BeoVision 10-40

The BeoVision 10-40 is the slimmest 40″ flat screen TV which Bang & Olufsen has ever designed and may be placed on a wall or on its own specially-crafted floor stand. The television looks very similar to BeoVision 9(and indeed BeoVision 5) with its slim aluminium frame surrounding both the viewing screen and the cloth-covered active loudspeakers, situated beneath.

Simple to use, the ‘artist’s easel’ TV may be positioned at an angle of up to 45° from the wall.

Its sound quality - as one would expect - is second to none with a trumpet-shaped bass port solution eliminating any turbulent noise.

State of the art LED backlight technology allows its LCD viewing screen to be slimmer and more efficient than similarly-sized units.

The front cover of BeoVision 10 may be changed quickly, with magnets holding the cloth-covered acoustically-thin speaker frets in situ. A range of covers - in different colours - is available.

The front of the TV is covered by a sheet of elegant protective glass and framed by a high-gloss polished aluminium frame on both front and rear, only a few centimeters wide.

Sound quality

An active two-way stereo loudspeaker system and a centre bass with a creative bass port design is incorporated within the design of BeoVision 10, integrated and placed below the screen and covered by a cloth-covered exchangeable speaker fret. At only 1,8 litres, the sound produced from the speaker cabinet belies its small construction size. In its design the TV required a completely new cabinet to make it possible to develop a new concept for the bass port. The new design not only increased the bass quality, but also reduced unwanted turbulent noise:

“A forward pointing bass leaves very little space between the port and the front fabric and gives an unwanted dampening effect which increases the risk of audible distortion and turbulent noise. By placing the port opening behind the screen and creating trumpet shaped design for the outer opening, the wind speed at the port opening is slowed down which results in optimal reduction of the turbulent noise, actually giving an improved bass performance.”

The sound system consists of a custom made 50mm midrange and a 37mm tweeter in each two-way channel. The centre-bass system is a custom-made 100mm loudspeaker driver facing out towards the front part of the speaker frame. The bass loudspeaker driver is protected by Adaptive Bass Linearisation (ABL) circuitry allowing for an optimal sound pressure level. The loudspeakers are individually equalised and driven by Class D amplifiers. This solution offers full bandwidth high-quality audio. To further refine the sound performance, all loudspeaker cabinets are suspended in rubber bushings to avoid disturbing vibrations generated to the rest of the TV.

BeoVision 10 offers a digital surround sound module as standard and includes an extensive connection panel allowing for the addition of up to five extra speakers for a full surround sound setup.

Not just good looks

Designed to take up minimal space, the frame surround of BeoVision 10 consists of two high-gloss polished aluminium profiles which are shaped in such a manner to make it look as though the set is ’suspended in space’ and becomes part of the wall on which it is placed as though an optical illusion.

Each edge of the front frame - which point towards the screen - has been milled and anodised with a black colour. This makes the inner edge of the profile match perfectly the black front glass that it frames thus enhancing its invisibility and lightness.

The overall aim in the design of BeoVision 10 was to give the impression of the TV as one large piece of black glass, ‘floating just a few centimetres from the wall’. An optio High-Definition module, the DVB-HD, could be installed within the TV to give full HD-quality pictures.

A new larger screened version of the BeoVision 10-40: the BeoVision 10-46, was introduced in 2010. And a smaller version, the BeoVision 10-32 was added to the range at the end of 2010.

” The BeoVision 10 presents resplendent picture quality, with one of the deepest blacks I have ever measured for a television, excellent colour reproduction and incredible handling of rapid sport and action movements due to its 200 Hz system. The picture is a touch too blue compared to our reference target, and there is a tad too much artificial sharpness in the picture occasionally, but these things have little impact on the overall experience of fantastic picture quality, wrapped up in the BeoVision 10’s unique design.

If we put it all together – beautiful picture quality and a sublime sound system with a built-in surround amplifier, excellent construction and quality materials, while also noting that the television is created as a piece of furniture for the home – what we have is a fantastic product from Bang & Olufsen. “

Full review of the BeoVision 10-40 at FlatPanelsHD (18.01.10)