B&O’s Final Centennial Speaker Has 1,734 Metal Spheres

A hundred years in, Bang & Olufsen isn’t winding down gracefully. The Danish audio brand has unveiled the Beolab 90 Monarch and Zenith Editions, the final two releases in its five-part Beolab 90 anniversary series, and both make it clear the centennial program wasn’t going to end quietly. Only 10 pairs of each will be produced, with estimated pricing around $520,000 per pair. That puts each set somewhere between a starter home and a fully loaded Rolls-Royce.

Price: From $211,800
Where to Buy: Bang & Olufsen

The two editions couldn’t look more different. One is wrapped in curved South American rosewood with the quiet confidence of a midcentury Danish cabinet. The other is covered in 1,734 anodized aluminium spheres that shimmer like pearl armor under shifting light. You’ll either want to touch them or step back, and that tension feels intentional. Both sit on the same engineering platform as the brand’s flagship Beolab 90 speakers while offering something the base model never could: a design that asks serious questions about what a speaker is allowed to look like.

Bang & Olufsen’s Atelier program marked its centennial with five limited-edition takes on the Beolab 90, each rethinking the exterior without changing a single driver or amp inside. The Beolab 90 Titan Edition arrived first in November 2025, followed by the Shadow and Mirage editions in December. The Monarch and Zenith close it out as the most visually extreme of the five.

The Beolab 90 platform

Launched in 2015 as the brand’s 90th anniversary statement, the Beolab 90 remains in regular production and provides the foundation for all five special editions. Each speaker carries 8,200 watts of built-in amplification, driving 18 Scan-Speak drivers through 14 Bang & Olufsen ICEpower amplifiers and four Heliox Class D units. Frequency extends from below 12 Hz to beyond 43,000 Hz, with a maximum output of 126 dB at one meter. At 137 kilograms and 73.5 x 125.3 x 74.7 centimeters per speaker, this isn’t something you try out on a whim.

Wireless options include Wireless Power Link at 24-bit/48kHz and WiSA at 24-bit/96kHz. Wired inputs on the primary speaker cover fully balanced XLR, S/PDIF at 24-bit/192kHz, USB-B, optical, RCA, and Power Link via RJ45. The platform also supports Advanced Active Room Compensation, Beam Width Control, Beam Direction Control across five acoustic positions, and Adaptive Bass Linearization for keeping bass clean at any volume. All five editions share this same internal hardware, and that’s a telling choice. B&O clearly felt the platform didn’t need a single upgrade. Each was developed through the Atelier program, with Noto GmbH handling design across the lineup, each edition pushing materials in a direction the original never explored.

The Monarch Edition

The Monarch Edition draws from Danish furniture tradition, wrapping the aluminium cabinet in Santos Palisander lamellas that curve and angle to follow the enclosure’s shape. Santos Palisander is a South American rosewood with deep roots in Scandinavian craft, and the lamellas create a 360-degree pattern across the speaker’s surface. Six wooden knots connect the pieces into one continuous form, with the front knot featuring a thin stripe where light passes through the wood. It’s a subtle detail, but it signals a level of craft most speakers at any price don’t bother with.

A Santos Palisander top ring frames the upper cabinet, and the same lamella treatment continues through the base panels, keeping the look consistent from top to bottom. The wood sits against ochre-coloured aluminium throughout, blending warmth with sharp metalwork in a way that feels more like furniture than audio gear. Semi-transparent fabric panels let you catch glimpses of the drivers underneath, a reminder that the Monarch is still a serious speaker under all that wood.

The overall effect sits closer to a sculptural cabinet than a loudspeaker. If you saw it in a room without context, you might not guess what it does, and that’s probably the point.

The Zenith Edition

Where the Monarch leans into warmth and texture, the Zenith pushes toward spectacle. Six panels on the enclosure each feature 289 anodized aluminium spheres, finished in one of seven pearl-inspired colorways that shimmer and shift as the light moves around them. If you look closely, you’ll notice the sphere clusters give the speaker a look closer to body armor or ritual jewelry than anything the audio world has produced before.

The machined aluminium facemask is pearl blasted and anodized in dark grey, giving the front an oyster-shell finish that balances the visual punch of the spheres. A circular mother-of-pearl inlay crowns the top lid, sized to match the diameter of each sphere. Curved panels follow the cabinet’s shape throughout, tying the layered textures into one form. Semi-transparent fabric sections show up here too, keeping the drivers visible beneath all that sculptural detail. Whether the Zenith reads as bold or excessive will depend entirely on the room it’s in, and that’s part of the appeal.

Pricing, availability, and what comes with the purchase

The Monarch and Zenith will make their first public appearance at Bang & Olufsen’s San Francisco Culture Store before heading out on a global tour. Each pair comes with a certificate of authenticity and a miniature aluminium Beolab 90 sculpture in the matching finish, packaged in a custom aluminium case. The miniature is a nice touch, the kind of small gesture that makes a half-million-dollar purchase feel considered rather than just transactional.

Bang & Olufsen hasn’t officially confirmed US pricing. Estimates put both editions at around $520,000 per pair, with UK pricing reported at £410,000 and EU pricing at €480,000. For context, the base Beolab 90 sells for $211,800 per pair in the US today, up from its original $78,000 launch price in 2015. That climb from $78,000 to $211,800 in a decade tells you something about where B&O sees its pricing ceiling heading.

Price: From $211,800
Where to Buy: Bang & Olufsen

If you’re weighing one of these, the math is simple: 10 pairs each, no restocking. Both editions are available through bang-olufsen.com, and at this production volume, they won’t sit around for long.