Bang & Olufsen unveiled three wireless speakers that support the new WiSA standard for high-quality audio. The top model is the BeoLab 18, a speaker inspired by the company's pencil-shaped BeoLab 8000 design.
The BeoLab 18 has an acoustic-lens tweeter that disperses sound evenly through a room.
All of Bang & Olufsen's WiSA speakers have aluminum exteriors.
The base of the BeoLab 18 retains the same pencil shape as the BeoLab 8000, but adds a slight curve.
The front grille of the speaker can be in wood, black or white finish.
The BeoLab 19 subwoofer's aluminum exterior has a dodecahedron shape, and the perforated rims around the two 8-inch drivers are inspired by jet engines.
The subwoofer, like the speakers, is wireless, but you'll need to plug it into power to drive the pair of 160-watt amplifiers that drive the woofers.
The BeoLab 17 is B&O's "compact" design in its wireless line.
The exterior of the BeoLab 17 is crafted from a single piece of aluminum.
The wedge-shaped end caps can be black or white.
The grille is offered in a "broken ice" pattern or plain white, black or blue.
Wireless speakers are everywhere, but they often need to compromise on audio quality — especially if they use Bluetooth, which can hit the sound with unacceptable levels of compression. That's why Bang & Olufsen waited until the WiSA (wireless speaker and audio) standard emerged before venturing into the space, and it's done so with a bang, unveiling three wireless speakers Tuesday morning.
The most notable is the company's BeoLab 18 speaker, which re-imagines Bang & Olufsen's BeoLab 8000 design from 1992 — still the company's most successful speaker product to date. Shaped like a huge pencil, the speaker updates the design with new drivers, including the sound-dispersing acoustic-lens tweeter first seen in the spaceship-like BeoLab 5, and an inventive speaker grille with a wood finish.
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In addition to the BeoLab 18, B&O revealed the BeoLab 17, a smaller "bookshelf" speaker shaped like a wedge with an exterior finished from a piece of solid aluminum. Finally there's the BeoLab 19, a subwoofer with a driver design inspired by a jet engine, and a dodecahedron shape that looks like an enlarged 12-sided die from Dungeons & Dragons.

The big innovation in all these speakers is WiSA technology, a new wireless standard that can transmit audio from a source (TV, disc player or receiver) to its speakers with no delay, interference or compromise in sound quality. The transmitter range is about 40 feet — much less than the 300 or so for Wi-Fi — so it's meant for a single room, not a whole-house audio system.
At a demo in New York City today, Bang & Olufsen showed off its new speakers, and they are indeed things of beauty. The design of each is distinctive and modern, but it's the sound that really turns your head. Listening to tracks from k.d. lang and Steely Dan, I could tell the new B&O speakers could play extremely loud without losing accuracy, and the bass — while powerful — was never boomy.
It was when the system took on an action scene from The Bourne Legacy that I was truly convinced of the system's power and ability to render an intricate soundstage. An exploding cabin nearly had me ducking for cover, and you could feel the bullets and missiles whizzing by as the action unfolded. If there was any delay in the WiSA tech, I couldn't detect it.
Wireless doesn't mean cordless, however. Although not needing to tether directly to your audio source frees buyers to put the speakers where they want without laying miles of speaker cable, all the speakers still need to be plugged into power.
B&O's wireless speakers are far from the first attempt to take home audio wireless. The Philips Fidelio soundbar is a good example of a product that bestows similar freedom without the need for WiSA. However, the promise of the new standard is that as more companies sign on, more gear will be compatible with your speakers.
And now the bad news: The BeoLab 17 costs $3,990 a pair, the BeoLab 18 is $6,590 a pair, and the BeoLab 19 subwoofer is $3,395.
At least with Tuesday's products you're paying for more than just name. With B&O leading the charge of wireless home audio, WiSA instantly has some high-end cred. The question now is: Will other manufacturers tune in?
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Images: Mashable, Christina Ascani