In my experience, B&O owners fall into a number of different camps - and speaking very generally, - an atypical B&O owner/prospective purchaser does not appear to possess an obsessive audiophile mindset, nor does the company market to audiophile hobbyists as such.
There are the collectors of the old and rare, such as one might collect rare design antiques.
Then there are those with a love of music and film, who have the resources to purchase something that rewards that love in a very authentic manner, looks stunning, fits aesthetically into a beautiful home and is a fully integrated, one stop shop AV solution - no mixing and matching required.
Younger, very tech savvy professionals seem attracted to the technical and design solutions offered by the BeoPlay line which in turn is doing very well for B&O.
And then there is a smaller niche of owners who are what one might call 'ex' audiophiles - those who've invested a lot of time and money building up separates systems often far exceeding the value of anything B&O has to offer, and either failing to ultimately find satisfaction, or just tiring of the whole mix and match 'upgrade' ladder and tendency for the hobby to become quite obsessive, and got off the audiophile roundabout, and settled down very happily with B&O, for a fiddle free integrated HiFi/AV system, but one of very high aesthetic, technical and audio quality.
It would be easy to stand from the sidelines and see B&O as being a 'cult' as has been alluded to, but in my experience B&O are not and never have been in the business of marketing to audiophile hobbyists per se, despite their technical abilities as a company, - but rather the music and film connoisseur looking for a complete audio/AV solution built to the highest technical and aesthetic standards.
I am in little doubt that whilst the BeoLab 90 is a 'concorde moment' - in terms of a Halo product that showcases what the company can really do in terms of technical and acoustic breakthroughs, that the real benefits will come as this technology filters down into lessor models to come.
However, whilst they may not sell many to mix and match audiophiles, I have little doubt that the Beolab 90 will sell very well to the music and film connoisseur with the resources to do so, and the knowledge and understanding of the technology to appreciate the value (relatively speaking v's contemporary high end audio) on offer.
Cheers
John...