Super stylish comes at a super price, mind
Bang & Olufsen has unveiled the Beosound Theatre over in Berlin at IFA 2022; an all singing, all dancing super high-end soundbar that, as you’d expect from the Danish audio giant, packs in a heck of a lot of features and tech.
And, as you’d also expect from Bang & Olufsen, it also packs a hefty price-tag punch… costing just shy of £5,600.
Let’s start with the basics and the B&O Beosound Theatre is a smart TV soundbar that, out of the box, is a Dolby Atmos ready speaker compatible with AirPlay2 and Spotify Connect, and is Google Home multi-room music compatible, due to it having Chromecast built in.
You can also use the Google Assistant to control the speaker with your voice, but only via a third party Home smart speaker.
In terms of audio output, the Beosound Theatre comprises of 12 speaker drivers, including two custom-made long stroke 6.5-inch woofers, creating 800 watts of amplification power, and up to a 112dB sound pressure level.
There’s also a custom-made centre channel, with a dedicated 1-inch tweeter mounted directly in front of the midrange, for speech clarity.
With these drivers bouncing sound around from all angles, the Dolby Atmos experience is sure to be impressive but, if you’re looking for a less virtual surround sound experience, it’s possible to add in some extra B&O speakers.
In fact, you can add in a lot of extra B&O speakers; there are seven built-in outputs, supporting up to 16 external loudspeakers, with a cinema-esque full-blown Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 surround configuration possible.
The Beosound Theatre also boasts Bang & Olufsen’s new setup technology called Roomsense, which sounds a bit like Sonos Trueplay on steroids.
This being B&O, there’s a huge emphasis on the design aesthetic and users will be able to customize their Beosound Theatre with an array of frame and speaker cover finishes; think “black anthracite”, “gold tone aluminium”, “grey mélange fabric” and other descriptions that make you roll your eyes slightly.
There’s also a vast number of ways you can position the soundbar, with it able to be wall or table mounted; it works with B&O’s motorized stands and brackets.
There’s a whole bunch of connectivity options around the back, aside from the audio outputs already mentioned.
You’ll find three HDMI CEC input ports, an HDMI eARC with passthrough (4K at 120FPS, 8K at 60FPSO), analogue audio in via USB-C, and a port assigned for LG OLED TV connection; the Beosound Theatre works with any TV but is optimized for certain high end LG models.
You’ll also find a built in Ethernet switch with 4 x 1Gig ports, which is super handy for hooking up all of your bandwidth heavy AV devices, such as your smart TV or console.
The Beosound Theatre costs £5,590 and you can buy it now.
