I have just bought a pair of Beovox M150's not because I need them, I just could not resist!!! I know they are 150w, can I use them safely with a Beomaster 6500? Is the Beomaster going to struggle to power them. I'm not planning to throw parties and turn them up really loud....well maybe now and again just to show off!!

Thanks

Ben

I think it would struggle to be honest Ben. A Beomaster 8000, on the other hand, would not :)

Oh dear :( I might have just bought two speakers I can't use. I should have checked first. I have a 4400 but I like the Beosystem 6500 as its so compact and takes less space plus it has a remote. Thats a rather big mistake!

Thanks though John

It should not be any problems connecting Beovox M150 on to Beomaster 6500. The BM 6500 as a lot of power, even for loudspeakers like M150 and the speakers has effective overload protection. The BM 6500 also have automatic power handling control that prevented overloading.

Try!

The 6500 is not going to go up in a plume of smoke once you start it with those speakers. It will still provide them with just as many watts as it will do with any other 8 ohm speakers.

Use some common sense and back off the volume if you hear distortion (and that will be pretty loud already!) and keep drunken idiots away from the controls...

arned:

It should not be any problems connecting Beovox M150 on to Beomaster 6500. The BM 6500 as a lot of power, even for loudspeakers like M150 and the speakers has effective overload protection. The BM 6500 also have automatic power handling control that prevented overloading.

Try!

I agree that Ben should try - they're nice speakers. The 4400 would be a better match for these fine passives though :)

Remind me, how much power does the Beomaster 6500 have? I doubt the MS150 overload protection will be required!

I don't even go over 40 I don't think in volume with the S75's that I'm using at the moment. Highest I've ever been is 45!!!!! Surely thats not pushing the amp?

I'm sure you'll be fine. I'm a one-man promotional vehicle for the Beomaster 8000, that's all :)

I just think that with such fine speakers it would be a shame to match them to an amplifier that is not in the same class. The amp in either your 4400, or the one in an 8000, is a lovely one that you would be hard pressed to match if it is all working properly. The amp in the 6500 just not in the same league. You could always have a listening test between the 4400 and 6500. If at moderate volumes it all sounds good to you, then the 6500 is the way forward :)

BenSA:

I don't even go over 40 I don't think in volume with the S75's that I'm using at the moment. Highest I've ever been is 45!!!!! Surely thats not pushing the amp?

No problem at all.

EDIT: the sensitivity for S75's seems to be 5W while M150 is rated at 2.5W - if these specs are measured with the same criteria, you'll actually get more noise with the M150's at a given volume setting...

Interesting thread.

I do have a pair of Beovox M150 but at present Dillen has both of my Beomastere 6500 for service but otherwise it could be an interesting thing to try out. Normally they handle a Beomaster 8000 really well.

For the Beomaster 6500 I got my white Beovox S120 waiting for the return.

Thanks for all the input and advice! Really appreciated.

Unfortunately the Bm 8000 was never sold in my country nor was the Beovox M150. The owner immigrated to my country and brought them with him. He had the speakers connected with an 8000 but apparently its beyond repair now thats why he is selling the speakers.

I have my RL140's connected to my Beosystem 3500 and I have had no problems at all. So I think there is hope!!

BenSA:

He had the speakers connected with an 8000 but apparently its beyond repair now thats why he is selling the speakers.

Get it too -better than him just dumping it!

There is a lot of good advice here for getting them back on their feet.

burantek:

BenSA:

He had the speakers connected with an 8000 but apparently its beyond repair now thats why he is selling the speakers.

Get it too -better than him just dumping it!

There is a lot of good advice here for getting them back on their feet.

Well I'll ask the seller....I certainately won't buy it. Maybe he'll throw it in with the speakers and maybe the beocord and maybe........lol!!!

What's bad about the Beomaster 6500 amplifier wise?

BenSA:

I have just bought a pair of Beovox M150's not because I need them, I just could not resist!!! I know they are 150w, can I use them safely with a Beomaster 6500? Is the Beomaster going to struggle to power them. I'm not planning to throw parties and turn them up really loud....well maybe now and again just to show off!!

The 150w rating only means that they can handle 150w input. It says _nothing_ about the load they put on the amplifier the important specs are the sensitivity and the impedance

henrik:

BenSA:

I have just bought a pair of Beovox M150's not because I need them, I just could not resist!!! I know they are 150w, can I use them safely with a Beomaster 6500? Is the Beomaster going to struggle to power them. I'm not planning to throw parties and turn them up really loud....well maybe now and again just to show off!!

The 150w rating only means that they can handle 150w input. It says _nothing_ about the load they put on the amplifier the important specs are the sensitivity and the impedance

Oh I didn't know that!!! You'd think I'd know that by now. Impedance is the Ohms correct? Have no idea how to find out the sensitivity?

Friedmett:

What's bad about the Beomaster 6500 amplifier wise?

 

Its sound ;-)

Well it's not that bad, but it's not one of their really greatest amps. That said, I've got a 7000 and I'm using it everyday (even right now) - with a pair of M150s, actually :-)

BenSA:

Oh I didn't know that!!! You'd think I'd know that by now. Impedance is the Ohms correct? Have no idea how to find out the sensitivity?

Yes, thats right!. More about impedance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_characteristics_of_a_dynamic_loudspeaker

The sensitivity is oftened mentioned in the specifications in the catalogues ...or on the Beoworld product pages :-) Sensitivity is usually defined as the output in dB at 1 m distance from the speaker, when the speaker is fed with a 1 W input signal. A higher figure means that the speaker is more sensitive. However, ehe specifications here on Beoworld seems to be defined in another way - probably the other way around, ie how much power you need to achieve a certain predefined sound level. In that case, a higher figure would mean less sensitivity. For more info, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudspeaker#Efficiency_vs._sensitivity for more info.

The BM6500 will be fine with these speakers. I am sure it will go quite loud enough!

That won't be an issue at all - the BM6500 is actually rather good when it comes to tightness and speaker control. I was running a pair of B&W DM7s with mine for some time, and it tightened up the low end like no other amp I had at the time (even though it couldn't deliver the largest wattage).

There seems to be a misconception that larger speakers are more difficult to drive - often it's the other way round! Larger drivers = more air moved for the same electrical input = higher efficiency. Also, by the very nature of a larger cabinet, the designers won't need to have done much 'trickery' in terms of port tuning/crossover design to get the optimum performance from the speaker as they have the freedom to incorporate all the right drivers in an ideally-sized chamber, hence the impedance of larger speakers often seems more linear than smaller speakers (a speaker's impedance varies across frequency).

My 6500 can be a little unexciting to listen to, although I've been told this is down to capacitors in the output stages, and that they can be removed if you want to improve the performance. I'm always wary of D-I-Y modifications though...

Well not only have a learn't that I didn't really make a mistake....I have learned a lot about speakers too!! Thanks for all the posts. Its been SO interesting and informative. Now I just have to wait for the Beovox M150's to arrive!

Alex:

My 6500 can be a little unexciting to listen to, although I've been told this is down to capacitors in the output stages, and that they can be removed if you want to improve the performance. I'm always wary of D-I-Y modifications though...

We've had a pretty good fight or two over those caps on the forum! I've removed them from mine and I still think that made a nice, although far from revolutionary improvement. But they will go back (maybe just smaller value) if the receiver is going to be used with a more difficult load than it has now.

(And no, I don't mean something physically big with a "difficult load"... just longer speaker wire runs or an MCL link setup. It's now ~3 m to a pair of passive Pentas and nothing else connected.)

I agree with most of the posts here. It is commonly forgotten that most listening in a domestic setting takes place at around 2-3 watts, so I cannot foresee any problems driving the M150's with a Beomaster 6500.

Simon 

I'm currently sporting some fire-retardent Y-fronts, so here we go...

The MS150 was meant to be partnered with the Beomaster 8000, hence their being contemporaneous in the product line. Yes, you can use an amp with a smaller power rating to drive them, and I'm sure it will sound fine at moderate listening volumes. MS150s were, however, built to perform above moderate listening volumes, hence their size and cost.

Having owned most of the 'good' B&O amps over the years (Beomaster 5000, 6000 (LED) 8000 (LED) and Beolab 5000), and having owned many of the 'bigger' B&O passives (Beovox Pentas, 5000 panels, MC120.2s), what I can say is that there is definitely a hierarchy of both B&O amps and speakers. Generally speaking, the bigger amps and speakers sound the best - this is not surprising given that the bigger ones were usually top-of-the-line at the time they were produced. B&O not being a shonky company, it usually charged its customers for what they got, i.e. more bang-per-buck. I'm sure at the time the M100s were current, someone somewhere probably went into a B&O store and asked to have a pair with a Beomaster 1500 or something similarly underpowered. Can you guess what the salesperson's advice would have been?

What I find perplexing and slightly irritating is that whenever we have a discussion like this, and some sensible advice is offered based on personal ownership experience, others with little or no experience of either the 'good' amps or the 'bigger' passive speakers chime in with esoteric information about power handling etc. If you have the experience to answer the question 'what will X sound like with Y?', then please do chip in. If you're just going to reel off figures about how you expect X will sound with Y, dismissing others' personal ownership experience then you are just making an assertion not based on any evidence.

And yes - sorry if this upsets people, but there are a lot better B&O amps than a 6500. It might come in a pretty box and not be a labour of love to have serviced etc. before you can get any performance out of it at all, but it is still not in the same class as the amps known to most collectors to be the most desriable produced by B&O. You offer any serious enthusiast a Beolab 5000 or a Beomaster 6500 and see which one they'd pick time after time after time...

j0hnbarker:

And yes - sorry if this upsets people, but there are a lot better B&O amps than a 6500. It might come in a pretty box and not be a labour of love to have serviced etc. before you can get any performance out of it at all, but it is still not in the same class as the amps known to most collectors to be the most desriable produced by B&O. You offer any serious enthusiast a Beolab 5000 or a Beomaster 6500 and see which one they'd pick time after time after time...

I know which I'd pick between my 6500 and 4400! No doubt over which is the better amp, even given the age difference.