Bowers & Wilkins Partners with Phillips to Make HDTV's

[gene]

Bowers & Wilkins has announced a partnership with the maker of Philips televisions to develop new TV products with industry-leading audio and video performance. The first products to result from the multi-year agreement will make their debut on August 31st at the IFA consumer electronics and appliance showcase in Berlin. The Partnership marks a new direction for Bowers & Wilkins, which was purchased by a small California startup in 2016. Is B&W making the right move?

Read: B&W Partners with Phillips to Produce High Performance Televisions

 

[TLS Guy]

Bowers & Wilkins has announced a partnership with the maker of Philips televisions to develop new TV products with industry-leading audio and video performance. The first products to result from the multi-year agreement will make their debut on August 31st at the IFA consumer electronics and appliance showcase in Berlin. The Partnership marks a new direction for Bowers & Wilkins, which was purchased by a small California startup in 2016. Is B&W making the right move?

View attachment 25092

Read: B&W Partners with Phillips to Produce High Performance Televisions

That might work for Europe. In America, Phillips is not Phillips. They sold the name to Funnai corporations to make and sell Phillips branded TVs years ago in the US. So I don't know how this would affect that agreement. I suppose that the interest of Phillips is to try and get round there previous agreement. This could get interesting.

Those American branded Phillips TVs are junk. In Europe a different story. Phillips is a Dutch company based in Amsterdam, and have a huge factory at Einthoven that straddles the Dutch/German border. It is a subsidiary of Siemens AG which is a massive electronics giant.

Phillips/Siemens are world leaders in medical electronics, especially imaging. They go head to head with GE in that field.

So at best B & W would be a very small fly on the elephant. I can see in this age of AV why B & W would want to consider providing screens, as TVs are the end device of the V and speakers the end device of the A.

 

[highfigh]

That might work for Europe. In America, Phillips is not Phillips. They sold the name to Funnai corporations to make and sell Phillips branded TVs years ago in the US. So I don't know how this would affect that agreement. I suppose that the interest of Phillips is to try and get round there previous agreement. This could get interesting.

Those American branded Phillips TVs are junk. In Europe a different story. Phillips is a Dutch company based in Amsterdam, and have a huge factory at Einthoven that straddles the Dutch/German border. It is a subsidiary of Siemens AG which is a massive electronics giant.

Phillips/Siemens are world leaders in medical electronics, especially imaging. They go head to head with GE in that field.

So at best B & W would be a very small fly on the elephant. I can see in this age of AV why B & W would want to consider providing screens, as TVs are the end device of the V and speakers the end device of the A.

If the market research shows that enough people are using the speakers in their TV as the source of sound AND that they are completely unwilling to buy a sound bar, it might work. However, not many TVs have the space for decent speakers- adding what constitutes a 'sound bar' to the TV and changing the physical aspect ratio is likely to cause problems because the TVs will likely appear bulky.

I bought a TV that's used occasionally and the sound is total crap. Most TV sound is total crap, so personally, I hope this starts a trend.

 

[panteragstk]

I remember when Sony put "good" speakers on the sides of their TVs. Looked terrible IMHO.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

If the market research shows that enough people are using the speakers in their TV as the source of sound AND that they are completely unwilling to buy a sound bar, it might work. However, not many TVs have the space for decent speakers- adding what constitutes a 'sound bar' to the TV and changing the physical aspect ratio is likely to cause problems because the TVs will likely appear bulky.

I bought a TV that's used occasionally and the sound is total crap. Most TV sound is total crap, so personally, I hope this starts a trend.

snowball chance in hell. People have voted - they like very thin TVs with minimal to no bezel. Good luck fitting any not-horrible speakers in such constrains - one possible solution is make the TV panel itself to be a speaker, somehow, but again - I have no idea if it would ever sound good or be affordable.

 

[highfigh]

snowball chance in hell. People have voted - they like very thin TVs with minimal to no bezel. Good luck fitting any not-horrible speakers in such constrains - one possible solution is make the TV panel itself to be a speaker, somehow, but again - I have no idea if it would ever sound good or be affordable.

You may have seen posts where I said that the beginning of questions that goes "Well, can't you just...." should be abolished, right? That. People think they can have whatever they want. Then, they look like disappointed little kids when they're told "It doesn't work that way- you can't have tiny speakers AND good sound".

Thanks, Bose. Thanks a lot.

 

[MR.MAGOO]

All I want is a great looking "monitor" to connect to the A/V system. It need not have built-in speakers or tuner.

 

[Dmantis10]

I always have mixed feelings when companies try to branch out into other markets where they really have no business. B&W has been making outstanding speakers for decades and I can't see any reason to not focus on continuing that venture. Tv's there are plenty on the market.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I always have mixed feelings when companies try to branch out into other markets where they really have no business. B&W has been making outstanding speakers for decades and I can't see any reason to not focus on continuing that venture. Tv's there are plenty on the market.

B&W like any other business is trying to expand, while getting into already very saturated low margin TV market may or may not be best choice, to give credit to B&W - I've heard their XT series speakers and it's quite eye opener (so to speak) how well these sound, while severely constrained by their size.
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/bw-xt-series-home-theater-speaker-system

 

[BMXTRIX]

Phillips, the inventor of the top shelf universal remote with Prontos, that then made TVs that didn't have discrete power on/off. Maybe that's the Funnai TVs that I've seen for years in the US that are just complete garbage. Kind of like the new US Sharp consumer TVs.

B&W is a highly respected brand and if Phillips is delivering quality product in Europe right now, then they could really do a admirable job with a B&W partnership.

But, seriously, if they aren't 801D's then I'm not really interested.
Where's my lottery ticket?

 

[hk2000]

I remember when Sony put "good" speakers on the sides of their TVs. Looked terrible IMHO.

I have their XBR from 2015 with the speakers on the side, it looks amazing- to me, of course- and sounds incredible compared to any TV out there, and no clutter. If B&W does something similar, I think it will work for a lot of people.

 

[panteragstk]

I have their XBR from 2015 with the speakers on the side, it looks amazing- to me, of course- and sounds incredible compared to any TV out there, and no clutter. If B&W does something similar, I think it will work for a lot of people.View attachment 25173

BIIIIIGGGG difference between that and the one I posted. That actually looks nice IMHO.

 

[j_garcia]

snowball chance in hell. People have voted - they like very thin TVs with minimal to no bezel. Good luck fitting any not-horrible speakers in such constrains - one possible solution is make the TV panel itself to be a speaker, somehow, but again - I have no idea if it would ever sound good or be affordable.

My TV has almost no bezel but has decent sound. The speakers are behind and fire to rear and sides. It also has about 20W of power and sounds surprisingly good for a TV. So it can be done, but I am sure that is not the cheapest way to make a TV, it was one below the top model from Samsung some years back.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Thanks, Bose. Thanks a lot.

Holy S}{|t I’m laughing my ball$ off right now!!!

 

[Montucky]

Reminds me of when Marantz made TVs. I've seen a few of their (VERY expensive) plasma TVs out there at customers' homes, and they were actually really nice TVs during their era, but in the end it didn't pan out for them. Hopefully B&W sees more success than Marantz did, but man, it seems to be a really crowded field to want to bother with. Then again, if they stick to the European and Asian markets, they might actually do all right.

 

[Lil klipsch]

Honestly, I didn't even know that Phillips still made TVs.

 

[Kev Greenhalgh]

"Phillips" you say. Aren't they screwdriver heads?