Honesty of Materials
Craft Matters
At Bang & Olufsen, our unique approach to conceptual design drives us to think in terms of experiences – and we use that story in the way we craft our products.
Superior craft since 1925
Since 1925 Bang & Olufsen has created iconic audio and home entertainment products to the highest standards of sound, craft and design.
It's all made possible at our factory in Denmark, where we take care of every single step of the process. Expert eyes, hands and ears keep track of everything. We’ve been doing things this way for almost 100 years, because this is how you make products not just for today, but for tomorrow. Longevity is at the heart of all we do.
Our craft philosophy is: “It’s about what the craft means. A chance to transcend generations and keep memories alive. Destined to be kept, not put aside when something new comes along. Whether literally or in our hearts and minds, Bang & Olufsen products last like nothing else.”
Honesty of materials
Having the right material in the right place matters. This is how we see it. If it looks like aluminium, it is aluminium – machined to precision. If it looks like leather, it is leather – handpicked and of the highest quality. If it looks like wood, it is wood – natural and tactile.
All our materials are chosen for their beauty, functionality, longevity and comfort. We sculpt them, refine them, finish them. Everything is checked and rechecked by hand, eye and ear. It takes years to perfect craft like this. Almost 100 years, to be exact.
Aluminium
As one of the lightest and strongest materials in the world, aluminium brings both portability and rigidity to our products - and as an efficient heat dispenser, it works perfectly with our acoustic designs. It can also be coloured uniquely. In the anodization processes, both surface treatments and colour hue, as well as saturation and lightness, can bring out different depths and add so much more than just a painted colour.
Fabric
We use the richness, complexity and warmth of wool on many of our products. Working together with Kvadrat, one of the most iconic brands in the world of textiles, we use textures on the covers of our products that closely match the interior design palette. Several colours are then used to achieve greater depth. Did you know that there is a small amount of light green threads in our standard black colour?
Wood
Conceptually, the use of wood in Bang & Olufsen products comes down to how we believe technology should fit into your home. The Scandinavian heritage of bringing natural wood inside the home is reflected in the use of structural elements such as legs in smoked oak, pine, walnut or maple. The woods we use are treated with natural oils so as not to cover their rich texture and structure, which always feels smooth and warm to the touch.
How materials and engineering define the listening experience
Materials and engineering work together rather than separately. Aluminium's rigidity supports heat dispersion for the internal electronics that drive dynamic range and distortion control. Fabric covers are chosen to let sound pass cleanly through the weave, not only to match a room's palette. Wood contributes to a product's structural integrity as much as its appearance.
On top of this foundation, driver architecture, beam control and room adaptation determine how that sound behaves once it reaches the room — adjusting to wall surfaces, room shape and speaker placement rather than assuming a fixed listening environment. Each material choice and each engineering choice serves the same outcome: sound built for the room it's heard in.
Our commitment to Cradle to Cradle Certified®
We became the first brand in the Consumer Electronics industry to implement this standard. It focuses on a replaceable, customisable and upgradable approach to product design. Beosound Level applies this directly: customers replace the batteries themselves, they can also customise the speaker covers with new materials and colourways.
Created by the American architect William McDonough and the German chemist Michael Braungart in 2002, the Cradle to Cradle design principle assess a product against specific criteria: material health, potential for reuse, water and energy use in manufacturing, and social fairness in the supply chain.
Recent acoustic advancements
New-generation products carry this into product-specific engineering. Beoplay H100 uses 40mm titanium drivers, Dolby Atmos spatial audio with head tracking, and EarSense technology, which adjusts sound in real time to the shape of the listener's ear. Beo Grace carries a 12mm titanium driver and the same EarSense technology, paired with Adaptive Active Noise Cancellation tuned by Bang & Olufsen's tonmeisters.
Beosound Premiere applies the same thinking to the home: ten custom-engineered drivers, including a centred up-firing tweeter, work with Wide Stage Technology. An in-house processing system that widens and heightens the soundstage without external speakers, while the soundbar analyses the room it's placed in and can expand into a larger system through Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 decoding and Beolink Surround.
Across the portfolio, Bang & Olufsen continues to refine technologies such as beam control, room adaptation, and multi-driver integration as part of its acoustic design approach. These technologies are engineered to adapt to real living spaces, where room reflections and speaker placement can influence the listening experience.
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