Machines of love and grace
I wanted the Bang & Olufsen staff-member to play something from Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” any of its track with pulsing James Jamerson/Bob Babbitt bassline, some cooking Motown horns, and that great, great voice singing of love and soul and sexual healing. Or maybe Steely Dan or Weather Report numbers, brilliantly engineered songs used in the ’70s to test hi-fi stereo equipment in the States. (A duty sadly usurped by the likes of Dire Straits, Diana Krall and the rich boys from the Eagles freezing the very gates of hell with their acoustic reunion gig.) What if the B&O person put on a Mars Volta or Mastodon or something equally brutal and beautiful that will push the equipment to the very brink? Ah, the music between the gaps: a world of angular guitars and apocalyptic rhythms.
Instead we were made to listen to EDM (electronic dance music) at the B&O store in Shangri-La Mall. A minor letdown, yes. But still, we should say, the Danish-made speakers delivered, with the beats blossoming in the middle of the afternoon.
As the brand celebrates its 90th anniversary, we just had to ask someone as to — in this age of loudness wars, tinny compressed digital music, streaming, and the horror of EDM — how brands such as B&O, which purvey pristine aural experience, continue to thrive, innovate and revolutionize sound.
“The digital world has been a challenge for every audio-visual company,” admits Casper Steenkjaer, Bang & Olufsen South East Asia regional sales manager, during his visit to Manila. “When you compress music, that means you cut away details from the songs. Of course, if you have really, really good, expensive speakers, you can truly hear the difference. Especially if you’re playing — pardon my language — shitty digital music (laughs). We at B&O don’t want that, obviously.”
But digital music doesn’t necessarily have to be equated with minuscule MP3s.
Steenkjaer says, “At the end of the day, the source connected to the speakers is essential. When the source is B&O, we make sure that the music is in FLAC quality.” FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, which means that audio is compressed in this format but there is no loss of quality.
“Ferdie Ong (GM of Living Innovations, the distributor of B&O in the Philippines) talked a while back about how we can wirelessly connect music systems to our speakers and TVs. So when you take cable away, normally that means you reduce sound quality. But the new wireless technology that we’ve introduced one-and-a-half years ago ensure that the quality is running in a bit rate that is not used by the public.” Meaning traffic on that bandwidth has minimal interference and signal loss.
“We will not launch anything if we can’t provide the best quality — that is the B&O philosophy. So we’d rather wait a couple of years, then find the right technology and introduce it to the market.”
What’s new from the B&O lab so far?
Steenkjaer explains, “We have a new musical system called the BeoSound Moment, a fully digital system which is basically a tablet that allows you to access music from a network or your Cloud and distribute it to your speakers.”
But B&O engineers made sure to put in an analog signal for RCA jacks for purposes of plugging in old turntables or CD players. You can practically distribute the turntable signal to the other rooms in your house. Imagine Stevie Nicks singing Silver Springs or Rhiannon in every nook and cranny of your lonely digs.
“We at B&O are trying to mix analog and digital sound in our systems because some of our older customers still love their records and CDs, the same way the younger generations love their iPods, Spotify and Cloud-service music. Both generations can meet together.”
Loud Love
During the Roaring ’20s, Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen started their journey into technology when it was still an almost magical phenomenon. And with the accompanying flourish of Art Deco, it was clear that luxury, glamour and exuberance were at the heart of the time. Fast-forward 90 years as the company launches a collection that truly captures the mood and style of the time. Combined with the warm color fabrics recently developed in cooperation with fashion designer Stine Goya, the people behind Bang & Olufsen hope it will truly capture the hearts of customers who have enjoyed a love affair with the company over the years.
The Love Affair collection sees six of B&O’s current products rejuvenated with a new palette option of rose gold, which is experiencing its own renaissance in the jewelry industry One of the most emotive aspects is its underlying meaning: while white gold represents friendship and yellow gold means fidelity, rose gold represents love and is therefore the ultimate inspiration for this collection.
The collection consists of the following: the first is the majestic and recently launched BeoVision Avant 85, and then the all-in one entertainment solution BeoVision 11-46 and BeoRemote One. Also included in the range are the popular magic-touch BeoPlay A9 music system and the elegant, lightweight BeoPlay H6 headphones. Plus, there is the classic, slender and straight-lined BeoLab 18 with a new walnut lamella front and a cabinet in an elegant rose golden version.
So, what does Casper play when testing Bang & Olufsen hi-fi equipment?
“I have a testing CD with a few Danish vocal artists that I listen to. And also a singer named Olivia who has a strong vocal range: she can go up to the very high notes and — in the middle of the song — she can do the deep tones where the bass is coming in. You can get a really good feel of the full range of the speakers.”
But it is subjective, a matter of personal choice. Concludes Casper Steenkjaer, “Our speakers are made for multi-purpose scenarios.”
Yeah, to each his own love affair with recorded sound.
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The Bang & Olufsen showroom is at Level 2 East Wing at Shangri-La Plaza Mall, Mandaluyong.
