Vintage Products

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

Large48 — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 09:48:40 GMT

I guess the main difference I have been shown (thank you to a certain Mr T. J.) is that the older speakers MS150 on the back of various beomasters have a more 'rounded' sound compared to newer passives and this only seems to be that the midrange of older passives is more designed / engineered than the newer ones.

Mind you I just like to turn the bass up..... ;-)

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

Electrified — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 06:09:19 GMT

Sort of. It throughly depends what you have: The mentioned 20W amp into passive speakers is a bad choice.

Active speakers with big enough amps not to clip and distort(too much) is the way to go.

When your hearing goes, it becomes difficult to sit in a noisy place and hear what the person across the table is saying. Some of that is of course the way the brain works: We're able to"tune out" the noise and thus focus on the person we're talking to, but without the upper bands, we're in trouble. Hearing aids help in this respect as they up the signal-to-noise ratio in the bands where you need it.

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

elephant — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 05:59:36 GMT

I think you are saying my B&O is more justified now that my ears have aged than when I made my first investments . . . . . . thank you . . . . . . I think

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

Electrified — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 02:29:18 GMT

Er, I figured I needed to explain my last post:

The amplitude response of ears, as shown by Fletcher/Munsen, is concentrated in the 300-3kHz band, which is where the fundamentals of our voice is. The top end is where intelligibility comes in. The top end is where it matters because it is here we're able to differentiate what is being said/heard. A 20 watt amp clipping and general distortion in this top end makes everything less intelligible - even more so for people being partially deaf.

We tell how loud something is by when the ear begins to distort. When being partially deaf, this distortion will happen early/at a lower level. If you feed a partially deaf person a distorted signal to begin with, you're not helping him. On the contrary, he's in more need of high fidelity (in the literal sense) than the rest of us.

A clipping amp with passive speakers is not the way to go if you want to get as little distortion and clipping as possible. The "geeky" numbers and measurements tells us that

Edit: Spelling ...

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

Electrified — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 01:52:03 GMT

Not to rehash the argument, but someone being actual partial deaf has more benefits of a system with less distortion than one with excellent hearing.

Numbers may be geeky, but they're much better than "feelings" and "beliefs".

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

Søren Mexico — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:22:56 GMT

Large48:

For those of us that aren't audio wizards AND are partially deaf, its a case of if you like it buy it and if you don't walk away

There you are, and the passion is there for years to come.

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

yachadm — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 12:59:57 GMT

Actually, it's not at all about the numbers - at this stage of the game, anyway.

My tiny little BM3400 amp is only capable of 20W RMS x4. A mere pittance by today's standards....

But what a sound it is capable of! So, it is definitely a case of "If you like it, buy it..."

Now, behind the scenes, the hundreds of hours of research and soldering and loving attention to detail which it took to get that system to that fully-restored stage, well, that's another story.

But I'm not here to impress anyone with my technical skills (not many listeners care about that anyway, and that's OK), just here to impress you all with the end result of the sound. And that sound will make many modern systems ashamed of themselves. And I'm not ashamed of that!

WOW! B&O passion - it's all about the sound! Just trust your ears - Forget about the numbers!

Menahem

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

Large48 — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:13:48 GMT

It is comparable to bringing along a CAT-Scanner on a date. - LMFAO

For those of us that aren't audio wizards AND are partially deaf, its a case of if you like it buy it and if you don't walk away.

Part of these technical arguments continue the Geek view ala CPU and FSB arguments!

BUT it is good to see such passion for B&O after all these years.

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

Evan — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:56:20 GMT

Electrified:

evman140:
What really drives me up a wall is the arrogance that people have with Bose. From both sales persons and owners. They seem to think Bose is the answer to everything. "Oh, you have Yamaha + JBL? Well I have Bose..."

Hmm, that sounds like someone going "Oh, you have a Cannondale + Shimano XLR? Well, I have a bike from Tesco ....". They're ignorant, there's not much you can do about that sort of people.

Yes, call me arrogant, elitist, geeky, or whatever - chances are you're right

I wish I knew more about cycles!

I'm bumping this early Bose topic because I went into the local dealer yesterday and now I want to make an exception to my initial comment. I met one of the most polite and well spoken gentleman in there, I asked about the 901s and took all my questions very seriously. He gave me a demo and I have to say, not bad...

I wish they wore name tags so I could remember his name!

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

chartz — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 05:04:02 GMT

Nice one, Menahem!

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

yachadm — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 04:57:31 GMT

And what exactly makes you think that your system is better than my BM3400, BG6000 (Quad no less - ho, ho, ho) with 4 Beovox S45's?

We'll confuse the poor fellow - he'll not want to review anything younger than 20 years-old again

Menahem

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

chartz — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 04:13:11 GMT

Hi Adam,

On what forum can we find David?

We have a few words to tell him...

We DEMAND a Hi-Fi world publication of systems 6000 (mine: Beogram 8000/Beocord 9000/Beomaster 6000/Beovox MC120.2) and 8000!!

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

AdamS — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 12:38:04 GMT

Doctor:

It could be that there are some B&O fans at Hi-Fi World! A certain Mr T. Jarman writes for them as does one of our own - Mr Adam Smith. I am still waiting for the write up of the 8000 system - I think they are waiting until they all have one before extolling its virtues and putting the price up! I also await the 4400 article - I am happy to lend them a 4401!

You've hit the nail on the head, Peter - editor David Price has vetoed it from the magazine until he has one but as Tim and I both have 8000 systems, we're finding this very frustrating! What's especially amusing is that I pointed David in the direction of the 8000 system that I now own but when he had done nothing after a week, I grabbed it myself!

Also, following an earlier comment about Linn and Naim, I have the BM8000 which I love, but my main amplifier is a Naim Supernait, which I also love, so what does that say about me? On second, thoughts, perhaps I don't want to know....

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

Electrified — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 06:30:16 GMT

That ASUS-story reminds me of Lenovo and their Thinkpad developers. They asked us users on their blog if we would be interested in a Thinkpad netbook. Of course, quite a few of us were, but we were all adament that it should have a matt screen, not compromising on the keyboard, have enough connections and a trackpoint (and various other things such as being reasonably fast etc.). They listened and now we have the Thinkpad X100e:

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/landing_pages/thinkpad/2010/X100e

Not quite the same as your capacitator-stuff, but it's nice to have a company (division) listen to their customers - both the ones already in the fold and prospective ones.

Re: Why do people put down B&O sound

yachadm — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 12:15:57 GMT

I just wanted to add, that some manufacturers are quite receptive to constructive criticism of their products.

I have had an excellent relationship with Asus, being one of the first Asus dealers in Israel, and in those early years, we had direct aceess to the Asus Engineering personnel at Taiwan HQ. The relationship has stayed very healthy over the years.

About a year ago, Asus released a motherboard with the highest-quality Panasonic capacitors to-date. I was very surprised to see that, because, while I was accustomed to seeing relatively high-quality components on their boards, that was the first time I'd seen a "digital" company take the step of quality without cost considerations.

I was suitably impressed to the degree that I fired off a complimentary email to the head engineer in Taiwan, complimenting him on his choice.

He wrote back to me, stating that it was nice to hear when customers appreciate their efforts, especially when most customers wouldn't even know enough to notice the difference.

Now, I know that most manufacturers would not appreciate customer "interference" in their choice of components, and that's their problem. But here was a very positive example of the manufacturer "sensing" what would be good for the customer, is also good for them.

Menahem