TheMajor:
I read some threads on here about how the BL11 brought the posters 6000s to life and they sounded amazingly good. I popped to my new B&O dealer today as my old one closed down. I had a listen on the (Ice) BL4000s. I am not sure if he set it up correctly as it sounded bad. Worse than my current BL4000s running of a Marantz amp. I couldn't even hear the BL11. He did move the BL11 to a BS3200 connected to the BL4000s. When I touched the BL11 I could feel tiny vibrations but could see no movement. I was playing Norah Jones and some Muse.
There are only two real B&O shops in Tokyo, I went to the other store where the owner is a real salesmen and friendly. Is the BL11 really that bad? I was really looking forward to a little more low end. I could hear no difference in the low end and the sound seemed cold and plain bad.
Did you get my email back? Hope it got through okay...
I haven't heard the BeoLab 11 set up in a home-environment, only in the showroom, but I thought the improvement was most definitely worth the money. It cleans up the low-end of the BeoLab 4000s fantastically (the ICE versions, haven't heard it on Mk1s).
Remember, a subwoofer is only there to extend the low frequencies of your main speakers, not boom all over the top of it. Subwoofers were originally added to speakers which were only capable of reproducing down to say, 60Hz, and the subwoofer would fill from 60Hz down to 20Hz (in a perfect situation). For a little trivia, subwoofers in hifi were first used in the mixing process of Steely Dan's 'Pretzel Logic'.
Nowadays, people seem to use subwoofers as an excuse to completely over-do the bass on their system. I've heard so many setups (not just B&O, but some extremely respectable 'audiophile brands') where the subwoofer is turned up far too high. You should never be able to hear the subwoofer itself. If you can, then you're no-longer listening to a stereo system.
Why is this? Stereo literally means 'solid' - it doesn't refer to two speakers, or any particular number of speakers. All 'stereo' means is quite simply a 'solid image' of sound. This sound is heard when you sit in the 'sweetspot' between your (usually) two speakers. When you add in an overblown, over-the-top subwoofer, you pull a large proportion of that sound away from the 'stereo image', and you start to hear a third speaker rumbling away. The bass no longer comes from where it's meant to be heard (which is usually slap-bang between the two speakers).
The BeoLab 11, will not much of a 'shake the room' sub, is extremely capable of handling the low-end your BeoLab 4000s would otherwise reproduce without being sonically dominating, whilst also extending the bass response down that little bit further for when it's needed. If you're playing music without much bass, all you're going to hear when you add in the BeoLab 11 is slightly more accurate, punchier, tight bass. When the bass player, or recording engineer decides they want a deep bass note, the BeoLab 11 is there to handle it when your BeoLab 4000s (or 6000s, even 8000s) might run out of steam.
The BeoLab 11 + BeoLab 4000s IMO is a great combination. The BeoLab 11 does exactly what it says on the tin, nothing else.
If you want more bass, maybe try two (one per side)? You'll end up with 'mono mixed' subwoofers, but most records nowadays have all the sound underneath ~120Hz mixed into mono anyway.
FWIW, for purely music, I would pick the BeoLab 11 over the BeoLab 2 without battering an eyelid in anything but larger rooms...