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Home / News / Retro chic – Bang and Olufsen BeoSound 9000 (1996)

Retro chic – Bang and Olufsen BeoSound 9000 (1996)

B&O is about to "terminate" the Beosound 9000 meaning Sade CDs everywhere will have to find a new home

What’s the story?

B&O is the master of creating weird looking ways to control and play your music – just look at the BeoSound 5 Encore – and back in 1996 the BeoSound 9000 was unleashed on the unsuspecting Hi-Fi industry, causing havoc. B&O called it “autovisuality” – we call it looking at your CD choices. Either way it’s not often that the entire system is contained in a clamper that moves along a row of six visible CDs, playing over seven hours of uninterrupted music.

Why should we want one?

Hook the BeoSound 9000 up to a pair of B&O speakers and – bar ridiculously expensive and ancient turntables – you won’t be beaten for a retro music system that sounds good whilst proudly showing off its inner workings. The jukebox-like setup beats making a Spotify playlist hands down and boring silver and black boxes will cower in fear as your BeoSound 9000 changes its guise every time you choose a bunch of new CDs.

What to look for

The BeoSound 9000 can go a bit Texas Chainsaw Massacre on your beloved CDs as some clampers have been known to hit them instead of passing above to get to the one you want to play. So if you’re buying off eBay, it might be worth trying before you buy. It can also be tricky to work out how to change the CDs so spend some time on small talk.

Also

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About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home