Alex:

Good point. Most people think the drive cones are either all the way up and down the 6000s, or just at the top. They're actually slap bang in the middle...

I had the 6000s as front speakers for about a year, but now, as they have been moved to the back, I noticed that the position of the drive cones really matters, especially due to the height of the sofa. That is why I think the wall brackets for the 6000s is a very good thing. You can "lift" the 6000s for some 10 cm, which should help on this problem

tom:

Alex:

Good point. Most people think the drive cones are either all the way up and down the 6000s, or just at the top. They're actually slap bang in the middle...

I had the 6000s as front speakers for about a year, but now, as they have been moved to the back, I noticed that the position of the drive cones really matters, especially due to the height of the sofa. That is why I think the wall brackets for the 6000s is a very good thing. You can "lift" the 6000s for some 10 cm, which should help on this problem

OK. Anecdote. And the person in question may read this, so I won't be invited back!

Was asked to come and experience a Home Theatre installation. The person had great taste, wonderful house and no expenses spared throughout, including the entertainment room. There were huge, powerful, floorstanding speakers in the back (won't mention the model, but guess) - only problem was that the custom made seats (not joking) had quite high, and very comfortable soft leather backs, that provided a wide neck rest. This neck rest also provided very effective shielding against whatever sounds were trying to reach you from those two powerhouse speakers in the back.

Should I, or should I not point this out? I mean, the mistake was so big!!! He might as well have wired a pair of BL4s and gotten the same resoution of the sound. I did point it out, had to.

Owner refused to accept it was a major problem - then we replaced his custom made noise filtration devices with a pair of Barcelona chairs he had in his living room.
Watched the same movie - and he got new chairs for his media room. It was impossible to sit in them so that your head was free of the neck-rest.

When you sink down in your seat at the cinema, you are no longer experiencing surround sound...
 

I have 2 dolby digital set ups

1.BL5's

t

I have 2 dolby digital set ups

1.BL5's

I have 2 dolby digital set ups

1.BL5's

t the

I have 2 dolby digital set ups

1.BL5's at

I have 2 dolby digital set ups

1.BL5's at

the

I have 2 Dolby digigal setups

7-40 with BL5's at the front with 8000' as rear speakers and 4000 at front.

Avant with 4000's at the front and 6000's at the rear.

If you can afford it I would go for BL9's at the rear as the acoustic lens will distribute the sound to whererver you are sitting unlike 8000/6000 or 4000's.

Sorry about the multiple Posts - my tab key seemed to keep posting!

Peterlem:

If you can afford it I would go for BL9's at the rear as the acoustic lens will distribute the sound to whererver you are sitting unlike 8000/6000 or 4000's.

If that's the goal, then BL3s will do a similar job. 

I honestly believe that the beolab 3's would be unnessesary, and that the ALT-all-around theory thing is more obsessive ~ compulsive than anything. 

philipsmz333:

I honestly believe that the beolab 3's would be unnessesary, and that the ALT-all-around theory thing is more obsessive ~ compulsive than anything.

Slap me, but I in my opinion the ALT is dorky (bar Beolab 5).

I will slap you - the ALT is a brilliant innovation in sound reproduction. It is transforming audiophile appreciation of B&O capabilities.

However, I do agree with you that one can manage without a BL3 in the back. I just wanted to point out to whoever it was who suggested BL9 that there is an alternative.  

soundproof:

philipsmz333:

I honestly believe that the beolab 3's would be unnessesary, and that the ALT-all-around theory thing is more obsessive ~ compulsive than anything.

Slap me, but I in my opinion the ALT is dorky (bar Beolab 5).

I will slap you - the ALT is a brilliant innovation in sound reproduction. It is transforming audiophile appreciation of B&O capabilities.

However, I do agree with you that one can manage without a BL3 in the back. I just wanted to point out to whoever it was who suggested BL9 that there is an alternative.  

philipsmz333:

So is B&W, but it isn't exactly pretty is it. Come on, you know i've got a point there!   

That ALTs are dorky? 

They aren't excactly timeless are they (speaking in interior design terms) and in things such as the BV9, BL7.4, and BL9, i believe they look dorky.

philipsmz333:

They aren't excactly timeless are they (speaking in interior design terms) and in things such as the BV9, BL7.4, and BL9, i believe they look dorky.

That's my opinion, and i know others also agree, however i strongly agree with what they bring to the table acoustically, and that is why B&o is beginning to be acclaimed and noticed by audiophiles, BOSE haters and some of those hard-to-win-over hifi magazines.

My two cents.

That's quite OK. I couldn't care less what they look like, as long as they achieve their outstanding resolution in acoustic music. There is no other speaker design on the planet that achieves a comparable true sound from as compact a speaker (including the BL5 - where you need two huge monobloque amp's and two B&W 800D to surpass BL5s treble resolution, at twice the cost).   

And for what my opinion on the topic is worth, I actually find the lenses beautiful. 

 

Fantastic picture. B&O has changed, and i believe it has changed for the better (much better) Where there is now more of a compromise on visual design, which has led to them being able to create products such as the beovision 9, beolab 5 and anything with an acousic lens for that matter.

Peterlem:

I have 2 Dolby digigal setups

7-40 with BL5's at the front with 8000' as rear speakers and 4000 at front.

Avant with 4000's at the front and 6000's at the rear.

If you can afford it I would go for BL9's at the rear as the acoustic lens will distribute the sound to whererver you are sitting unlike 8000/6000 or 4000's.

I don't think it's at all necessary to have ALT for the rears. As long as the speaker and therefore the sound from it is coming from behind you, then it's completely fine. If you think of the way your ears are shaped, they aren't exactly gathering much sound from sources behind you. Our setup is as yours 8000s rear BL5 front - sounds fantastic!!
 

I agree, Beodude. There will be as many opinions on this topic as there are members on BeoWorld, though ...

Maybe one way of assisting a decision is to consider the shape of the ear? It's clearly designed to chiefly capture and channel whatever is in front of us (few go hunting with their butts). The way the ear comes out from the head, with the angled "barrier" against sounds from behind, helps our hearing discern between sounds from front and rear (wonder how many db that design cuts from sounds from behind?).

The design of the ear makes it perfectly capable of catching the horizontal band(s) of sound from the ALT in front - but not so capable of catching that band from the back. And there's no reason to - we're not designed to have equally weighted sound sources all around us - we hunt in front of our nose, and that's also where the action should be ...

 

soundproof:

philipsmz333:

Oh, the BeoVision 5 as a centre speaker not good enough for the BeoLab 5's? Oh well.

I'm going to say, because this TV is SO BEAUTIFUL, I will put up with it, i don't care too much for movies anyhow, other wise i would have blown the $35000 on a BeoVision 9!

Hmmm - I haven't heard the BV5 together with the BL5s, but it's kind of sad if it doesn't square up with them. Wonderful combo.

The BeoLab 7.4 center has 2x250w ICE power, and the drivers are coupled for mono.

On the BV5 you might want to make a modification. I don't know whether that's possible in the menu, or whether you have to open her up. Here are the spec's:

Power amplifier modules 4 units
Long term max. output power per module 39 watts
Frequency range 50 - 20,000 Hz
Max. sound pressure level 96 dB
Cabinet principle / net volume Bass Reflex / 3.5 litre
Woofer 115mm
Tweeter 18mm 

Rather than have the sound system try to interpret stereo (which would give you stereo within the stereo of the BL5s), you would want to have all the speakers in the BV5 output only the center channel, without any reduction in power output. People wiser than me re. the specifics of the BV5 should be able to have an informed opinion on this?
 

Well, I have to put up with this combination (BV5 and BL5s) and would say it's not my impression at all that the BV5 struggles being a compagnion of the speakers mentioned. That said, I mean with surround sound material meant to be optimally listened to as such - through the DD 5.1/DTS/ProLogic decoder (mainly DVDs). For watching TV (rarely) and digital SAT/STB (mostly) I prefer SPEAKER 1 option anyway. Admittedly, I mostly watch news and documentaries ... Of course, some broadcast movies in SPEAKER 5 mode do sound ok, too.

But: I haven't heard the BL9 plus BL5s, yet... I think though that B&O's going from main TVs equipped with a stereo speaker to main TVs with a mono speaker (with the lense) points in a certain direction ...

Regarding the rear speakers, I have BL8000s for historical/aesthetical reasons, but think they are fairly wasted for our family's use. However, give me some 80+ sqm of a slightly separated no.2 living room, an unlimited supply of cash and time for listening and ... 4 BL5s plus some more B&O gear would look cool. But that's just restating what others have said.

I keep thinking that the internal speakers of BV5 have a lot to do to deal with BL5, as they are basically BL2500.

Just have a look:

On the contrary, the BV9 has a real center speaker, as it is meant to be the heart of a home-cinema setup.

Yann. 

 

Nice photo. Yes - but the BeoLab 7.4 only outputs a maximum of 2x250w=500 -- which is 1/5 of th BL5s rating. And remember that one rarely uses all that power. The relevant power here is the 2x250w max in the mid and top of the BL5 (most of the voice info goes through those).

Do you know whether the BV5 processes the center channel as mono and sends the same signal to both speaker arrays? 

 

Yann, I'm a simple guy so can't go so much into the specs, just judging by my ears and eyes. To me it seems, that (both in SPEAKER 3 and 5 mode - with relevant material) it doesn't sound as the BL5s "take over" at all.

At the sametime I have no doubt that your ears are equally truthworthy as mine, which made me think if it might be your BV5 is from the pre-BL5 time, based on an earlier chassis (mine is from 2004)? Your picture might suggest that there was some kind of an upgrade done to your TV? Also, when I look at the user guides for my Avant and BV5 there are also slightly different descriptions of how the internal speakers work in different settings. (I guess this is related to the gradual development of the surround sound decoders - from ProLogic through DD5.1 to DTS.)

@soundproof: Interesting question related to comparison between the sets with a stereo speakers and the ones with mono speaker in a surround setup, but for me difficult to answer, thanks to B&Os (perhaps understandably) vague formulations in the user guides ... (maybe there is more info on the enclosed CD I have at home?)

My guess would be similarly vague: the decoder tries to get the optimum performance out of the AV material in question. This way, at least no one can say I'm not a true B&O believer  

One thought: If you later decide to move your mono speaker tv to a link room eg., it might be more expensive then to do so with a stereo set - to  enjoy it there, as you would need a pair of speakers,too.

Hi Saf,

You are right, my BV5 is one on the first ones, based an an Avant chassis.

One of it's chips has been changed to incude BL5 in the speakers menu.

Of course, when listening to a CD, only BL5 are used (they are linked via SPDIF to my BC2) and I get a great sound.

What I wish to enhance in my post is that, in the cinema modes (3.1 or 5.1 DD/DTS), the center speaker is far more important than the rear ones, which means, in my opinion that:

- it's better to focus on the choice of a central speaker,

- BL6000 are sufficient to assume their part in the show.

Which was, IMHO, my answer to the question asked.

To Soundproof,

When it comes to BL 7.4, you can note that they do not have a bass section (that's what makes them a real center speaker, as the bass channel in a 5.1 signal goes to another speaker), so their 2x250 W shared between trebble and medium perfectly match with BL5.

On the other side, each 2x39 W internal speaker of the BV5 has to deal with the 2x250W of the BL5!!!

In the 5.1 cinema mode, the internal speakers of the BV5 are used as a central speaker, which means each of them is in charge of the central channel (so it's a set of 2 central speakers, one at each side of the screen).

In the 3.1 mode, the processor send to the internal speakers the "shared" part of the signal of right and left channels of a stereo source and send the rest to the front speakers.

Yann.

 

 

soundproof:

Nice photo. Yes - but the BeoLab 7.4 only outputs a maximum of 2x250w=500 -- which is 1/5 of th BL5s rating. And remember that one rarely uses all that power. The relevant power here is the 2x250w max in the mid and top of the BL5 (most of the voice info goes through those).

Do you know whether the BV5 processes the center channel as mono and sends the same signal to both speaker arrays?