Skip to main content

You need a PhD to understand these speakers, but just ears to be floored by them

When Bang & Olufsen announced its $80,000 Beolab 90 speaker system, we were, probably like many of you, a bit incredulous. It wasn’t the price — we’ve seen plenty of speakers with far more outrageous price tags. It was the claim the company made about being able to make any spot in the room the sweet spot.

“We’ll believe it when we hear it,” we said.

Now we believe it.

Bang & Olufsen’s space at CES has always been a reliably enjoyable place to spend some time away from the hustle and bustle of the intense Vegas crowds, but this year our visit wasn’t just relaxing and refreshing, it was awe-inspiring. If we seem a little excited in the video above, it’s because we genuinely are.

The system can also use its processing abilities to put the sweet spot at any place within the room.

You can tell just by looking that the Beolab 90 is a serious (and extremely ambitious) product. It’s covered in drivers mounted at all angles, facing in just about every direction in the room. What you can’t see is 18 total channels of digital amplification cranking out 8,200 watts, paired with one of the most advanced-sounding digital sound processors we’ve ever heard of.

The Beolab 90 is designed to take readings of a room using a special microphone — sort of similar to the way an A/V receiver’s auto-setup works — and employ what it knows about what happens to the sound in the room to make virtually anything you want happen. Perhaps the most impressive part of the processing is its ability to deal with reflected sound (sounds that come at you after they bounce off the walls, a leading cause of degraded fidelity). Rather than try to squash some of those sounds using equalization, Bang & Olufsen uses active noise cancellation to effectively eliminate the reflected sound where the listener sits. Think about that for a second. The speaker itself becomes an active noise-cancelling system so that the sound it does produce arrives at your ear in perfect purity. Amazing.

The system can also use its processing abilities to put the sweet spot at any place within the room. Let’s say your favorite chair is well left of center but you want to feel like the soundstage is right in front of you; the Beolab 90 system can achieve that for you.

When we sat down for a short audition, we were gobsmacked by what we were hearing. Though we were in the very back of the room with enough people blocking our sight of the speakers that we could barely see the system, we heard a perfectly balanced presentation with the vocals seemingly coming from directly in front of us, just 2 feet away (someone’s head was in that spot).

Aside from all of the sound balancing and noise-cancelling tricks, the systems balance throughout the frequency spectrum was truly impressive. The Beolab 90 is easily the finest-sounding speaker the company has ever made, and it’s extremely exciting to listen to. The bass … oh, the bass! We were treated to deeeep, extended bass with tons of punch and iron-fisted control. The rest of the speakers’ response was also remarkably realistic.

The only problem with the Beolab 90, as we see it, is that most folks may never get to hear them. Presently, only a limited run of the speakers is planned, and demonstration units will only be sent to an exclusive set of Bang & Olufsen retail shops around the world. If the B&O store near you happens to be one of those demonstration locations, we highly recommend you get yourself there for a listen.

Learn more about the Beolab 90 here.

Caleb Denison
Digital Trends Editor at Large Caleb Denison is a sought-after writer, speaker, and television correspondent with unmatched…
Are TCL and Hisense the next LG and Samsung?
A village built into a seaside mountainside shown on a Hisense U6K.

If you had told me 20 years ago — or, heck, even 15 — that Samsung and LG were going to be the top TV brands in the U.S., I’d have laughed in your face. But I feel like I’ve learned to see the writing on the wall since then. And now I’m wondering: Are TCL and Hisense the next Samsung and LG?

If we take a look at TCL and Hisense's 2023 TV lineups, their recently inked partnerships with huge national sports organizations, and their progress over the last five years in terms of both technological advancement and sales, I think there's a strong argument in favor of TCL and Hisense becoming the top two TV brands in the U.S.
TCL in 2023
We’ll start with TCL’s 2023 TV lineup. You already know about the QM8 Mini-LED,  right? If not, you have got to check out that TV. But what else does TCL have in store? Well, there’s the Q7, which, while not a mini-LED TV, does have a full-array local dimming backlight system, quantum dots, high brightness with 1,000 nits peak, and a slate of other desirable features. Plus, the 65-inch model, for price reference, is $1,000. Now, in case you don’t recall, last year’s 6-Series, the R655, was a mini-LED TV, and the 65-inch version of that TV sold for $1,000.

Read more
Google ends support for the original Chromecast
Google's first-gen Chromecast dongle.

Ten years is not a bad run in the world of smart devices. That's how long it's been since Google released the very first Chromecast, a tiny $35 HDMI dongle that let you wirelessly stream audio and video to your TV, with your phone serving as the remote. We liked it so much when it debuted, we named it the best product of 2013.

Unfortunately, all good things must pass, and 9to5Google recently noticed that Google quietly ended support for the original Chromecast on April 27, 2023, which means it will no longer get any feature or security updates.

Read more
This 65-inch Samsung 4K TV is $220 off at Best Buy
The Samsung 70-inch Class 7 Series 4K TV in a living room.

Best Buy is the place to shop for TV deals. We saw a lot of fantastic discounts during Memorial Day weekend, and Best Buy has extended a few past that official sale. For instance, this 65-inch Samsung TU690T 4K TV is down to just $450 from its usual $670. That's a nice discount of $220, bringing this mid-priced TV into budget TV territory. This deal has been live for a while now, but don't get too comfortable with it. It could end at any moment.

Why you should buy the Samsung 65-inch TU690T 4K TV
As one of the best TV brands around, it's always worth considering buying a Samsung TV. In the case of this Samsung 65-inch TU690T 4K TV, while the best TVs may have moved onto OLED or QLED technology, this is still a very fine example of 4K.

Read more