Bang & Olufsen - new speaker technology

[AlbanyCartel]

Has anyone seen the new, and heard the new speakers from Bang & Olufsen?





The speakers pop out of the dash when you start the car. Its called Acoustic Lens Technology.

"The idea behind Acoustic Lens Technology (ALT) is that the quality of listening and the tonal balance should be the same, regardless of the listening position in the room – static or dynamic. This is made possible by exploiting the unique properties of the ellipse, where the acoustic centre of the driver is placed at the lower focal point of the ellipse. All sound emitted from the driver will converge simultaneously at the upper focal point, as the distance between focal points via the perimeter is the same in all directions.

The result is the creation of a “virtual” treble driver at the upper focal point. Furthermore, the ellipse is rotated to form a three-dimensional structure, the lens, resulting in a uniform distribution of sound in the horizontal plane with 180 degrees of dispersion."

Bang & Olufsen traditionally makes home audio, but they collaborated with Audi to incorporate their sound systems into the A8.
Acoustic Lens Technology on home speakers:

Apparently they work better then other speakers in that they do not need to be aimed as much since they distribute sound evenly on a 180* plane.


I have never heard of this company, are they reputable, or is this technology useless?

[PaulD]

B&O is an esoteric home stereo company from Denmark, they typically make futuristic looking stuff and their quality is normally pretty high. Looks like they have made a "wave guide" for their tweeters but you still can't deny the laws of physics. For tweeters, what matters most for imaging/staging is intensity (volume) differences, and if the drivers side tweeter is considerably closer to the driver than the passenger side tweeter then you have two choices. One is to make the passenger side one louder (or driver side softer), which will mean the passenger side sound will suck. Option 2 is to point the tweeters at the opposite listening position - this means the closer speaker will be off-axis, which will cut it's volume by about 3-6 dB. I don't know if the lens system they are describing is capable of that, maybe I should find an Audi dealer and take a listen for myself.