The Danish firm Bang & Olufsen is thought for extremes. (Like, you realize, not too long ago selling a $55,000 CD player from 1996.)
Its most up-to-date product—the brand new Beoplay H100 headphones, that are out at present—is proof of that. To create its subsequent gen of wearables, B&O constructed a brand new state-of-the-art R&D facility in Austria, and employed a complete ecosystem of specialists in order that it may carry the creation of its choices totally in-house. (Which is dedication, on condition that B&O already has an enormous R&D headquarters in Struer, Denmark.)
“The entire thought of the [Austria] heart was mainly to get the know-how and construct one thing distinctive—spend the time wanted to do one thing proper and never, you realize, simply ship the following product,” says Bang & Olufsen Director of Expertise Neo Kaplanis, in a press release that may get him canned wherever else. “We wished to construct one thing that no person else may.”
Kaplanis says there are already some superb headphones on the market at present, however in the end, it’s a “black plastic market” replete with compromises between audio high quality, type and aesthetic, and construct high quality. He wished to make a pair of headphones with no concessions. And whereas the brand new H100s could look much like the model’s H95 headphones from 2020, Kaplanis says the heart are completely completely different.
Previously, he provides, when it got here to parts past the corporate’s top-of-the-line acoustics, B&O labored with completely different distributors and consultants to construct their headphones. However with their new facility, they introduced in a full multidisciplinary crew of execs to present themselves whole management over their wearables. The crew says they examined microphones in some 1,500 3D soundscapes, from trains to bogs. They spent years in R&D to craft the primary set of headphones exterior gaming headsets to function Dolby Atmos spatial audio. They devoted a whole lot of hours to the scarf alone, which is engineered to adapt to the distinctive form of every person’s head.
At $1,549, the ultimate outcomes include B&O’s high-end price ticket—however with that you’re shopping for B&O’s trademark obsessiveness, and thus its technological advances.
Advances in audio
The headphones function 40mm titanium drivers that pump out high-res 96k/24-bit audio. This isn’t unprecedented in high-end headphones, however the H100 maintains that high quality when the opposite superior options (noise cancellation, for instance) are on concurrently.
Audio specs apart, the headphones function a handful of person expertise upgrades that make sporting them a pleasure. Once you strap on the headphones, they immediately activate—cause being, Kaplanis notes, in the event you’re placing them on, you most likely need them on. From there, due to 10 built-in studio-grade mics, you possibly can resolve simply how totally immersed you wish to be in your audio, dialing the extent of noise cancellation up or down utilizing a haptic bevel on the facet of both ear cup. Must you wish to be extra current or discipline a query from, say, a flight attendant, you possibly can cup your palm over the surface of the ear cup or faucet it to listen to the world round you.
Head of Design Tiina Kierysch says she drew inspiration for the supplies and colours from tremendous jewellery to realize a glance of sophistication and timelessness. Right here, that manifests in three hues: “Infinite Black,” “Hourglass Sand” and “Sundown Apricot.”
Over the previous few years, as Quick Firm has reported, B&O has turned a robust focus to product longevity, and a giant a part of fulfilling that mission has been modularity and merchandise with replaceable and upgradeable elements. The H100 crew says the whole lot within the headphones was designed round that ethos—from the batteries to the hardened glass contact interface to the circuit boards to the lambskin leather-based earpad cushions to the software program underpinning all of it.
For the latter, B&O is debuting its new in-house wearable software program platform, Amadeus, which will probably be upgradable as tech modifications over time—and never depending on the mercy of the market’s whims. Furthermore, “[At] this degree, the efficiency can also be very tightly knit between software program and {hardware},” provides Miikka Tikander, director, head of acoustics at B&O, who beforehand led audio/acoustics engineering on the AirPods Max, Apple’s over-the-ear headphones.
We may go on concerning the specs and elements of the H100s, however the design is in the end pushed by the expertise of sporting them. “In our world,” Tikander says, “I believe now we have succeeded once you don’t take into consideration the product. It simply feels good.”