Get it on (Bang and songs)

Don’t forget the songs that made you cry And the songs that saved your life… — from Rubber Ring by The Smiths

Picture yourself in a house by a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. 

In actuality, things are different. The house is beside a boulevard of sorts, with an ant-march of big, brawny cars. The trees are green; you see red roses, too. And clouds have gotten so biblically black you’d think you’re in the Garden and somebody just took a bite out of the forbidden fruit. Sa-sa-sound the alarm: It’s a nice day for some sound-tripping. And as long as your stereo system still pumps out good grooves (no matter how Frankenstein-like it looks), still reacts to electricity (even if it is as old as Dorian Gray), and you got a denim bag somewhere of vinyls and CDs lying around, or a gigabyte-bag of MP3s in the ether, you’re in good company. You’re in Eden, the apple is untouched and the metaphors haven’t rotted. Yet. 

Doubly so if your audio equipment is logoed with three words: Bang. And. Olufsen. (Well, two surnames connected by ampersand, to be exact.) But you get the drift.

So here we are in a showroom in Forbes Park, and an executive has ushered us into the entertainment room, with Bang & Olufsen CD players and speakers strategically situated. This can only bode good things. Maybe there’s a Steely Dan or Weather Report record in here. “Aja” and “Heavy Weather” are two albums used in testing high-fidelity equipment in the ’70s. Test that new subwoofer with Rikki Don’t Lose That Number, my brother Dennis told me. Is that an electric marimba? Can’t go wrong with Chuck Rainey or Jaco Pastorius on the low-end meshing with the soup of saxophones and keys. Maybe there are downloaded Boredoms, Fantomas and John Zorn MP3s in a nearby laptop. Nothing like some evocative avant-garde noise to make you feel alive and so damn unwell. Yamatsuka Eye goes, “Aarrfaghhhghghhhhhhghghgg…” John Zorn’s horn goes, “Srkrrrosososnssskskkknnkkk…” Everyone joins Mike Patton in kicking the shit out of those jams; Bruno Mars better run for the hills. Sing it with me…

Maybe there’s Sunless Saturday, maybe there’s Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down, maybe there’s Vampire Weekend.

Living Innovations general manager Ferdie Ong says, “Bang & Olufsen is not just about the look or the inspirational design; it’s the functionality behind it.” Living Innovations is the distributor of B&O in the Philippines.

If so the party, my friends, has just begun.

Just imagine how Bang & Olufsen would deliver the crisp lows and the delicious highs in those tunes; even at low volumes the music still sounds as crunchy and as ear-watering. The mark of great speakers — a B&O executive once told me during a tour at the B&O headquarters in Struer, Denmark (yes, I heard you, I’m a lucky bastard… I saw the Cube Room) — is that there is no loss of clarity even if you’ve set the volume knob to 2 instead of 11. Spinal Tap sounds wicked still.

But as fate would have it, the B&O guy plays a David Foster DVD. Oh-oh!A stage whisper: Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Foster and friends (Charice, to name one) are onstage; the tuxedoes and gowns glitter and glint under the klieg lights; makeup so thick you could almost slice it; and, oh man, the piano fills and orchestral swirls sound bright and sprightly. Charice takes the microphone and sings a Celine Dion song, from one air-bender to another. Thunder, outside, with snatches of lightning. Zeus playing the drum solo from Moby Dick, Hermes on Les Paul. The sound from the B&O cuts through. The diminutive Filipina singer wields that voice, that Excalibur of a voice, like a sword. I can’t say it’s not entirely enjoyable watching that video with that pricey video equipment powered by B&O. I could stay in the showroom all day, if only to listen intently to the French horn or Boz Scagg’s voice.  

Then we move into the living room and things get infinitely better. This where they have the mother of all plasma televisions, the BeoVision 4.

The whole enchilada of specs, according to Living Innovations general manager Ferdie Ong, is an entire universe apart from those of other audio-visual brands.

There it is, fronting one living room wall: all 85 inches of it. They call it BeoVision 4, which has a plasma panel that only dispenses pictures in full HD — whether connected by cable or satellite, video recorders or digital cameras. We are told that with the TV’s VisionClear technology, the TV set adjusts to any source and “never fails to deliver the sharpest details, the brightest colors and the smoothest movements onscreen.” Another feature is the Automatic Picture Control Sensor that “helps it adapt to any environment that guarantees the best viewing experience, no matter the amount of ambient light in the room.” You could be in one of the hatches in the island in Lost and you could still watch Larry David or The Mighty Boosh duo in all their idiosyncratic ticks and glories.

Dig into these facts: The best thing about the BeoVision 4 is the Automatic Color Management system wherein after 100 hours of use, a robotic built-in camera checks the screen and adjusts the television’s color balance, accordingly. Like a smart TV. “Smart” in every sense of the word.

Take this, BeoVision 4 boasts 3D technology as well.

Ferdie cues a movie for us to watch with 3D glasses on. God, I hope it’s not something scored by David Foster!

Thankfully, it’s Resident Evil, either 2 or something from that franchise, maybe it’s Apocalypse. But the action is unrelenting. It almost feels as if Milla Jovovich is coming toward you, about to slice your head off with an axe. Thankfully, it is still television and the reality is you’re watching Alice go medieval on one of those executioner nemeses.   

The BeoVision 4 manages to deliver a 3D film in full high-definition. All you need, Ferdie will explain, is its special active shutter glasses synchronized with the B&O TV via infrafred. The 3d glasses won’t look out of place in Bono’s cabinet of cool shades.  

The TV is paired with the triangle-shaped BeoLab 10 speaker. The Beo6 remote control allows the surfer in you to surf in contemporary Danish style.

Look at the BeoLab 5 speaker, demonstrates Ferdie. “It bounces off single to each person, each piece of furniture, carpet, wall, and glass,” he says, so that it will “know” how much aural levels (mids, highs and lows) are needed to produce the ideal sound for a specific room. All this by a speaker designed and hand-assembled in Struer, Denmark. A piece of aural equipment that won’t look out of place in a spinoff of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

What about the changing audio-visual makeup brought about by everything going digital — the MP3s and MP4s?

The man explains, “Now, B&O is more open. We work with Apple TV and Windows Media, and we try to integrate with other systems.” He plays something from his laptop. A song by A Perfect Circle. Now you’re talking!  

We find out that hardware for B&O is something that should be considered holistically, not just a gadget that can’t have a decent conversation with another gadget.

 Ferdie concludes, “We are the only company that can link your entire system — lights, blinds, TV, DVD, radio, security surveillance, whatever you want. For Bang & Olufsen, it’s not just the look or the inspirational design; it’s the functionality behind it.”    

Now, as it gets really apocalyptically dark outside, let’s grab a chair and watch Milla do some ultra-violence against the undead.

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Living Innovations is the distributor of Bang & Olufsen equipment in the Philippines. For information, call 830-2230 or 812-2649, visit www.livinginnovations.ph. Living Innovations Corp. is at the second floor of the Makati Shangri-La Retail Arcade, Ayala Ave., Makati City.