- Celebrates 100 years of Bang & Olufsen craftsmanship
- Monarch features sculpted Santos Palisander rosewood.
- Zenith uses 1,800 hand-assembled aluminum spheres.
- Limited to just 10 pairs of each edition
- Priced at USD $450,000.
At what point does a speaker stop being a piece of technology and start becoming a piece of art?
Bang & Olufsen has spent much of its 100-year history blurring that line, but the new Beolab 90 Monarch and Zenith Editions take the idea somewhere altogether more extravagant. The Beolab 90 was hardly an understated starting point either; Bang & Olufsen already describes its flagship as a “sculpture of sound,” with the standard pair sitting at the very top of the company’s loudspeaker range.
These latest creations come through Bang & Olufsen Atelier, the Danish brand’s playground for experimenting with unusual materials, colours and finishes beyond what you’ll find in its regular catalogue. And this time, simply changing the colour was never going to be enough. The Monarch Edition wraps the Beolab 90 in sculpted rosewood lamellas and contrasting aluminum, drawing heavily on Denmark’s furniture-making tradition, while the Zenith Edition takes the more theatrical route with thousands of pearl-like aluminum spheres and mother-of-pearl detailing. Underneath all of that craftsmanship remains the formidable acoustic engineering that made the Beolab 90 such an extraordinary speaker in the first place.
More importantly, Monarch and Zenith are part of Bang & Olufsen’s five-part Beolab 90 Atelier centenary collection, concluding the 100th-anniversary celebration after Titan, Shadow, and Mirage editions. These designs showcase what happens when designers treat loudspeakers as canvases rather than just audio equipment, and they haven’t held back.
For a company that has spent 100 years treating sound and design as equally important, simply giving the Beolab 90 a celebratory colourway was never going to feel ambitious enough. To mark its centenary, Bang & Olufsen turned to its Atelier division and reimagined the flagship loudspeaker across five limited editions, each exploring a different combination of materials, textures and finishes while preserving the acoustic foundation underneath.
The result is less a conventional anniversary collection and more a demonstration of what can happen when designers and engineers are given room to experiment with a product that was already extraordinary.
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The journey began with the Titan Edition, which stripped the Beolab 90 back to raw cast aluminum and exposed the craftsmanship normally hidden beneath its exterior. It was followed by the darker Shadow Edition, where traditional fabric covers gave way to black-coated stainless-steel mesh, and the far more colourful Mirage Edition, whose hand-applied gradient anodization shifts between blue and magenta as you move around it.
Now, with Monarch and Zenith, Bang & Olufsen is bringing that five-part journey to a close by turning its attention to two very different expressions of craftsmanship: one rooted in the warmth and tradition of wood, and the other built around the precision, reflection and almost jewellery-like quality of polished aluminum.
The Monarch Edition of the Beolab 90 introduces a warmer, Danish feel with Santos Palisander rosewood styled into angled, curved slats that follow the speaker’s complex design in a 360-degree pattern. Each piece, uniquely patterned and coated to preserve warmth, resembles classic Danish furniture design rather than just wooden decoration, highlighting Bang & Olufsen’s advanced craftsmanship.
Six wooden knots connect the slats, with a subtle lit stripe on the front shining through the wood. A solid rosewood ring tops the speaker, and the slat pattern continues downward. Ochre-finished aluminum offers a warmer contrast, while semi-transparent fabric reveals parts of the sound equipment underneath, maintaining a balance between natural and manufactured materials. The wood provides texture and uniqueness, while the aluminum highlights the serious sound technology beneath the craftsmanship.
Our favorite detail is the story behind the wood. Bang & Olufsen has worked with the same Danish wood supplier since 1949. Making the Monarch’s larger Palisander wooden slats was challenging because each piece needs to follow the cabinet’s curves and angles. When assembled, these pieces form an almost wave-like surface around the speaker, creating a sense of movement even when silent. Covering the futuristic Beolab 90 with a traditional material and craft, dating back decades, might seem unusual, but this contrast makes the Monarch Edition unique.
Now, the Beolab 90 Zenith is where Bang & Olufsen lets its imagination run wild. Six curved panels, each with 289 anodized aluminum spheres in seven pearl-inspired finishes, create a surface that shifts and shimmers as the light changes throughout the day. A dark-grey, pearl-blasted aluminum facemask draws inspiration from the texture of an oyster shell, while a circular mother-of-pearl inlay crowns the speaker, completing what feels more like a piece of jewellery than conventional hi-fi.
The real achievement is making all that decoration work without interfering with the sound. Bang & Olufsen had to experiment with different sphere sizes and develop a specialized mounting system to keep every piece completely stable as the powerful woofers move air behind the panels, avoiding unwanted vibration or noise. The six covers require an extremely time-consuming manual assembly process, yet beneath all that polished aluminium and pearl detailing lies the acoustic engineering of the Beolab 90. It’s extravagant, slightly outrageous, and impossible to ignore—which, for something called the Zenith Edition, feels entirely appropriate.
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For all the attention given to their extraordinary materials and craftsmanship, the Monarch and Zenith remain Beolab 90s at heart, meaning Bang & Olufsen hasn’t sacrificed the serious acoustic engineering underneath. Both retain the flagship speaker’s 18-driver architecture and advanced beam-forming technology, while their exclusivity goes far beyond the finishes, with production limited to just 10 pairs of each edition.
Here’s a quick look at the key specifications and details behind the two Atelier creations:
- Model: Beolab 90 (Atelier Editions)
- Editions: Monarch & Zenith
- Series: Five-Part Atelier Centenary Collection
- Drivers: 18 bespoke drivers
- Technology: Beam-forming & Active Room Compensation
- Materials (Monarch): Santos Palisander Rosewood, Aluminium & Fabric
- Materials (Zenith): Anodised Aluminium Spheres, Mother-of-Pearl, Aluminium & Fabric
- Zenith Detailing: 1,800 Hand-Assembled Polished Aluminium Spheres
- Production: 10 Pairs Per Edition
- Extras: Certificate of Authenticity & Matching Miniature Aluminium Beolab 90 Sculpture
- Price: USD $450,000 Per Pair
