Hi-Fi Choice

. . . .

Just when you thought all speakers looked the same, along comes Bang & Olufsen with the BeoLab 90. Okay, so it’s not the first loudspeaker to break with convention, but with its combination of pentagons and rhombuses it’s certain to stand out from the crowd. The BeoLab 90 utilises Active Room Compensation to measure the effects of the acoustic behaviour of the four walls around it. It does this by employing a microphoneto measure the effects of different positions within the room so that it can select a suitable compensation filter.

KEF has become the latest company to releasea desktop Bluetooth loudspeaker in the shape of the new Muo. However, it takes its design cues from the manufacturer’s iconic £140,000 Muon loudspeakers – flip the Muo onto its end and the holes in its grille reflect the curves of the impressive floorstander. Both were produced in collaboration with award-winning designer Ross Lovegrove and it’s claimed that the small Bluetooth speaker features a miniature version of the Uni-Q driver that’s used in the Muon, Bladeand Reference speakers. Connectivity to computers and mobile devices comes via aptX Bluetooth and there’s also NFC ‘Tap-to-pair’ for hookup to most Android phones.

Few loudspeakers are as revered as B&W's 800 Series, andthe British loudspeaker brand hasan awful lot to live up to with the announcement of its new D3 lineup revealed at a September press conference. Fans of B&W's long-standing 800 Series will know that it all started some 35 years ago with the now iconic 801 floorstander, which quickly found its way into the homes of audio fans with large listening rooms and deep pockets as wellas becoming a studio-standard monitoring loudspeaker in recording studios around the world – including the legendary Abbey Road Studios. The new 800 D3 Series is the distillation of the 800's 35-year success story and the culmination ofa seven-year project with dedicated research and development, advanced engineering as well as endless hours of committed listening by a team of experts put into the new nine-strong loudspeaker line. Even its manufacturing plant in Worthing, West Sussex had to be redesigned specifically for the production of the new series, and as B&W's head of research Martial Rousseau says: "This is not a product update.