Hey everyone, this is actually my first post even though I've visited here often.
I personally am a big aficionado of the somewhat older B&O stuff, like from the 80's and early 90's. I think the company has changed very much in about 80 years, and this has to be considered when asking people their opinion of the company. I feel that years ago they really were at the forefront audio technology. Today I believe they are still at the forefront of certain technologies, but no longer audio technology. People looking to invest in modern B&O equipment will be quite disappointed if interested solely in the audio aspect.
The mechanical design and the actual manufacturing quality are very good though, and thus the products last quite awhile, which is one of the reasons there's a huge interest in older B&O equipment. You can see this just by taking a look on ebay. I'm still listening to my dad's B&O system from the 1970's. If you read more into the details of the design and manufacturing of the products I think you can gain a better appreciation of the products' innovation for innovation's sake. Even in the modern product line, there are details that present difficult manufacturing challenges that one would likely not notice on initial inspection.
Do I think the products are worth their prices? Of course not. We must also remember though, that even more common electronics like a Yamaha receiver aren't worth their price either, but because they are far more commonplace and less radical we tend to set them as the normal to which we compare other equipment while forgetting that we're grossly overpaying for the Yamaha equipment too. Imagine if a company like Infinity begain selling speakers that necessitated the design and manufacturing techniques of B&O - such as fluted columns of single piece aluminum polished without shine distortion. Or aluminum touch panels machined to a hair of thickness so you can lightly touch them but still flex the aluminum enough to transmit the pressure to the buttons underneath. Do you not think the price would also sky rocket?
Sure we can look at B&O equipment and say 'wow, I could spend less than half that and have something that sounds as good or better'. But as I said, there is more to these products than just sound. To make audio equipment that is artistically beautiful necessitates compromises on both ends. I feel in the past B&O was more likely to make the compromises on the artistic end in order to still offer very good sound. Starting in the mid 90's I think they began to switch to cheaper sound but better artistic presence. They also abandoned many audiophiles by ending their line of large component systems and trying to replace them with tiny all-in-one-box systems that appealed to people with more money looking for status and having less knowledge of real audio equipment.
This summer I hope to build my first pair of speakers. And would I be surprised if after some practive I could build a pair that sounded better than a $3000 set of B&O's? Nope. But will I still look at some of the most gorgeous designs of the past by B&O and still get butterflies in my stomach? Yep.
If you want to see some of the really nice B&O stuff from when it was in its prime....
This first picture was the last truely component B&O system, from the early 90's. The remote you see was also very advanced, featuring two way IR and had little servos to tilt the display upward when it sensed it was being placed down on a flat surface like a table:
http://www.beoworld.co.uk/products1/beosystem7000.jpg
http://www.io.tudelft.nl/public/vdm/fda/brochures/beo05/8927.jpg
http://www.beoworld.co.uk/beosystem6500.htm
BTW, I know this is an old thread, but I really wanted to respond.
Austin
