ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Tried looking for B&O Chester on the website and B&O Liverpool comes up: Chester is no longer listed.
But googling B&O Chester brings up their website on a beostores.bang-olufsen.co.uk website, which seems to hold the local stores web pages, including for example, Liverpool.
Am I the only person to think that the B&O website is a navigational nightmare, whether looking for a store or looking for product information?
Graham
BeoNut since '75
B&O Chester has closed down. It won't be the first this year and it won't be the last, sadly..
Lee
9 LEE: B&O Chester has closed down. It won't be the first this year and it won't be the last, sadly.. Lee
Good lord, if you can't make a store work in the historic town of Chester, it doesn't bode well for the future. Chester, Bath, Tunbridge Wells, Leamington Spa should be four towns/areas which are ripe for existing B&O's customer base.
9-LEE:B&O Chester has closed down. It won't be the first this year and it won't be the last, sadly.. Lee
That might explain the very long list of ex demo products on the hidden local store webpage.
Lee, is there a hit list known only to the trade?
vikinguk: Lee, is there a hit list known only to the trade? Graham
I'm convinced some of this has to do with peoples impressions or prejudices about the brand. I work with a large group of folk(about 400) all of whom earn well over £50,000 pa. Apart from Chris Harrison and i, to a man they look upon B&O as just for millionaires, and tarted up Phillips. They think we are mugs.
Nobody would ever contemplate entering a store as they think everything will be too expensive, and not for them. But they will happily buy B&W/Sonos/Bose etc in their droves. I read an old review about speakers, one of which was the Beolab 8000 and the others at least included a B&W model. Even though they were all about the same price, only the Beolab was described as "predictably eye wateringly expensive". But it was the same price as the B&W.
There is a prejudice built into a lot of audiophiles, who believe their speakers that are made by some tin pot company in Norfolk are bound to be better than a Beolab. Of course the little company doesn't have a Geoff, or an audio chamber like the one in Struer and even though they cost twice that of a Beolab, B&O are for rich people! Where has this logic come from, and more importantly how do B&O negate it.
An aquantance from work recently spent £2,500 on a Bose system surround, and didn't contemplate my Beolab 14 system that i showed him because he couldn't afford it. Even though i explained it would only be a couple of hundreds of pounds more, he was convinced down to his very DNA, that Bang and Olufsen would be unaffordable!
This is partly why people are not even opening the door of a store, let alone spend £8,000 on a TV. You can build all the great new stuff you like and it is, but if there simply isn't the footfall..............
Beosound Stage, Beovision 8-40, Beolit 20, Beosound Explore.
StUrrock: AFAIK Chester closed voluntarily paying all their creditors and bills and were not CLOSED down. I know Tony personally and he is a very hard working, honorable man.
AFAIK Chester closed voluntarily paying all their creditors and bills and were not CLOSED down.
I know Tony personally and he is a very hard working, honorable man.
Correct on both counts. Chester were not closed down - Tony (like many other dealers) couldn't see a future with the brand so paid his bills and closed the doors for good.
With such a small number of dealers there won't be as much used kit around in future, which means many more people will be leaving the brand altogether.. I personally bought used before I bought new - and I'm sure this is the case with many people.
As far as the B&O website being updated - I don't think it's priority number one for them!
Chris Townsend: I'm convinced some of this has to do with peoples impressions or prejudices about the brand. I work with a large group of folk(about 400) all of whom earn well over £50,000 pa. Apart from Chris Harrison and i, to a man they look upon B&O as just for millionaires, and tarted up Phillips. They think we are mugs.
My landlords think that....and they were strong advocates of the B&O brand. They still own an Avant and BV6-22. However, they've moved on, not bought a B&O product since 2003. They have plenty of cash - a £2 million property portfolio - but can't get their heads around spending £5K+ on a B&O TV. They stopped going in to the store a couple of years ago. Sadly, they do not care about the brand at all.
StUrrock: Lee you have a great business brain and love the brand. What would you do if you were in charge?
Lee you have a great business brain and love the brand.
What would you do if you were in charge?
I love the brand, but I'm not sure about the first part !!
Personally I'd go back to the Multibrand concept, immediately. Get B&O sat beside other brands where people can see it. Get the name known again.. Have dedicated stores, of course - but let people experience the stuff in an environment they're comfortable in to start with. There's nothing as enticing as a "special" section reserved for B&O in a multibrand store if it's done well.
Internet sales? B&O simply has to be seen and touched - not seen on your computer. It's not a simple commodity, it's a product manufactured and made using expensive processes and unless it has rave reviews online nobody will take the plunge without seeing and/or hearing it first. However, if there's little chance anyone will ever see one in the flesh, then why (as a journalist) write a review about it? It's a bit chicken and egg really..
B&O takeover by another company? I'm not sure on Danish laws etc, but I can see the Danish government stepping in before B&O is bought out by another company..
B&O certainly seem to be in a bit of a rut at the moment.
Having recently visited a number of B&O stores in and around London, (see my other thread about choosing a new TV), I have to say I was made aware by one really great B&O dealer of the advantages of the brand, the new matrix style system for bringing in different sources to listen/watch. I was surprised as the brand now seem a lot more nimble on there feet then they once were and this the concept seems really great.
With that said, getting rid of old technologies such as ML, I would imagine alienate some of the loyal customer base who have no doubt in the recent past invested in it and may even have wired there homes thinking it would be future proof. Take my own scenario as an example, I'm after a 32 -40 tv for the bedroom, thus Beoplay 32 would be the ideal choice, though I now can't connect this to my Beosound 9000 without paying hundreds for a converter.......to say I wasn't best pleased was an understatement.
On the whole, B&O were are in some ways are providing an integrated product suite, though I feel there core strength now lies in audio rather than visual as LCD/LED technologies become a cheap commodity.
I'm going to put a link to an article which i'm sure has been mentioned here a few times, but might be new to some. It is a great article, which is just the sort of information that needs to be out there, to get the correct message across to those who are ignorant as to what B&O is all about.
But if you read the entire article, and then go to the comments section, you will only see one comment which it pretty well sums up what B&O are up against. It is not the first time i have heard it either, so writing it off as some troll nonsense wouldn't be wise.
http://www.soundandvision.com/content/behind-scenes-bang-olufsen-headquarters
My comment to that (lonesome) comment:
If I would let my wife pick out the 'stereo equipment' we should have, I would not have any at all!
Except maybe my iPad and some good headphones.
On the other hand (seeing that comment from the positive side) - if B&O is what the wife picks out, you should be very pleased with her choice
MM
There is a tv - and there is a BV
Imagine asking your wife to just put a CD on with this (note I didn't bother reading the text, it's more for the pictures)
My wife loves how easy it is to use B&O
x:________________________
The next step is to paper the walls with $100 dollar bills!!
Ban boring signatures!
Why am I reminded of Nero's Golden House? After bankrupting the Roman treasury to build it, he moved in and supposedly said "now I can live like a human being!"
Jeff
I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus.
Jonathan: Imagine asking your wife to just put a CD on with this (note I didn't bother reading the text, it's more for the pictures)
I'm going to put it out there and guess this guy doesn't have too many friends...
I'm all for good sound, really - and I appreciate a lovely system like the next man, but the terminology these guys use makes me die! I just kind of glaze over, then laugh, then glaze over, then get bored and stop reading....
9 LEE:the terminology these guys use makes me die!
Interestingly the article appears to be penned by a gal not a guy, it is signed ....
But then you did say that you
9 LEE:then get bored and stop reading....
elephant: 9 LEE:the terminology these guys use makes me die! Interestingly the article appears to be penned by a gal not a guy, it is signed .... But then you did say that you 9 LEE:then get bored and stop reading....
That's just his wife writing the last paragraph to say how wonderful everything is!
vikinguk:That's just his wife writing the last paragraph to say how wonderful everything is! Graham
Correct, it's Mike Malinowsky who did the main review. His wife added the final chapter, bless her. As long as they're happy together in their audio nirvana after the journey then who are we to laugh at them, switching their cables, repositioning their huge toilet roll tubes, placing their neoprene pads under each of their toes for vibration dampening whilst sitting on their acoustically transparent sofa, etc....
In fairness, it's their choice. It clearly makes them happy - and I'm sure they sit together on that sofa with matching cardigans with big smiles on their faces enjoying their (and I quote) deep and forceful bass, which in retrospect was homogenous (go figure) which with another artist tended to interfere and smear the purity of her voice... The "swirling phasey sound" had me scratching my head, and the description of sound as being a "thick, slow, sonic mush" made me almost email McDonalds with a new idea for a milkshake.
Anyway, I'm taking pot shots at someone who isn't here to defend him or herself, which isn't on really. I'll leave it at that.
Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack the thread....
Jonathan: Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack the thread....
Sometimes hijacks improve the content!
StUrrock: vikinguk: Lee, is there a hit list known only to the trade? Graham AFAIK Chester closed voluntarily paying all their creditors and bills and were not CLOSED down. I know Tony personally and he is a very hard working, honorable man.
As above, I know Tony, he had(has) a love for the brand andwhilst I have not spoken to him, he had interests in another business so I guess it was the right time for him to stop - and bear in mind he was located in an area prime for B&O and with low overheads compared to ( I am guessing) maybe 75% of other stores.
Hard times.
On a related note, John from Chester is now with King Street in Manchester.
As Liverpool seems to be a factory outlet store ( elsewhere on here) then the North West has gone from Stores in around a dozen towns around manchester and Liverpool , to just Manchester and Liverpool, with nothing until you go north up to Preston, or south to Cheshire.
Fair play to everyone at King Street for sticking with the brand through thick & thin - its a strong, helpful and very experienced team there now.
4 beolab 5, beolab 9, beolab 10, beolab 5000, beolab 8000 mk2, beolab 6002, beolab 3500, beovision 7 55 mk2, 2 beovision 11 46 mk4, beotime, beosound ouverture, beosound essence, beoplay A8, beomaster 900 RG de luxe and the collection continues...
olvisab:"Anyway, I'm taking pot shots at someone who isn't here to defend him or herself, which isn't on really. I'll leave it at that." That's the only fair sentence of this thread. beosound 5/BM5 , beosystème 4500 , beolab 3, beolab 7.2, beolab 5000, beolab 8000, beolab 14, beolab 3500, beovision 7-40 mkIII , beovision av 9000, IWS 2000, beotime, MLGW