Hundred years of Bang & Olufsen
Besides a certain toy company, Bang & Olufsen is surely the Danish brand closest to my heart. Today the company turns 100 years old, quite a feat, especially in the field of electronics. When I grew up in Denmark, B&O was not a luxury brand, but very much a household name, their products found in many ordinary Danish homes. I remember my dad purchasing a 24″ B&O color TV in the mid-70s; if I recall correctly, the price was around 7000 DKK (40,000 DKK in 2025 prices). That TV lasted for many, many years. All the money from my confirmation went into buying a pre-owned Beocenter 1400 + loudspeakers. As a kid and teenager, I was inspired and fascinated by the clean, futuristic-looking products that were so utterly different from all the Japanese hi-fi equipment at that time (and today for that matter).
Beovision 3702 and Beocenter 1400.
I remember the legendary B&O designer Jacob Jensen doing a talk for us LEGO designers in Billund sometime in the 80s. He said he liked our spaceship designs if we could just get rid of those pesky ‘warts’ (studs) that were everywhere on our designs! Back then, the LEGO and B&O companies were of similar sizes; today, the latter is a dwarf compared to LEGO in terms of market position and revenue (75 Billion vs 2.5 Billion DKK).
Today, some of the B&O products feel more like expensive jewelry for houses and apartments in Dubai and similar tacky places. But their cheaper streaming loudspeakers and headphones are great and offer quite good value for money. I have done some concept work for B&O, which was an aspiration for me, both for the core brand and some early work on what was to become Beoplay. Today, I own two products from Struer, a Beolit 15 portable loudspeaker and those most excellent Beoplay H95 headphones, a real joy to use. The software could be better, but the build and the sound quality are very, very good.
So happy birthday to Bang & Olufsen, here’s to another 100 years. Here are a few of my favorite beoproducts:
(Many more on my Pinterest board)
#bo #bangolufsen #design #lego #opinion