Hi all,

I've just finished my living room (after a colossal house renovation) and now it's time to finally get to the good stuff. I have a Beovision-7 40" with a Beolab 7-4 and a pair of Beolab 3's as my front speakers - due to the design of my room the front speakers are sitting on a glass shelves in a wall unit, so there isn't really a lot of other options. However now I'm thinking of what to use for the rear speakers - the choices seem to be either a Beolab 8000 or a Beolab 6000 with a possible addition of a subwoofer later on.

Any thoughts on the above setup would be greatly appreciated!

Get some more BeoLab 3's for the rear, then a BeoLab 2 when funds permit to really give the system some 'oomph'.  You have three acoustic lenses and the associated 'sharpness' at the front, so IMO the 6000's or 8000's wouldn't sound right at the rear to my ears.  I'm not a fan of mixing acoustic lenses and conventional speakers in a setup, but that's only my opinion. (jumps under the table with crash helmet on)

Lee

I'll go with Lee on this one, but perhaps not all the way - also consider Beolab 4000 MK2 ICE-Power, I think they complement the Beolab 3 at the front well, both sonically and financially lol, the Beolab 2 will make the biggest difference to the setup.  All IMHO of course.

Would funds permit a second-life pair of 9's for the front (moving the 3's to the back)?

Dave:

Would funds permit a second-life pair of 9's for the front (moving the 3's to the back)?

This would be my favorite option as well.

Dave:

Would funds permit a second-life pair of 9's for the front (moving the 3's to the back)?

I don't think the glass shelves would be up to it!

ZeroHour:

Hi all,

 - due to the design of my room the front speakers are sitting on a glass shelves in a wall unit, so there isn't really a lot of other options.

BeoLab 6000 and 8000 both have all their drivers (including the tweeters) half-way up the cabinet, so they usually end up firing straight into the back of a sofa when used as rears (which makes them completely wasted)!

BeoLab 3s wall mounted highish above the sofa and angled down a bit would be the best option sonically. You don't want them mounted too close to the sofa otherwise the coverage across the sofa from left to right becomes very uneven.

Also, instead of a BeoLab 2, I'd be interested to see what people think of two BeoLab 11s connected up between the BeoVision and the left/right BeoLab 3s in a stereo configuration.

I would get the sub-woofer first as I think this makes the most difference. If the speakers at the rear have to be free standing, get 6000s - I favour spending as little as possible on rears!

Wow, this is a lot of great responses - thank you very much, everybody! Unfortunately I can't really make any changes to the front speakers, so putting 9's there isn't really going to work.

As I was planning on getting the sub-woofer anyways, perhaps I'll start with this, as Peter has suggested. It seems like the general consensus appears to be to simply get another pair of Beolab 3's and either wall-mount them / put them on stands or, alternatively, as Peter has suggested above to get a pair of Beolab 6000. Interesting that nobody seems to advocate 8000's ... I wonder why!

Thanks again for all the responses - some really great info here!

I think 8000s are a waste as rear speakers. I also think 3s are a waste, but it depends on your budget. You can of course wall mount both 6000s and 8000s these days.

Alex:

BeoLab 6000 and 8000 both have all their drivers (including the tweeters) half-way up the cabinet, so they usually end up firing straight into the back of a sofa when used as rears (which makes them completely wasted)!

 

I've put some 6000's in the rear with 9's and the tweeters reach well over the arms of the sofas so in my setup they are just great, they are really good as rears in my opinion! Maybe because they fulfill the 'unimportant' role suffieciently without fuss, great cost, and without disrupting the aesthetics of the room (i forget they are there because their design, it just blends in).

I don't think i'll ever like the Beolab 3. Horrible looking speaker with no balls.

8000 is sort of a waste.  How about 4000?

Thanks again to everyone for their feedback - after reading the suggestions/ideas above, I'll go with the Beolabs 6000/Beolab 2 combination, I think this should do nicely ...