Bang & Olufsen’s Beosound Premiere lands like a spaceship in a room full of toasters. That’s not an exaggeration; it’s just what happens when a company known for treating speakers like sculpture decides to rethink the soundbar. This thing doesn’t just sit under your TV. It commands the room, a slab of pearl-blasted aluminum that looks like it was milled from a single ingot of the future. And yes, it costs £3,900, which is about as much as most people pay for rent, but let’s be real, if you’re the kind of person who buys a soundbar as a statement, you’re not exactly shopping for Black Friday deals.
The Premiere’s design is what happens when industrial designers are given free rein and a budget that doesn’t flinch. The up-firing tweeter sits center stage like a jewel, surrounded by 1,925 precision-machined perforations, a nod to Bang & Olufsen’s 1925 founding year, because of course it is. The aluminum chassis isn’t just for show; it houses ten custom drivers, including four racetrack woofers and a tweeter that looks like it belongs in a museum. The side-firing and up-firing drivers are part of the visual language, a reminder that this isn’t a black plastic slab pretending to be invisible. Then there’s the lighting: 90 LEDs that pulse and shift with your adjustments, because why should your soundbar be any less extra than the rest of your smart home?
Designer: Bang & Olufsen
You’d think all this design flair would come at the cost of actual performance, but the specs tell a different story. Ten amplifiers push 70 watts to the woofers and 50 watts to the rest, delivering a frequency range of 32 Hz to 23 kHz. The Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 decoding is paired with Bang & Olufsen’s proprietary True Image algorithm, which supposedly creates a soundstage wider than the unit itself. The company calls it Wide Stage Technology, and while I haven’t heard it yet, the idea of a soundbar that can convincingly fake a surround setup without extra speakers is intriguing. The max output of 102 dB at 1 meter means this thing can get loud, but the real test will be how it handles the subtleties: dialogue clarity, spatial separation, that kind of thing.
The connectivity suite is what you’d expect from a flagship product in 2025, but with a few Bang & Olufsen twists. HDMI eARC with 8K passthrough is table stakes at this point, but the inclusion of an Ethernet switch with three 1Gbit ports is a nice touch for anyone tired of juggling network cables. Bluetooth 5.4 and AirPlay 2 are here, obviously, but the real party trick is Beolink Surround, which lets you wire up additional B&O speakers for a true multi-channel setup. The fact that you can still use analog audio via USB-C (with an adapter) feels like a nod to the audiophiles who refuse to let go of their turntables. And yes, there’s a voice assistant option, but it requires an external Google device, because Bang & Olufsen would rather you use their app than bark commands at a microphone.
Now, the elephant in the room. £3,900 is a lot for a soundbar, but let’s put it in context. The Premiere isn’t competing with Sony or Sonos; it’s competing with high-end AV receivers and speaker setups that cost twice as much. The Haute Edition, limited to 25 pieces and priced at £11,000, is another story entirely. That’s not a soundbar; that’s a flex. Each one is hand-milled with a pattern that takes 17 hours to carve, because why not? It comes with a numbered certificate and a wooden box for the remote, because at that price, you’re not just buying audio equipment; you’re buying a piece of design history. Or at least, that’s the pitch.
The real question is whether the Premiere can justify its existence beyond being a conversation piece. Bang & Olufsen has a reputation for building products that sound as good as they look, but the soundbar market is crowded with solid performers at a fraction of the cost. The Premiere’s trick will be convincing people that its spatial audio and design justify the premium. For now, it’s hard to deny that this is one of the most interesting pieces of audio gear to come out in years. Whether it’s worth the price of a used car is another matter entirely. But if you’re the kind of person who sees a soundbar as an extension of your aesthetic, the Premiere might just be the centerpiece you’ve been waiting for.
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