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ARCHIVED FORUM -- April 2007 to March 2012
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This is the first Archived Forum which was active between 17th April 2007 and 1st March February 2012

 

Latest post 07-09-2011 7:16 AM by thavn. 61 replies.
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  • 05-30-2011 9:17 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    I am more and more thinking I should just stick with the 9s. I am very happywith them. Also, my room is such that the 5s would need to be close to a wall and I getting the sense that is not the preferred location.

    Beovision 7-55 with Beolab 7-4, 9s and 4000s

    Beovision 10-40 with Beolab 1s and 6000s

    Beosound 1, 5, 2000, and 3000

    Beotime, Beotalk, Beocoms

  • 05-30-2011 9:50 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    The 9s are very musical. Good speakers. 

  • 05-30-2011 10:12 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    When I purchased the 9s they replaced a pair of 1s. I was able to do side by side testing and the difference between the two was huge. After listening and comparing there was no question tnat the 9s would be staying.

    If I am going to buy 5s I want to be able to experience a similar improvement.

    Beovision 7-55 with Beolab 7-4, 9s and 4000s

    Beovision 10-40 with Beolab 1s and 6000s

    Beosound 1, 5, 2000, and 3000

    Beotime, Beotalk, Beocoms

  • 05-30-2011 1:02 PM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    I'm really shocked. While I love the 9s, I'd never compare them with 5s. Sure, environments differ, but the 5s are almost magical. 

    There is scarcely anything in this world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey. - John Ruskin

  • 05-30-2011 2:46 PM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    Yes, Trip. It's a little hard to believe, until you've experienced how these are set up in some dealerships.

    I suspect we're dealing with a case of the audiomaster "not having been told" what it's connected to, or otherwise having been set up wrong.

  • 05-30-2011 6:24 PM In reply to

    • Jez
    • Top 500 Contributor
    • Joined on 06-13-2007
    • Posts 150
    • Bronze Member

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    soundproof:

     

    I suspect we're dealing with a case of the audiomaster "not having been told" what it's connected to, or otherwise having been set up wrong.

    I feel the same. Many factors in dealing with BL5's. As they are a truly non colored and transparent speaker just like a studio monitor is. BL5's will show a piece of work, be it musical or movie for what it really is. Source material, player and setup play a crucial role with these speakers. Personally I never thought much of the BeoLab 1's as I found them to have a clinical sound with little warmth, so the jump to BL9's would have been huge IMO. However as I have both BL9's and BL5's and as good as the BL9's are there still is no comparison to the BL5's. From all angles the delivery of BL5's is far superior, in power, acuracy/detail, separation, warmth, frequency range (especially in bottom end). So there must be something wrong in the set up. I certainly have experienced this before in a store and if your dealer wants the sale that bad he/she should be willing to bring them around for a demo in your house. Mine certainly sound better at home than they do in my local dealer. With the set up 100% BL5's Should sound amazing anywhere, but of course they will always sound better in a more breathable room.

  • 05-30-2011 8:15 PM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    I listened to the 5s again today at another dealer. I still was not overly impressed. My girlfriend, however, liked them and thought they sounded better than my 9s. She thinks the 9s are more precise and individual instruments can be heard and that she thinks that appeals to me, whereas she thinks the 5s blend everything into a better overall sound which she liked.

     

    Beovision 7-55 with Beolab 7-4, 9s and 4000s

    Beovision 10-40 with Beolab 1s and 6000s

    Beosound 1, 5, 2000, and 3000

    Beotime, Beotalk, Beocoms

  • 05-31-2011 3:29 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    I'm sorry, Razlaw, but we appear to have entered into Bizarro-World wherever it is you are listening to these speakers. Something is not right in the set-up.

    That said, you should go with the speakers you like the most, and are most comfortable with. There's no point in taking something home to hope that it will grow on you, if you already have something you like - and this is particularly true of speakers. We all have a sound-signature we prefer.

  • 05-31-2011 4:39 AM In reply to

    • jc
    • Top 500 Contributor
    • Joined on 11-06-2007
    • The Netherlands
    • Posts 145
    • Bronze Member

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    Some comments have been made on the (relative absence of) midrange of the Beolab 9, I haven't read such comments about the 5's, so perhaps the midrange seems to be more prominent in the 5's relative to the bass which could explain the fenomenon that you described? 

  • 05-31-2011 5:06 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    As shown earlier in the thread, some dealers have set the BL9 for maximum bass boost, and have even engaged loudness on the audiomaster they are connected to. The speakers are smaller, less expensive and probably a lot easier to sell -- and a lot of people don't mind boosting the bass "to feel the music". All in all, a good selling strategy, but not very true to B&O's philosophy about neutral reproduction.

    The BL5s measure the room and adjust their output below 440Hz, in order to achieve a correct bass reproduction - where correct to many becomes too little, and they wonder why such powerful speakers don't have more "oomph". Since we can't decouple the calibration, which could have been an option, people are then down to various strategies, if they wish to boost the bass. You can use EQ or DSP, to boost it - I have played around with bass boost using the filters on Pure Music's playback software. 

    Others have recalibrated the speakers in larger rooms, and then taken them into the room they want them in. And I've even read a thread here where someone took them outside, calibrated them there, and then carried them back inside. I would actually think that it would be better to calibrate them in the room, and then adjust the bass output using DSP, if you want to avoid a muddled, albeit strong bass.

    People have different bass preferences - I listen to acoustic music (jazz, classical and folk, mostly) and for me, the BL5s do a wonderful job. Knowledgeable people who have spent a lot of money on passive speaker setups, far more than you'd need to have a 7.1 setup that was all BL5, have wondered at the bass fidelity in my listening room. One stating that finally he understood why Björk went on about "I love this resonance" in her track "Headphones", for instance.

    If the BL5s aren't solidly outperforming the BL9s, where you are listening to them, then the BL5s have been set up wrong, and the BL9s have been set up to sell.

     

  • 05-31-2011 6:37 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    Hi guys

    I have recently purchased a pair of BL5's as well. I, too have been slightly disappointed in the bass response. It sounds bizzare because how can you argue with two 15" subwoofers?? Previously i had a pair of BL 8000's connected along with a BL2. There was some serious but not over the top bass coming from them which i enjoyed. I listened to the BL5's in a showroom again recently and found them brilliant. Certainly better than the BL9's IMO. Clearly this states i'm doing something wrong. I have the bass level turned up on my BV40 and it seems to still lack than solid oomph. They have been calibrated to my room, which is not huge but still roomy. I'm in agreeance with kimchr in respect to blu- ray movies sounding brilliant. Just seems to be the music. Any suggestions in respect to improving bass levels (can't believe i'm actually writing this :) ) Tks

     

     

  • 05-31-2011 10:44 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    Hi,

    i experienced exactly the same "lack of bass" ... so it does not seem to be completely uncommon with the BL5, when it is positioned close to the wall ... i even bought a BL2 to compensate the lack of bass ... weired idea, isn't it?!

     

    I had the service people coming ... we did the calibration process several times ... the guys even tried to prevent the glass in our large windows from "swinging" during the calibration :-)

    All of this did not have a serious effect.

    The only thing that helped dramatically was moving the speakers away from the walls into a more or less freestanding position. Recalibration of the BL5 in this position or in an acoustically more friendly room/enviroment ... and then removing them into old position close to the walls definetly helped the bass ... but was not as good as let them play from a freestanding position.

    I ended up with transfering the BL5's to a room, where i can place them freestanding ... and am now looking for a pair of BL9 to integrate them into my TV-5.1Setup ... replacing the BL5's. The BL5's are now reserved for stereo/music listening only.

    Cheers

    BV 7-40 BR ... Beolab 5 front ... Beolab 8000 rear ... Beolab 2 Sub ... Apple TV ... Apple NAS ... Beosound Ouverture  ... Technisat HD8-S ... Sonos ZP 90

  • 05-31-2011 11:33 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    I think I will have to forget about getting 5s. The room I would put them in would require that they be near a wall, and one if them would be in a corner. The more I read the more I think this type of position is detrimental to the sound.

    Beovision 7-55 with Beolab 7-4, 9s and 4000s

    Beovision 10-40 with Beolab 1s and 6000s

    Beosound 1, 5, 2000, and 3000

    Beotime, Beotalk, Beocoms

  • 05-31-2011 1:15 PM In reply to

    • mjmedlo
    • Top 150 Contributor
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    • Joined on 06-07-2008
    • Arkansas, USA
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    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    RazLaw,

    I own a pair of 5s and my best friend owns the 9s.

    They are placed in similar rooms with very similar setups. . the difference being his ceiling is 12 feet and mine is 10.  I have the 5s against the wall, the 9s are as well.  I can tell a HUGE difference in the 5s and 9s.

    I actually had all 4 hooked up at once and listened to the 9s versus 5s.  I like the 5s for 'tightness' and I think the recovery of the woofer is better because it's smaller.

    However, the top end of the speakers to me is DRASTICALLY different.  I think the idea of the calibration on the 5s is designed to avoid what you are worried about, being against the wall.

    If I were you, I'd ask for some type of in home demo of the 5s.  I think when you are able to hear them in comparison to the 9s you will see the difference.

    Also, if they are being used in a surround system at the dealer be sure to select speaker 2 so as not to get anything from the other surround speakers. . 

    Good luck with the choices!!1

    I'm ready for something new that I actually want to buy!

  • 05-31-2011 8:23 PM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    I'm in the 'yes please' camp...

    I'd trade a pair of 9s for a pair of 5s anyday. The 5s are probably one of the best value speakers on the market of any brand!!

    My B&O: 2009 Catalogue and Pricelist

  • 06-02-2011 11:21 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    Great threed.

    It is very hard to tell about BL5 and BL9, they are speak for themselves ....

    One thing I can mention is, that I was test-compare them with my friend's BL5's in Ljubljana last weekend, it was side by side comparation in the home environment, and .... no one will believe me right now but there is so SMALL difference between them! I was expected huge difference, but not ... I will put this way, up to volume 40 you can not tell the difference, the are absolutely the same ! above 40 up to 65 the only thing you hear is little bit more bass ( it is hard to believe, but I was witness to that ), above 60 ( you must agree that only 2% of the time you listen music above 60 ) Bl5 dominate with stronger bass which put your kidney up to your neck ( I like my kidneys to stay as they are ) ....

    simply BL9 are the best speaker for that money I ever heard ...

    And BL5 is .... astonishing !

     

    when your Black Label begin to taste like juice just take shot or two of Absinthe and after that quench with some vodka, if you still feel juice like take beer with grappa !

  • 06-02-2011 9:27 PM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    Hi Rookie

    How did the BL5's sound with the BL2? I have one that i'm thinking of adding, even though it seems so wrong :)

  • 06-03-2011 2:51 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    ollie75:

    Hi Rookie

    How did the BL5's sound with the BL2? I have one that i'm thinking of adding, even though it seems so wrong :)

     

    It is not wrong, it is utter, utter madness. Big Smile

    You have 2 large subwoofers already - omnipoles, with tremendous power behind them. They can deliver, just check your setup and find what's wrong.

    For instance - you could try Pure Music. It's free for a two week trial period, and it has EQ-filtering possibilities that will add whatever oomph you are missing now, in selected frequency ranges.

     

  • 06-03-2011 4:53 AM In reply to

    • petermc
    • Top 500 Contributor
    • Joined on 04-16-2007
    • Shepparton, Australia
    • Posts 87
    • Founder

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    I had our BL5's connected via the digital link and wasn't completely happy with the sound as I couldn't adjust the tone controls.

    I now run the speakers on Powerlink alone and have the bass up one notch but no loudness. This is likely not as B&O intends and probably considered blasphemy to the purists but to my ears I like the sound this way.

    The sound that the 5's produce from a CD or movie still amazes me. They are by far my favourite piece of B&O and they still bring a smile to my face when we sit down for a good listen to some music.

    But at the end of the day if a pair of BL4000's or a pair of BL9's sound better to your ears go for it as you are the one that will be listening to them.

     

    Peter

     

     

  • 06-03-2011 5:00 AM In reply to

    • TWG
    • Top 75 Contributor
    • Joined on 04-17-2007
    • Germany
    • Posts 950
    • Gold Member

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    Hearing is individual and very subjective!

    While person A thinks "wow, my speakers sound amazing!", person B just thinks "I wouldn't buy them even for ONE Euro!".

    So why don't you accept when Razlaws ears tell him: "I don't like the speakers"? You can't except that the music sounds the same for another person as it sounds for you :)

     

    If he's disappointed from the Beolab 5 it shouldn't be a problem. Perhaps you should try out the listening experience at home and if you aren't convinced: Buy another speaker system. No problem. Everybody should only buy the speakers he's comfortable with :)

    If you're happy with a valve amp and some Nubert speakers connected to a Beosound 3000: Just be happy with it :)

     

    So, enjoy YOUR speakers and have a nice weekend while sharing the same B&O passion.

     

     

  • 06-03-2011 5:08 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    Not sure who you're responding to, TWG, but as you'll see earlier in the thread, I'm making the recommendation that people should go with the speakers they are comfortable with, and not take something home that they hope they'll get accustomed to or grow to like. "Listening ease" is very important - you need to feel at ease with the components you are listening to, in order to enjoy the music.

    When that is said, it's also possible to question a decision to add a BL2 to BL5s. If one feels a need for that, then the dealer doesn't know how to set up the BL5s, or something is wrong with them. Think about it - to send the low frequencies to a separate sub, you are decoupling the subwoofers on the BL5s and taking them out of the action. Two enormous subwoofers, each moving 1.8 litres of air per pulse, providing you with the added precision of having two subwoofers where your other drivers are ...

    Of course, the dealer might be happy if they get to sell a subwoofer together with a pair of speakers that have 2xsubwoofers and 2xwoofers ... Big Smile

  • 06-03-2011 5:24 AM In reply to

    A simple control of your playback, would be to use the Audio Filters in Pure Music, from ChannelD. This is playback software with a number of very good features. It has a two-week free trial period.

    Using Audio Setup on Pure Music, you can access the Audio Filters feature. There, you can choose a number of parametric filters, and tweak the power of frequency ranges that you specify (or just use the graphic equalizer for a quick and dirty test).

    After your BL5s are calibrated to the room, you can then enhance how they perform in particular regions of their frequency range - and you can easily bypass your settings, to compare before and after.

    15 days free tryout here - for Mac OSX: http://www.channld.com/puremusic/

    For fun I set my BL5s to extinguish the flame in a Stelton-lamp I had in my listening room.

     

     


  • 06-05-2011 6:47 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    Sorry Folks, I feel really stupid to ask this question. Is it important how the BL5 mains are connected? I'm thinking, if the direction of the socket influence the fase of the drivers? My instinct says of course... But then again, if really so, I think the first advice to someone experiencing low bass output would be. "Do a 180 on one of the mains sockets!" 

    I'm one of those who have been experiencing bass output less than desired on my BL5s. Today I finally got some measurements with my Behringer ECM8000 mic and FuzzMeasure Pro 3 and I must say, that the results of the first measurements done with both speakers doing a sinesweep simultanously showed a result much to my expectations. Really low bass below 400hz. Result inserted below.

    After doing this I got the idea to change the mains socket direction on one of the speakers. The result was very different, indeed! It's overall linear though it has significant dips and highs, but probably nothing you wouldn't expect from a livingroom with no acoustic treament at all. Measurements where similar to what a measured on each speaker sweeping individually.

    I have not seen this discussed before and not mentioned in the Belab 5 user manual, so I look forward to your comments. If it's left up to chance to turn both mains sockets in the same direction, I have been among the unlucky 50% until now!

    Btw. My measurements was done from a mac mini connected to the bl5s with spdif through a tc eectronics firewire interface. 

  • 06-05-2011 7:12 AM In reply to

    • Puncher
    • Top 10 Contributor
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    • Joined on 03-27-2007
    • Nr. Durham, NE England.
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    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    kimchr:

    Sorry Folks, I feel really stupid to ask this question. Is it important how the BL5 mains are connected? I'm thinking, if the direction of the socket influence the fase of the drivers? My instinct says of course... But then again, if really so, I think the first advice to someone experiencing low bass output would be. "Do a 180 on one of the mains sockets!"

    I'm one of those who have been experiencing bass output less than desired on my BL5s. Today I finally got some measurements with my Behringer ECM8000 mic and FuzzMeasure Pro 3 and I must say, that the results of the first measurements done with both speakers doing a sinesweep simultanously showed a result much to my expectations. Really low bass below 400hz. Result inserted below.

    After doing this I got the idea to change the mains socket direction on one of the speakers. The result was very different, indeed! It's overall linear though it has significant dips and highs, but probably nothing you wouldn't expect from a livingroom with no acoustic treament at all. Measurements where similar to what a measured on each speaker sweeping individually.

    I have not seen this discussed before and not mentioned in the Belab 5 user manual, so I look forward to your comments. If it's left up to chance to turn both mains sockets in the same direction, I have been among the unlucky 50% until now!

    Btw. My measurements was done from a mac mini connected to the bl5s with spdif through a tc eectronics firewire interface.

     

     

    I can't think of a single potential reason why this would be true - the first thing that happens in the mains path after entering the BL5 is that it is converted to DC.

    How repeatable are your measurements - if you repeat the test how much variation do you get, test to test? Were you standing in exactly the same position for each test?

    Generally speaking, you aren't learning much if your lips are moving.

  • 06-05-2011 7:32 AM In reply to

    Re: Beolab 5 disappointed

    Has someone already done a blind test (I actually mean blindfolded) between BeoLab 9 and BeoLab 5 in the same room with the same music connected to the same system? Comparing BeoLab 9 at home with BeoLab 5 somewhere else is never a good test! It is like comparing for instance an Audi A4 with an Audi A8 and saying that the A4 has a better drive, but not saying that you drove the A4 on a smooth road and the A8 on a cobblestone road...... 

    What also is important and what B&O does not say is that BeoLab 5 can be calibrated in ALMOST every room, in some conditions you simply cannot get the optimal result. But in those cases you will also not get the optimal result with any other speaker!

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