Another purveyor of luxury goods seems to be in trouble. Bang & Olufsen has forecast lower profit and sales for the year for the third time. The Denmark-based company has said that they have seen less of a demand for luxury consumer electronics and they are also facing legal disputes. Bloomberg reports that shares have lost almost two-thirds of its value this year.

Bang & Olufsen is in a tricky spot because their products often cost more double or triple what a similar products would cost from another manufacturer. While Bang & Olfusen products often have really fantastic design and a distinctive look in an economic crunch that might not be be enough to keep customers shopping. Analysts say that Bang & Olufsen may have to find a partner for their electronics business as technology increases and if profits continue to fall. Bang & Olufsen is scheduled to release fiscal 2008 earnings in August and hopes that profit will improve. I'm certainly pulling for them. They've had a few design clunkers over the years (I think their Serene cell phone is a bit of a miss) and their products may be overpriced at times but no other company produces consumer electronics that are quite as distinctive.

The latest designer toy from Bang & Olufsen is the new digital music player, the BeoSound 6. The BeoSound 6 comes with a leather bag and travel charger as well as an excellent pair of A8 earphones which are made from rubber and aluminium. The little BeoSound 6 has room for around 1,000 songs (it has an internal 4GB memory). The BeoSound uses the BeoPlayer software system for downloading music. It sells for around $800 which means you really have to love the design and those earphones to make it worth it for you.

The latest toy from Bang & Olufsen is the Beo 5 remote control. What does it do? The Beo 5 offers touch-screen control of your TV, films, music and more. The remote is designed to know what products you have and will be able to control new Bang & Olufsen products, even the ones that haven't been created yet. The Beo 5 presents the info you need on its hardened glass screen without having to clutter up the screen of your television. It can be linked up with home automation so that with one touch you could close the curtains, dim the lights, set the sound of the speakers and open the DVD player to prepare for a movie. The design reminds me a bit of B & O's Serene phone with the juxtaposition of the circle and the square. For more pics check out Engadget HD's gallery.

The BeoVision 8 TV is designed to be beautiful and versatile at the same time, and is designed to appeal to the "every day" needs of its target market. It's a compact LCD TV that's just as happy on the floor as it is in a more formal entertainment center or on your computer desk. It has a hidden built-in speaker capable of putting out the quality sound you expect from Bang & Olufsen, along with a picture that looks good in difficult lighting (sunlight included!) thanks to a new high-glare surface and low-reflection coating. It also has both a low light transmission and a high black level for an awesome LCD screen. Everything is integrated, which makes the BeoVision 8 easy to move around, to where ever the summer takes you.

This week took me through several different airports and so I got to see a lot of people sporting Bluetooth headsets. Starting soon, those in need of new ear candy might want to check out the WEP 420, a headset designed by Bang & Olufsen and created by Samsung Electronics. The sleek and silver WEP 420 has buttons that are hidden behind a sliding cover. The sliding cover blocks static to increase overall sound quality and comes with an attractive charger cradle. Not bad, although the blockish bar look makes it look as if you have a silver ingot strapped to the side of your head.

[via PSFK]

In order to celebrate their 80th anniversary, high-end audio designer Bang & Olufsen has created two limited edition BeoCom 2 cordless telephone handsets. There will be 600 of these phones produced worldwide and sold in North America.  The new phones use a new color just for this series and half of the units have patterns etched by hand directly onto the surface by Danish designer, Bess Kristoffersen.  Each one is individually numbered and has its own signature pattern. Bang & Olufsen will be donating 10% of the proceeds from the sale of each Limited Edition BeoCom 2 handset to the VH1 Save The Music Foundation. The new phones go on sale this month and sell for $1450 for the etched version and $1000 for the plain version.

Bang & Olufsen has introduced a new sound system for Audi automobiles. The Advanced Sound System is designed for Audi's A8, S8 and Concept Car, the Roadjet. The system, which will be available in the summer of 2006 offers better sound staging for all passengers and has the ability to respond to chances in background noise conditions like rain or traffic. The system has a digital signal processor,amplification for each loudspeaker and acoustic lenses which provide horizontal sound dispersion of high frequencies. The acoustic lenses rise out of the dashboard when the system is on.The system is offered as an upgrade in the A8/S8 class automobiles. In Germany, it costs 6000 Euros but U.S. pricing hasn't been set yet.