You know what a new speaker from Bang & Olufsen means: serious sonic performance wrapped in a seriously stylish design. The new Beolab 8 may well be the most beautiful speaker Bang & Olufsen has ever made too – we already rate the brand among the best Bluetooth speakers we’ve tested. But don’t let its small size and good looks fool you. This is a powerful and very clever luxury speaker.
The Beolab 8 has been designed to work as a solo speaker, as part of a spectacular home cinema setup or as a stereo pair. Inside that aluminum case there’s a 5.25-inch woofer, a 3-inch mid-range driver and a 16mm tweeter, all tuned by Bang & Olufsen’s “tonmeisters”. The addition of beam width control, room compensation, ultra-wideband and adaptive tuning all deliver significant sonic improvements.
Serious sound to match the style
Beam width control is designed to put you in the sweet spot between your speakers or to widen the sound to give you an even more epic audio experience. Meanwhile, the room compensation feature analyses the audio characteristics of your room and tunes your speaker(s) accordingly, delivering the best possible sound without making you rearrange the furniture or put the speakers where you don’t want them to be. Adaptive sound tuning also listens to the speaker to work out what kind of cover you’ve chosen, once again adapting the sound accordingly.
There’s Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3, and both wired and wireless PowerLink to connect to Bang & Olufsen TVs – including models going back more than 30 years.
It’s clever stuff, but what’s likely to grab you most is that design. The body is a single piece of aluminium designed by Bang & Olufsen’s famed Factory 5, and it’s accompanied by either Danish manufactured wooden lamellas or a fabric front.
It’s designed to fit perfectly alongside other Bang & Olufsen products such as the Beosound Theatre, Beolab 28 and Beolab 50. You can choose between Silver / Natural Aluminium, Gold Tone or Black Anthracite colour options and combine them with speaker covers in oak, light oak, dark oak, or fabric.
This is a luxury speaker with a price tag to match. The Bang & Olufsen Beolab 8 will retail at £2,199 GBP / $2,749 USD.
