High-end audio manufacturer Bang & Olufsen has announced the Beosound Emerge, a wireless bookshelf speaker with a distinctive design. The Beosound Emerge takes its role of a bookshelf speaker a little too literally and assumes the form of a hardcover book. Designed by Benjamin Huber of Design Agency LAYER, the Beosound Emerge features a pearl-blasted anodized aluminum base. The gold model features oak wood side panels with Kvadrat textile on the spine. The black model has polymer side panels with pearl-blasted aluminum for the grill in Black Anthracite finish.
The speaker features a triple driver
design, including a 4-inch woofer, 1.45-inch mid-range driver, and 0.6-inch
tweeter. The mid-range driver and tweeter fire from the front while the woofer
is back ported. Each driver features its own dedicated amplifier, with 60W for
the woofer and 30W each for the remaining two. A microphone is also included
for voice assistant duties.
The Beosound Emerge can connect using
Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 100Mbit Ethernet, and line-in/optical
combo jack. A USB-C jack is provided for power. The Beosound Emerge supports
Apple AirPlay 2, Google Chromecast, and Spotify Connect, along with traditional
Bluetooth audio. You can use Google Assistant for basic voice assistant tasks.
The speaker can be paired with a second unit to be used in stereo.
The Beosound Emerge is priced at US$ 899 for
the Gold Tone model with oak panels and $699 for the Black Anthracite model
with polymer panels. You can choose to purchase either model without Google
Assistant built-in.
