Recommends · Sound
Beosound A9
The speaker that furnished the room before it played a note.
By Bang & Olufsen · From $4,550 · Photography, see credits
Photography: Bang & Olufsen
Most speakers ask to be hidden. The A9 asks for the best seat in the room, and earns it.
The fifth generation keeps the circle that made it famous: anodized aluminum, a Kvadrat textile front you can swap with the seasons, and oak legs that make fourteen kilograms of Danish engineering look weightless. It is furniture that happens to play music.
The sound
Seven drivers and serious amplification fill a great room without shouting: two tweeters, two full-range, two midrange, and an eight-inch woofer, each with its own power. Set it in the middle of the room or tuck it in a corner; Active Room Compensation listens to the walls it finds and retunes itself. This is the rare flagship that sounds as considered as it looks.
Controls live on the top surface. A tap plays or skips, a slide of the hand sets the volume. No buttons, no remote lost down the sofa.
“It costs as much as a good sofa. It looks like one too.”