Bang & Olufsen announces Beosound Emerge wireless bookshelf speaker

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 $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.

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