Beosound 9000 marked a welcome return to form on the part of B&O’s designers. Many of the models introduced in the period running up to its launch, made as they were from indifferent grades of plastic and offering little to advance the cause of either styling or performance, failed to capture the essence of what had made B&O’s more traditional ranges so desirable. Beosound 9000 though, being crafted from tinted glass and large machined metal pieces seemed to reverse this trend.
Beosound 9000 comprised an AM/FM radio and a CD player which could be loaded with 6 CDs. “CD changers”, as multiple CD players are often called, tended up until this point to be confined to car-audio and the more vulgar end of consumer Hi-Fi, so it was clear that if B&O were to offer such a machine, not only must the quality be at least equal to what could be expected from a decent “single” CD player, the styling must separate the new model from all others, so that the difference would be clear. A CD changer was in fact an obvious product for B&O to offer, the “link” system made far more sense if more than one disc could be selected without having to go to the player. A rather inferior attempt had been made at this already for the American market using a machine intended for car use connected to a Beomaster 7000, though clearly such a crude arrangement would have little appeal in Europe.
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