Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Bang & Olufsen celebrates Lunar New Year 2023 with Silk Road-inspired limited editions

Danish audio legend, Bang & Olufsen (B&O), has released a limited edition set of five of its products to celebrate Lunar New Year 2023, which lands on Sunday, January 22. The holiday is also known as Chinese New Year, but it is celebrated by groups in many countries.

The collection includes versions of B&O’s Beolit 20, Beoplay A9, and Beosound A1 wireless speakers, plus the Beoplay H95 wireless headphones, and Beoplay EX wireless earbuds. The products have been themed with what B&O describes as Silk Road-inspired colors and elements. Some products are available in a “Lunar Red” color scheme, while others come in “Jade Green.” The Beosound A1 is available in both colors.

Bang & Olufsen Chinese New Year 2023 collection.
Bang & Olufsen

The Lunar New Year Collection is available at selected Bang & Olufsen stores, and online, though B&O hasn’t said how many of these limited edition models it has created.

Pricing for the collection is the same as the regular versions:

  • Beolit 20, Jade Green: $549
  • Beoplay H95, Lunar Red: $899
  • Beoplay A9, 4th generation Lunar Red: $3,799
  • Beoplay EX, Lunar Red: $399
  • Beosound A1, Lunar Red and Jade Green: $279

Of the five products, only the Beoplay A9 is designed to be customizable after purchase. You can swap the legs and the fabric cover to create an entirely new look for the A9 should you tire of the Silk Road theme.

Simon Cohen
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like spatial…
The Beats Pill is back, baby!
A pair of Beats Pill speakers.

In what's been one of the worst-kept secrets of the year -- mostly because subtly putting a product into the hands of some of the biggest stars on the planet is no way to keep a secret -- the Beats Pill has returned. Just a couple of years after Apple and Beats unceremoniously killed off the stylish Bluetooth speaker, a new one has arrived.

Available for preorder today in either black, red, or gold, the $150 speaker (and speakerphone, for that matter) rounds out a 2024 release cycle for beats that includes the Solo Buds and Solo 4 headphones, and comes nearly a year after the Beats Studio Pro.

Read more
Ifi’s latest DAC is the first to add lossless Bluetooth audio
Ifi Audio Zen Blue 3 DAC (front).

Ifi Audio's new Zen Blue 3 wireless digital-to-analog converter (DAC) will officially be available to buy for $299 on July 9. When it is, it will be the first device of its kind to support a wide variety of Bluetooth codecs, including Qualcomm's aptX Lossless, the only codec that claims to deliver bit-perfect CD quality audio over a Bluetooth connection.

Admittedly, there are very few devices on the market that can receive aptX Lossless (and fewer that can transmit it), so it's a good thing that the Zen Blue 3 also works with the more widely supported aptX Adaptive, LDAC, and LDHC/HWA codecs (all of which are hi-res audio-capable), plus the three most common codecs: AAC, SBC, and aptX.

Read more
The new Beats Pill might replace Sonos on my back porch
The 2024 Beats Pill and an aging Sonos Play:1.

If I were to build an outdoor stereo in 2024, I'd do it with a pair of portable Beats Pills instead of Sonos speakers. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

In 2017, after more than a decade in our home, my wife and I added a pool. With it came a covered deck, making what basically was a new outdoor room. Not uncommon at all in Florida, but new to us.

Read more