Hello:  I am about to buy a high end pair of speakers and, perhaps, amplifier.  I already have an older B&O system.  I tend to listed to piano recordings--Bach, Mozart, etc.  I am considering B&O 5's or 9's.  But I have also listened to Sonus Faber (Cremonas) speakers and thought that they were quite good.  Tomorrow I have an appointment to listen to Wilson speakers.  If anyone has any thoughts about these alernatives to the B&O 5's and 9's (given that I have a tendency to listed to piano recordings), I would be glad to have comments. Many thanks.   Donald

New Developments:  I am now having trouble with my 2400 and possibly the speakers. I am having to make some difficult decisions about repair in the New York city area with only one B&O repair place easily available.  I wonder if there is someone in the NY City area who is a B&O afficionado and a lot more technical than I am.  I sure could use some good advice at this point before I spend a lot of money fixing up my system.  Any local help or advice in Manhattan would sure be appreciated.  Donald

Donald:

Hello:  I am about to buy a high end pair of speakers and, perhaps, amplifier.  I already have an older B&O system.  I tend to listed to piano recordings--Bach, Mozart, etc.  I am considering B&O 5's or 9's.  But I have also listened to Sonus Faber (Cremonas) speakers and thought that they were quite good.  Tomorrow I have an appointment to listen to Wilson speakers.  If anyone has any thoughts about these alernatives to the B&O 5's and 9's (given that I have a tendency to listed to piano recordings), I would be glad to have comments. Many thanks.   Donald

I personally rate the speakers like this:

1. TAD  The worlds best sound http://www.tadhomeaudio.com/home.html

2. Sonus Faber Cremona

3. BL 5

4. BL 9

Donald

The Beolab 5 and 9's are active speakers so you won't need an amplifier.

Simon

Well, the TAD speakers are USD 60.000/pair, require expensive amplifiers that are a lot more powerful than your older B&O system, and the jury is out on whether they are "the world's best sound" once you want to play around with that kind of money. They also challenge B&W's 802Ds for size.

On the Sonus Faber Cremona I have a couple of informed comments. They're great speakers, I listened to them both at length and in depth before choosing my Dynaudio Focus 140 floor-standing speakers. They have similar sound pictures and are both excellently engineered and reviewed, with the Dynaudio being the bargain, as they're less expensive than the Cremonas with a similar sound. The wood finishing and design on the Sonus Fabers is leagues ahead of the Dynaudios and you'll feel you have placed two sculptures in your living room. (I chose the Dynaudios because they matched better with my Beolab/Beomaster 5000 units.)

My other informed comment on the Cremona must be taken with a grain of salt, as I own a pair of BeoLab 5s. An acquaintance who owned a pair of the Cremonas, subsequently replaced them with Sonus Faber's Concerto Domus speakers. He listens to piano, opera, vocal, orchestra recordings. He has paired his speakers with two sub-woofers, both with 2x12" drivers. The setup is very well balanced, and plays wonderfully in a room with wooden floor, acoustic dampening in the ceiling, etc.
The Cremonas were retired because they didn't transport him into the music sufficiently, he needed the weight and the perspective that the Concerto Domus created.

Then he listened to my BeoLab 5s, and he's considering switching to those as he couldn't believe "the sheer truth of the sound he heard" - those are his words.

I haven't listened sufficiently to BL9s to have an opinion. The Wilson speakers I've never liked the shape of, but I understand that the Puppies are quite excellent, and don't take over your living room as some of their other speakers do. 

I consider the BL5s the best speaker bargain in the world - and you can easily modify the sound using digital equalization and additional room calibration of the sound frequencies above the bass if you're really picky about having a flat frequency response after room acoustics have done their bit.

The Audio Critic, Peter Aczel, is a very "facts only" reviewer of audio equipment, who considers most of the claims of hi-fi manufacturers and particularly reviewers as absolute nonsense. He has singled out a few speakers as capable of delivering believable sound, the Linkwitz Orion Dipole design and the BeoLab 5 are considered outstanding speakers by him. Of course, since the BL5s are tweak-free, and have very simple connectors, "serious" audiophiles have a hard time accepting what they're hearing.
It's worth it to read this review:

http://theaudiocritic.com/blog/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=6&blogId=1

 

Soundproof,

As always, you offer substantial food for thought.  After I read the article about BeoLab 5, I dug further into theaudiocritic.com archives and read a few of his articles about audio voodoo. 

Because I tend to think that what a/v people write must be the truth, it is refreshing but sad to note that this expert suggests that alot of it is hooey.  Now I can admit that I don't have the world's best ears and eyes, that I have ALWAYS felt that a bad recording on good equipment will still sound bad, and I SWEAR that I can't tell the difference between contrast ratio of 50,000-1 and 40,000 (or 12,000) -1.  r

Difficult choice alltogether and very personal, my preference list would be :

1. BL5
2. "
3. "
4. Cremonas
5. BL9 and +Wilson

symmes:

Soundproof,

As always, you offer substantial food for thought.  After I read the article about BeoLab 5, I dug further into theaudiocritic.com archives and read a few of his articles about audio voodoo.

Thank you. Mr Aczel is a good authority, and of course extremely controversial as what he says completely undercuts the rationale for the high-end hifi market. I believe he's worth listening to, though - and he's not alone among people truly knowledgeable about electronics. For instance, as I like saying whenever I'm asked what cables to use for hifi: use what the pro's who record music are using. The same cable that carried the signal from the performers to the recording device must also be good for carrying it from the player to your speakers.
The advantage being that these cables cost 1/100 of the hifi voodoo cables.

This thread takes the best starting point: what speakers should one buy? Speakers are what create the sound you are hearing, and the choice of speakers properly matched to your musical preference and your room is 90% of the final result. Aczel on this topic:

Every low-distortion electronic signal path sounds like every other. The equipment reviewers who hear differences in soundstaging, front-to-back depth, image height, separation of instruments, etc., etc., between this and that preamplifier, CD player, or power amplifier are totally delusional. Such differences belong strictly to the domain of loudspeakers. Depending on the wave-launch characteristics, polar pattern, or power response of the loudspeaker (those are overlapping concepts), the stereo presentation of the program material can vary greatly. It cannot vary as a result of the properties of a normal (i.e., low-distortion) electronic signal path. The only exception I can think of would be totally inadequate channel separation (less than, say, 30 dB) between the left and right channels of a stereo device, which is hardly ever the case—and certainly not when high-end components are being discussed by said reviewers.

 The Tannoy TD 8, 10 or the big 12  is very good looking and sounding too . They have won the EISO award in the high-end section as well, and they're on the list of the worlds sexiest speakers

(mension the speakers in a nice interior instead of the audiophile mess beneath )

The big TD 12 

I personally like the size of the 8 (not to big, not to small)

 I think the big 12 is a bit to much so if you take the 8 or the 10 with a good amp, you will have a very good sound, and ofcourse it will look stylisch too.

 
TD12 10.000 euro's
TD10 8.000 euro's
TD8   6.000 euro's

combinate the 8 or the 10 to an Classé Delta amp + source and it will cost about the same as the bl 5

(don't look at the UGLY furniture, it runes the desing of the components a bit )

Sonus Faber speakers are in real life very beautifull and they have a lot of elegance, especially like the monitors (cremona auditor, guarneri homage or memento). 

At the end I think the Beolab 5's will be the best design speakers, and offcourse they sound pretty good too.

The BeoLab 5s are the only speakers I've ever listened to where I feel I'm getting an honestly truthful reproduction of the original recording, not an interpretation. By far the most 'accurate' sounding speakers I've heard, despite their *modest* price tag (believe me, the price is very modest when you start looking at really serious hifi).

BeoLab 9s are also stunning speakers, but are much more 'loungey' in terms of their design but also their sound. To me they don't sound as truthful and just beautifully clean as the BeoLab 5s, but they are nonetheless, very very very good performers considering their price tag (although not a touch on the BeoLab 5s).

The Wilsons are nice, I had an extensive listen to some a while back and they sounded very impressive. Very 'big' sound (although not as much weight as the BL5s). Another speaker you may want to look at would be the Bowers & Wilkins Prestige.

Still, all the other solutions you're looking at cost at least five times as much as BeoLab 5s, and then you have to buy amplifiers and look at room treatment (remember, a £1,000 soundsystem in a 'good' room sounds much, much better than a £10,000 system in a 'normal' room). The BL5s are very special, not just because they're B&O.

The prestige is a very cool looking speaker, but a pair cost about 40.000 euro's

The 800D's are a bit cheaper 20K (but not as pretty as the Tannoy's, the lab 5's or the Prestige)

But I think you should choose between the lab 5's or speakers around 8.000/10.000 euro's (for example the Tannoy's) and a good poweramp of 5.000 euro's. But like mr. Alex already said: "if your room acoustics are bad, it's a waste of money to put a high-end installation in it"

Beobird:

 The Tannoy TD 8, 10 or the big 12  is very good looking and sounding too . They have won the EISO award in the high-end section as well, and they're on the list of the worlds sexiest speakers

Stevie Wonder's list maybe, certainly not mine!

If you feel like window shopping, here's what the 802D looks like next to a BL5.

A photo I took in a recording studio, when I was comparing them. And yes, that's a Classé monobloque amp in hiding in the back (B&W and Classé are part of the same parent company.)

Makes the BL5 look small, petite and svelte. B&O stores should all have a pair of these to help persuade SWMBO that not only are the Lab5's the best a man can get for only £10K but look how small and s*xy they are compared to the competition!

Sold to the attractive looking lady with the incredibly good taste

Bear in mind that even 800Ds with an appropriate set of amps driving them (you really should bi-amp them to get near the dynamics of the BL5s) are at least twice the cost of BL5s. Even then you won't get the same overall tonal accuracy as Bl5s...

soundproof:

Well, the TAD speakers are USD 60.000/pair, require expensive amplifiers that are a lot more powerful than your older B&O system, and the jury is out on whether they are "the world's best sound" once you want to play around with that kind of money.

Its hard to say one is the best over all the others when you get into this price point. I'm sure that JBL would and probably could argue that their Everest model is the best monitor.

Or Westlake Audio's large and heavy (it weights 900 pounds) Tower SM1

Having said that I have to admit I haven't heard any of the monitors mention, but I am sure they all sound amazing, its just a question of taste and preference.

He-he. You better have a large listening room.

I have heard the Everests from JBL. Was fortunate enough to be allowed to use a listening room set up with them for a full day, listening to my music. Wonderful speakers, expensive - and require serious amplification. They have supertweeters that go up to 50kHz ... (not sure that's needed.)

They were connected to a McIntosh amp array, and had Esoteric CD-players delivering the music. The amps were 2x2000w. The whole setup, with cables that cost about what a car costs, ran to €350.000

They're about the size of a fireplace - each. And the amp, etc filled the wall.

Thanks Peter.  I think I have successfully listed a "want ad".  By the way, I have been trying to upgrade my membership, but have had difficulty for the past two days paying for the upgrade on the site.  When I get to the payment stage, the process folds and does not continue.  Is there a problem with the site?

Also, is there a handy guide to Beoworld--making it easier for a novice to learn how to get around? 

Many thanks again for your help.  Donald