you need to do it provide it a source and it will connect via over the air and ‘do DSP’ magic in whatever cauldron resides within the chassis of the speakers. Streaming in other words via Roon, which is nothing new today but ten years ago….

It also means you’re listening to what effectively is ten-year-old DSP in a world where tech changes faster than you change your underwear. But steady on Annie Oakley – there is more to these speakers than meets the ear. It’s an acknowledgment of the fact that curated high-end sound will always remain curated and high-end sound. At the price point B&O spared zero expense in building these speakers and this reflects in the precision with which their DSP presents itself. It is obvious to anyone who enjoys listening to music, as opposed to listening to equipment, that B&O has remained focussed strongly on the former and in the enjoyment that such a sizeable investment ought to deliver.

It does so in spades.

The best way I can describe it is that the sound curated (there’s that word again) by these active speakers has been done so in a fashion coherent with a distinct B&O sonic signature focussed on music delivery. Power is not stated but estimated at around a peak of 8,200 watts per side. You won’t notice and you won’t care because this is a musical setup contemptuous of statistics. It simply ‘is’. With 18 drivers per side however, and substantial R&D in audio beam-focussed tech to deliver room filling music, in any room, to suit any tastes, means that the rate of DSP being undertaken is substantial.

This is a LOT of curating to do. As evidenced by the shape of the speakers, the drivers are not all aligned up in one plane, but rather oriented in several planes, and from what I could make out none fire in entirely the same direction. This means that the afore-mentioned DSP taking place inside the speaker complex (it cannot be described meaningfully as a cabinet, even if it is made from cast aluminium) has to be incredibly sophisticated in simply creating a believable sound field. I wondered if it could even be done before jumping into an hour and a half listening session.

This is nowhere near enough time to get more than a first impression, but for some reason the opportunity to locate these speakers in my own listening environment for, oooooo say a few months, wasn’t on offer. Annoyingly.

Worse, the environment on offer at a dealer was at best aggressive, being a showcase open room where the speakers were displayed rather than accurately set up. The upside to all of this is that it was a true test of the prowess of the speakers as advertised.

If I’m honest, when listening to an R4,4m system I am expecting to find perfection. I am also expecting to start punching holes into reference audiophilia of where the 90s might be vulnerable – in any areas of compressed sound stage, blurred layering, overpowering bass or whatever else might offer me a sliver of a crack of a way in which I could offer up my modicum of criticism for the price tag. I’ve done this for a long time and listened to many systems that are ludicrously expensive and ludicrously good at a specific task audio task at hand.

It is very seldom, if ever, that I have come across something quite like the Beolab 90s. It is hard to come away undefeated and if I were to poke holes into them technically it’d be futility personified. This is not that speaker with which to pontificate from the alter of audio self-appointed fount of all knowledge and wisdom. What it is however is the place to assess some of the most deeply impressive and indeed, forgiving speakers on the market today. These are some of the most forgiving speakers I think I have ever heard. You can throw rubbish at them and they somehow manage to extract the maximum goodness from it and deliver that to you on a silver plate. They remind me of the latest jet fighters that can’t fly without computer aided controls, and in the case of the 90s, the stability sources from the DSP.

It is beyond excellent. It goes to show that whilst the tech may be 10 years old and hence probably changeable (note I didn’t say upgradeable) it doesn’t matter. The BeoLabs were conceived and built to deliver what B&O believes to be the ultimate expression of design meeting music and to do so with unqualified ambition to the best of their ability in melding the design and performance. I do not think anyone could do it better.

The B&O app that you can use to tune your speakers is nuts and would make any self-respecting audiophile take a chain saw to them, or themselves, at the sheer horror of the loss of absolute purity of signal preservation sacrificed on the altar of DSP constructed audio augmented reality. But when you have so many drivers and amps in a room generating a sound field from a stereo recording then purity of signal preservation is no longer possible and the interpretation of the source and its presentation to you becomes all that matters.

In this I am sure many may listen to the BeoLabs and come away from the experience directly into a high end audiophile setup and note differences in whatever it is that defines their experience of high end audio. They are not wrong but neither are B&O. These are speakers that approach high end musical reproduction from a different angle and ultimately the choice of what you want from your music comes down entirely to you.

So enough with the fence sitting. What did I think of the BeoLab 90s?

In a word. They are phenomenal. It is impossible to ignore the manner in which they create music and how they are able to put it on show for you. There is a presence to music with control over detail that paints the best room filling reverb accuracy I have heard in ages. Silences are allowed to blossom and a presence of real depth and tangibility is created in the way that only large speakers are capable of doing through the virtues of the volumes of air and multiple sound wave generation are capable of doing. Yet, it remains controlled and with the massive reserves of power on hand you can quite easily do ear damage without feeling it. As I often say, really great music reproduction is often so clean that you don’t realise how loud it is until a trumpet ruptures your ears. This is the case with the B&Os.

If you don’t fancy the sound as it is setup, B&O has others. You can customise the sound to a remarkable degree and B&O bravely designates the control to you. And I think that this is the point.

Are they reference quality in terms of high-end room treated conventional stereo? No. They are not.

So then does this relegate them to just toys for the well heeled to show off to their mates based purely on their price tag?

Well. With that price tag of course that’s the risk. But it would be sad to dismiss the incredible musicality that the 90s are capable of based purely on the vulgarity of the price tag. That they exist at all, and that they deliver music first and foremost as well as they do is something that the high end world should celebrate and applaud. They are a worthy testament to the best that B&O produces and it’s bloody amazing.

William Kelly