Bang & Olufsen Beosound Shape Amplifier Tile

Bang & Olufsen Beosound Shape Amplifier Tile

The Beosound Shape Amplifier Tile is the powered component inside Bang & Olufsen’s modular wall-mounted sound system. It is not a loudspeaker on its own. Inside its hexagonal tile housing sits an eight-channel Class D amplifier that drives separate speaker tiles elsewhere in the same wall arrangement, turning a flat decorative surface into a working music system.

Key features

• Amplifier tile, not a speaker: provides power for a Beosound Shape system; speaker tiles are separate components
• 8 x 80 watt Class D amplification: eight amplifier channels in a single tile
• Up to four speaker tiles per amplifier: one amplifier tile can drive a maximum of four compatible speaker tiles
• Daisy-chain connections: amplifier input and output allow multiple amplifier tiles to link in larger systems
• Optical and Power Link inputs: Toslink optical-in and Power Link (RJ45) for system sources
• Hexagonal tile format: 36.4 x 32.0 x 11.1 cm, matching the other Shape tile types

How the Shape system fits together

A Beosound Shape installation combines three kinds of tile. Speaker tiles contain the drivers, a 5.25-inch woofer and a 3/4-inch tweeter in each one. Acoustic damper tiles contain sound-absorbing material that calms reflections in hard, lively rooms. Amplifier tiles supply the power and the signal connections. Because the roles are separated, a wall can be planned around the room first and the electronics placed where they are needed, rather than forcing a conventional pair of cabinets into the space.

Amplification and connections

Each amplifier tile carries eight 80-watt Class D channels and four speaker outputs using the system’s four-wire speaker connection. Signal can arrive through the optical Toslink input or through Power Link, and the amplifier input and output sockets support daisy-chaining when a design uses more than one amplifier tile. A USB-B connection handles control and software updates. Every amplifier tile needs its own mains connection, which matters when a large wall uses several of them.

Scaling a system

Bang & Olufsen rates the wider system for rooms of roughly 20 to 100 square metres, with published maximums of eleven amplifier tiles and forty-four speaker tiles in a single installation, while damper tiles are effectively unlimited. System-level figures published for an eight-tile configuration include a frequency range of 30 Hz to 22,000 Hz and a maximum sound pressure level of 105 dB at one metre per pair. Those figures describe a complete Shape system, not this amplifier tile alone, and the result in any room depends on how many speaker tiles are fitted and where they sit.

Design and mounting

The tile uses a lightweight composite casing with a fabric cover, designed by Øivind Alexander Slaatto. Tiles mount on a star rail system that leaves a small air gap between the cabinet and the wall. The amplifier tile weighs 2.0 kg plus 0.4 kg for the fabric cover. Covers across a Shape wall can be changed or mixed, so the amplifier tile visually matches the speaker and damper tiles around it instead of reading as a separate piece of electronics.

Planned as part of a complete Beosound Shape wall, this amplifier tile is the component that makes the speaker tiles work. Confirm the number of speaker tiles, damper tiles, the connectivity hub and the covers for the intended layout before specifying it, because a single amplifier tile by itself produces no sound.