Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge – Like a book…

The new Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge is an active speaker system with a particularly slim silhouette that fits into any room. Passion for music, design and craftsmanship are supposed to form a unity here.

Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge is a wireless speaker that integrates seamlessly into any room and offers a refined appearance and appealing sound. Bang & Olufsen calls this a solution that strikes the perfect balance between the elegant beauty of a piece of furniture and the technical performance of a loudspeaker.

Of course, this solution has been designed with versatility in mind, from the possibilities of placement in the room to the choice of different sources.

Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge – Extremely compact

To make it clear right from the start that we are indeed dealing with an extremely compact wireless speaker, it should be noted that the new Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge measures no more than 25.5 cm in height, 16.5 cm in depth and 6.7 cm in width. The Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge weighs 6.7 kg.

It can therefore be said that this solution will undoubtedly find a place anywhere in the home, wherever you want to enjoy music from a variety of sources.

Designed in collaboration with Benjamin Hubert

Bang & Olufsen has always focused on unusual designs, and this is also true of the new Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge, which was designed in collaboration with Benjamin Hubert and his design agency LAYER. It is obvious that the design language of Bang & Olufsen has been used for years.

Once again, it is a variety of details that make a solution like the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge stand out from the crowd, such as the successful combination of different materials like aluminium, wood and textile fabric.

For example, the slim silhouette of the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge looks like a book standing on a shelf, with two design variants available.

The Beosound Emerge has two main features: a sandblasted aluminium cabinet with a wave-patterned plastic frame, and a bead-blasted aluminium grille on the front. This is the Black Anthracite design variant.

The second option is the Gold Tone design variant, in which the emphasis is on a combination of “warm” materials. The pearl-blasted, gold-coloured anodised aluminium is flanked by wooden side panels, while the front is covered with a high-quality textile fabric from the specialist Kvadrat. In this version, the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge almost resembles a book that is simply placed on a shelf…

So it is fitting that the manufacturer’s emblem appears here on the “spine” of the book like the author’s name.

“As a design agency, we like to build long-term partnerships with the brands we work with. The Beosound Emerge is already our second joint project with Bang & Olufsen. The super slim speaker was designed with the aim of minimising space and maximising audio performance, as available living space is more precious than ever. At LAYER, we believe that technology should make you happy, but it doesn’t have to be a form of expression in its own right. Therefore, it was equally important for us to create a new architectural format with a strong sculptural sensibility and a more domestic choice of materials that would stand out in the saturated audio market while blending harmoniously into the home.”

Benjamin Hubert, founder of LAYER

Simple operation directly on the unit

For simple, direct control, the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge features a control panel on the top of the unit, with buttons that are said to require just a gentle touch. This can be used to control playback as well as the volume, with a circular movement being provided for this purpose.

Three-way bass reflex system in the most compact form

Despite its small dimensions and especially this slim shape, three drivers are hidden here, so it is essentially a three-way system.

In addition to a 14 mm soft dome tweeter at the front, there is also a 37 mm midrange driver at the front, but mounted in such a way that the slim design of the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge can be realised. On the side, there is a 100 mm woofer, which is even equipped with a bass reflex system at the rear to support the reproduction of the lowest frequency range.

DSP-based signal processing and Class D amplifier

Of course, the developers rely on DSP-based signal processing, which on the one hand guarantees optimal control of the drivers free of distortion, but on the other hand also allows active room compensation and thus adaptation to the respective set-up of the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge. This is the Bang & Olufsen Beosonic Active Room Compensation.

The drivers are driven by Class D amplifier modules, with 30 watts available for the tweeter, another 30 watts for the midrange driver and 60 watts for the woofer. The frequency response that can be covered is specified by the manufacturer as 45 Hz to 22 kHz.

Streaming via network, Bluetooth and analogue and digital inputs

Of course, such a solution has to be connected to the network, which can be done via the integrated WiFi module according to IEEE 802.11ac. In addition, we would like to explicitly mention that an RJ45 Ethernet interface is also available.

Once connected to the network, you can access various services, because with Apple AirPlay2 and Google Chromecast, the new Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge supports the most important streaming technologies, especially with regard to the connection with mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

If you want to play music from your smartphone without a network as a basis, you can do this via Bluetooth 5.0.

Here as well as there, only the app decides from which source music is consumed via the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge; for Apple iOS as well as Google Android, the appropriate apps are available for every relevant music streaming provider.

Of course, Bang & Olufsen also offers a suitable app for configuring the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge.

If you want to integrate external sources, you can do so both on an analogue and digital level. A 3.5 mm stereo mini-jack connector is available for this purpose, which also serves as an optical S/PDIF interface.

By the way, the power supply is provided via a USB-C interface, which should be mentioned here for the sake of completeness.

Voice control included

The Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge is also a so-called Smart Speaker, it supports Google Assistant and is equipped with an integrated microphone. With the help of the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge, you can easily control music playback, call up information of any kind and control solutions in the Smart Home via voice control.

Would you like a little more?

It is worth mentioning that the new Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge can of course be part of the Multiroom system that Bang & Olufsen has been building for years. It should be mentioned that Bang & Olufsen is using the latest generation here, which should guarantee an even more reliable connection.

The possibilities here range from a simple connection of two Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge to a stereo pair, to a complete Multiroom solution with integration into the Smart Home via Bang & Olufsen Beolink connectivity, although this will probably not be made available until autumn 2021 via a so-called Over-the-Air software update.

“With the Beosound Emerge, the idea was to create the slimmest possible speaker that, thanks to its revolutionary driver configuration and despite its small size, can cover an ultra-wide sound range across the entire frequency spectrum. Whether the Beosound Emerge is placed on a bookshelf in the bedroom or in a small corner in the kitchen: Thanks to its slim design, you can take the music into another room or complement an existing speaker in the same area without taking up extra space.”

Christoffer Poulsen, Senior Vice President and Head of Product

Management at Bang & Olufsen

The new Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge is expected to hit the shelves within the next few days. The Gold Tone version will cost € 749, while the Black Anthracite version will cost only € 599.

Getting to the point

Judging by how elegant and, above all, versatile this new wireless speaker from Bang & Olufsen presents itself, it appears to be a thoroughly attractive proposition and thus a real asset in this highly competitive market segment. The new Bang & Olufsen Beosound Emerge is not only state-of-the-art from a purely technical point of view, its exquisite design concept makes it a truly remarkable solution.