With HP’s deal with to incorporate Beats audio technology and branding on products ending with Apple’s acquisition of the headphone maker last year, HP announced today it will look to Bang & Olufsen to lend its audio expertise to future mobile devices and headphones as it officially replaces Beats.
The Bang & Olufsen brand will appear on HP’s Spectre, Omen, Envy and some other PCs. The B&O Play brand will appear on HP Pavilion PCs, tablets and PC audio accessories, such as headphones.
While it was reported last year that HP could continue selling products with Beats Audio technology and branding through 2015, development of new products using Beats ended last year. HP will look to complete the transition with the first products using Bang & Olufsen audio arriving this spring.
Meanwhile, Apple continues to push Beats Electronics headphones in its retail stores and alongside iOS devices, but hasn’t yet officially bundled the products or integrated Beats branding into its other product lines. We reported earlier this month, however, that Apple is currently planning to launch a new streaming music service at WWDC later this year based on the tech it acquired from Beats.
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Cue the … “Beat’s sucks!” and “Apple should have bought Bang & Olufsen,” comments from all the audiophiles that don’t want to admit how subjective the experience of audio quality is.
Bang & Olufsen isn’t really “high end”, it’s more of an expensive lifestyle brand. Companies like Wilson Audio, MBL, Magico, Meridian Audio, Pass Labs, and many others like them are more high end home audio/home theater companies. B&O caters to the people that have money, but are more interested in what it looks like due to their use of industrial designers that cater their products to attract the modern look and lifestyle customers rather than the audiophile geek crowd. They certainly are better sounding than Beats, but that’s not that difficult to do. Plenty of companies can do that.
You never heard a pair of B&O, have you now? Internet trolling is strong with your Rich Davis.
Beats not being professional quality has nothing to do with B&O’s quality, good or bad.
Apple bought them for the personal and streaming service, not the hardware.
I guess there’s no point saying Beats headphones suck, since you already know, but there’s no reason whatsoever for Apple to have bought either of those brands, in my opinion.
The moment Apple bought Beats they undermined any street cred they were purchasing anyway, and B&O never had anything Apple wanted.
It’s a good move for HP. They’ll get some much needed design benefit from a relationship with B&O, and they’re more than capable of delivering what HP needs in terms of fidelity.
Good for HP. Band & Olufsen would create a second-to-non audio experience for computers. Maybe this will raise the bar in general.