Bang & Olufsen wants to turn the page with its newest design. The Danish audio company has just unveiled a slim yet surprisingly powerful home speaker that looks remarkably similar to a book.

The high-tech tome, dubbed Beosound Emerge, was penned in partnership with Benjamin Hubert of the British industrial design studio Layer. Hubert previously partnered with B&O on its sculptural Beosound Balance speaker that too aspires to be a functional work of art.

Beosound Emerge has been designed to mirror the form of your favorite pageturner and will, quite literally, fit right in among the books on your library’s shelves. The gold version, which starts from $899, sports an oak wood “cover” that wraps around a textured woven spine made from Kvadrat’s luxe textiles. The speaker is marked with “Bang & Olufsen” much like an author’s name on a book and features subtle gold accents. Audiophiles can also opt for a Black Anthracite model ($699) that pairs a high-grade aluminum with a pearl-blasted grill.

The speaker is marked with “Bang & Olufsen” much like an author’s name on a book. 

Bang & Olufsen

While the svelte speaker may be unassuming in size—25.5 by 16.5 by 6.7 cm to be exact—the audio promises bigger things. That’s largely thanks to B&O’s acoustic engineers, who developed a unique loudspeaker driver configuration that enables a full-range sound experience from this slender design. The 37mm midrange, which is mounted at an angle to maintain the speaker’s narrow silhouette, emits sound from the front along with the 14mm soft dome tweeter. Meanwhile, the 100mm side-firing woofer pumps decibels toward the back. B&O claims this setup will produce deep and rounded sound that’s wide enough to fill a room.

Naturally, Beosound Emerge can be paired with any of B&O’s connected speakers to deliver music throughout the entire home. As you might expect, the speaker supports Apple Airplay 2, Google Chromecast, Bluetooth and Spotify for streaming. It also features a built-in radio and microphone for voice control. And since we’re in 2021, B&O’s Beolink connectivity allows for over-the-air software updates that will ensure the speaker stays up-to-date.

Audiophiles can also opt for a Black Anthracite model. 

Bang & Olufsen

“The vision for Beosound Emerge was to create the slimmest speaker possible that could still deliver full range, ultra-wide sound despite its size through its revolutionary driver configuration,” Christoffer Poulsen, B&O’s senior vice president and head of product management, said in a statement. “Whether placed on a bookshelf in the bedroom or a tight corner of the kitchen, Beosound Emerge’s slim design allows you to extend your music to a new room or complement an existing speaker in the same area without taking up extra space.”

If the speaker lives up to that promise, it might be time to bookmark it for your next upgrade.

Check out more photos of the speaker below:

Bang & Olufsen

Bang & Olufsen

Bang & Olufsen

Bang & Olufsen

Bang & Olufsen

Bang & Olufsen

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  Rachel Cormack

  Digital Editor

  Rachel Cormack is a digital editor at Robb Report. She cut her teeth writing for HuffPost, Concrete Playground, and several other online publications in Australia, before moving to New York at the…

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