Bang & Olufsen has teamed up with London-based designer Michael Anastassiades to design a new powerful wireless speaker. Beosound Edge is yet another thoughtful design from the Danish luxury audio brand that transforms the everyday mundane to musical mastery and adds aesthetic value to the home. The circular shape of Beosound Edge allows for two placement options. On the floor as a stunning centerpiece, amplifying and blending in with the colors of the furniture standing next to it, or placed on the wall as a true gravity-defying statement that divides spaces in the home.
Proximity sensors detect when you get close to the speaker, discreetly illuminating the aluminium touch interface. Adjusting the sound is as magical as the sound coming from it: you gently roll Beosound Edge forwards and backwards to increase and decrease the volume. Softly to change the volume moderately, while a stronger touch will change it more dramatically. Then, it gently rolls back to its original position.
Drawing on acoustical technologies from Bang & Olufsen’s advanced BeoLab portfolio, Beosound Edge is surprisingly powerful despite its compact footprint. To deliver impressive bass capabilities, the Bang & Olufsen acoustic engineers have put in a huge 10” woofer bass driver on one side, which has an innovatively slim design and long excursion, while both sides of the speaker enjoy a dedicated 4” midrange and a 3⁄4” tweeter.
To deliver a powerful sound experience at high volume, Beosound Edge debuts a ground-breaking acoustical technology named the Active Bass Port. The Active Bass Port unites two classical concepts of loudspeaker design, the so-called “closed-box” design and the “ported design”. The acoustic analogy resembles that of a car’s spoiler that automatically raises as the car speeds up. When playing at lower volumes, it is using the closed cabinet principle for the most accurate sound reproduction, and as you turn up the volume the Active Bass Port opens to output more energized bass.
To contrast the polished aluminium body, Beosound Edge comes with a matt black fabric cover, easily exchangeable as Bang & Olufsen will introduce new on-trend fabric colours over time. The black fabric surface almost draws you in – an illusion created by minimizing the transition between the two surfaces and using matte fabric to contrast the reflective shine from the aluminium ring.
Beosound Edge comes with 360-degree room filling sound from both sides of the speaker, and the new Directional Sound Control allows the user to define the direction that the sound radiates creating two acoustic fronts. This ensures that a room can be divided into an active listening area and a more passive listening area.
The Beosound Edge incorporates Bang & Olufsen’s best-in-class sound technology and works with Air Play 2, Chromecast, Bluetooth and voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant. The speaker will be available starting November 2018 and with price tag of $3,500 USD.