$40,000 speakers with an innovative acoustic lens that narrows and directs the sweet spot directly toward the listener's ears.

It’s near impossible to forget the Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 90, a monolithic, tessellated,18-driver hydra engineered with 8,200 watts per channel designed to celebrate 90 years of everything Bang & Olufsen. It’s an attention grabbing presence even when turned off, but completely arresting when at full blast ? the audio version of experiencing Ludicrous Mode. The Tesla comparison isn’t daft, for the high-end Danish consumer electronics company took everything gleaned from engineering the flagship 90 and applied it to developing the (slightly) more affordable and recently unveiled, BeoLab 50.
We actually previewed the BeoLab 50 months ago, but had to agree to stay mum about it till today. Photo: Gregory Han When we report the BeoLab 50 offers a more affordable option ? less than half the BeoLab 90’s $84,990/pair price tag ? we’re still talking about $40,000/pair loudspeakers. That out of the way, Bang & Olufsen hasn’t cut corners with this latest endeavour, simply optimizing performance and cramming it into small confines, incorporating many of the same technologies of its bigger, beastly brother.

While the 90 was wildly angular ? an audacious aural objet d’art ? the design of the BeoLab 50 is a more sedate silhouette, one that doesn’t demand as much space or attention as its precu...