Danish speaker manufacturer Bang & Olufsen has announced the BeoLab 50 floorstanding speakers, that borrow technology from the company's flagship BeoLab 90. The latter being produced for the company's 90th birthday. The BeoLab 50 was also developed to replace the BeoLab 5, and you'll find it shares similar traits.

Speaking to Bang & Olufsen at its factory in Denmark, the company said the BeoLab 90 was designed to go into some homes, as an ultra-exclusive speaker, while the BeoLab 50 is the more consumer-friendly version.

B&O spent many hours developing the speaker to not only give it the best possible performance, but to also keep the cost down as much as possible.

It's an impeccably designed speaker, with a large curved bottom, but a small footprint overall. The curve has been deisgned in such a way to make it appear as though the speaker is floating on the floor, and after seeing the speakers in the flesh, we feel it works to great effect.

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Pocket-lint

In true B&O fashion, there are lashings of aluminium over the speaker, and oak wood lamellas covering the drivers. There are seven drivers on the BeoLab 50; 3 x 10-inch woofers, 3 x 4-inch midrange drivers and a single 0.75-inch tweeter. These are partnered to 7 x 300 Watt amplifiers, delivering a total of 2100 Watts.

The drivers benefit from the company's Active Room Compensation technology, which uses external microphones to analyse the room their placed in and measure the acoustic properties. The speaker then adjusts its audio settings to deliver the best possible sound.

The BeoLab 50 also features B&O's Acoustic Lens technology, which sees a 'lens' rise out the top of the speaker when it's turned on. This lens can be set to two different positions, narrow or wide, to disperse the sound around the room. If you're listening to music by yourself, you'll likely want it set to the narrow position, if you're hosting a party, the wide setting will be better.

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Bang & Olufsen

The BeoLab 50 comes as a pair, with one speaker being the master and the other the slave. All connections are handled by the master speaker, and include digital optical, USB, RCA and S/P-DIF. Alternatively, you can connect wirelessly using the WiSA platform.  

The Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 50 will be available this month for £22,930 per pair.