Non BO subwoofer with Beolab 8000

Hi everyone - i just acquired two beolab 8000. However I would like to add some bass to it, just a little bit, and I don’t want to spend 1000$ on it. So I was thinking about buying a subwoofer (<500$) to plug my beolab 8000 together through a DJ mixer. I selected these three but I am opened to suggestions:

-Bowers & Wilkins ASW608

-Klipsch R120-SW

-Bose bass module 500

is it crazy/stupid to connect the beolab 8000 with these subs?

does anyone have an experience of a non BO sub connected to beolabs?

i thank you in advance for your answers

best

Nicolas

 

Hi Nicolas,

I would like to recommend the Canton ASF 75 SC. It has a great sound, easy to calibrate and also has the unique feature that it is flat and can be hidden under a sofa for instance.

Cheers

Peter

Beolab2? Sure one will come up within budget at some point.

I currently use a B&W PV1 with my BeoLab 6000s, I also have a BL 2 connected to a pair of BL 8000s. To be honest, the B&W PV1 - which you can get for around $600 on eBay easily outperforms the BL 2 in my humble opinion with the Bass sounding much deeper and more powerful. The Klipsh would be also excellent for excellent for movies as long as you go with a 12 inch and up size woofer.

Not that I'm jeopardizing the thread but since we're talking about subwoofer, what's the best active subwoofer for movies under $2000 ? I heard SVS make some nice one.

Hi guys - thanks very much for your answers,

1) do you think the Canton will bring enough to the beolab 8000 to make the difference?

2) I love the BW PV1D that could be an option, ideally it would be a similar/compact/powerful spec like that under 500$

Thanks

 

Nicoco:

do you think the Canton will bring enough to the beolab 8000 to make the difference?

Since in the original post you said "just a bit" of bass, then the answer is "yes."  The Canton is a single 8" driver which plays down to 33Hz.  Your 8000's play down to 52Hz.  Set the crossover at its lowest point (80Hz) and you'll get most of an extra octave down.  @Jaffrey2230 thinks that isn't good enough: his BeoLab 2 went down to 23Hz (with approx. 10" driver and a passive radiator at 62 watts) but he preferred the B&W PV1D which went down to 18Hz (with 2x8" woofers at 400watt).  I doubt you can get a used PV1D for $500, and you don't need its digital fanciness; a PV1 would be fine but even for that price might be tough -- depends where you live.

My opinion: If you're playing movies, then you really want that extra frequency range for an excellent bangboom!  If music, well, you know what you're listening to and whether another half-octave matters.  But since you bought "design-y" speakers, I would also let your design sense help guide you: If you like the way the PV1 looks with BL8000's then definitely get it.  If you prefer the "surprise factor" from a hidden bass speaker that magically improves the 8000s, make sure you have the clearance underneath your sofa and go for the Canton.

Hey Guys, 

 

I also wanted to improve the low end of my BL 8000 without spending 1000€ on a 15 year old sub. 

I bought a sub second hand to test the setup.

I have a similar (test)setup over Powerlink, but my subwoofer seems kind of quiet, bit dissapointing tbh. 

My setup is the following: 

-Beocenter 2 

-2x Beolab 8000

-1x Boson Accoustics Subwoofer ( HPS 8Wi )

2 PL-Y Adapters 

1 PL-RCA Adapter

 

It seems that the line level coming from the Beocenter over PL is too quiet for the subwoofer to be effective. Subwoofer gain/volume is maxed, but there is barely anything coming through. Sometimes the subwoofers does not even turn on when playing at normal listening volumes. 

I'm not looking for earth shattering rumble but max sub volume should sound differently in my imagination.

Did I do something wrong with the cabeling? 

Is it the wrong subwoofer?

Is the Subwoofer defective? (It was a cheap used one to test the concept)

Did someone else have a similar problem? 

Is that type of setup an option at all? :D 

^ Bump

You got no answers because nobody wants to flame away with wild guesses, not really *knowing* the truth for you.  Hey, ignorance never stopped me, so I'll venture,... with a concrete example:

I have a pair of Definitive Technology Mythos (SST) that I pulled out of storage.  This model had a powered bass driver built in to the regular speaker.  One Mythos works perfectly, but the other one's bass volume is *way* low; you must turn its bass control up to max just to get it to play like the other speaker, which is only set to about 20%.  It needs a new plate amplifier (or repairs, but DefTech doesn't do that).  So that is my guess for your system: the powered subwoofer's amp is failing.  

It's easy to test, but only if you can open it up and disconnect the built-in amp from the speaker, and have a spare amplifier to take the LFE as line input and amplify it to speaker(s).  (Yes, you can test it with just speaker wire to any old amp, but it'll sound like garbage because without some filter circuit, it'll try to play all the high frequencies too!  No, I don't know whether sending it a whizzing treble frequency can burn its voice coil, sorry.)  A more general test method would be to eliminate all the B&O-ness and the multi-speaker splitting: Try the subwoofer with some other system.  If you play any movie, rock music, or percussive classical, on any subwoofer at a 50% control setting, you should be able to hear *and* see and feel the speaker cone moving like crazy -- really, moving *a lot*; it's obvious.  Good luck!

Hey trackbeo,

Thank you for your reply! 

Maybe I should have phrased the question differerently, tbh. 

 -> I was wondering mainly if powerlink signals were for some reason to quiet/weak for usulal line input on (working) equipment of other manufactuers. <-

 

I have not yet tried to connect the sub to a proper amp, but I connected the line level input to my smartphone the other day. It was louder than over Powerlink, but also rather unimpressive. I guess my luck with the classifieds had to end at some point :P 

How exactly do you have it wired? Details. Is it possible you're only getting one channel of signal off the PL? Say, L or R not both? I've used PL out from my BS9000 to drive an outboard amp and it worked fine, no level issues, it drove the amp perfectly.

Unless the sub is defective, which it seems not to be if it works via a phone/tablet or such, something in how its connected seems to be an issue. Can you describe in more precise detail how it's wired, and what inputs on the sub are available and which you're using?

beoboehm:

 -> I was wondering mainly if powerlink signals were for some reason to quiet/weak for usulal line input on (working) equipment of other manufactuers. <-

I'm just guessing but don't believe so.  See:

https://archivedarchivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/t/1918.aspx

One person there says Powerlink outputs 0-600mv.  Another person says both Aux.Out and PowerLink are spec'ed at 1V.  Without evidence, I believe the latter because B&O was shipping around low-level signals on long-ish cables: they should have chosen either "standard line level" or maybe an even higher proprietary signal voltage, just to avoid S/N problems with transmission.  

My electronics is a little weak, but if you are splitting your cable without an amplifier, wouldn't you expect each half to have a lower signal, depending proportionally upon the impedance each presents to the source?  Or maybe Jeff's Left+Right conjecture is correct and you're not getting both sides' bass...

Here is a quick diagram of the cabling layout i used.

 

The BL8000s work absolutely fine with this setup. 

I tested the R/L chanels. Both seem to work ->subwoofer works (quietly) with either one of them disconnected.

 

That should work, it's how I'd have done it. Is there any way you can get a different sub, even on loan from a friend, to see if it's the sub itself? The input impedances of the Beolab and the Sub should be high enough that splitting it shouldn't be an issue, not for line level signals like that. Maybe try swapping the Y connectors to make sure one isn't defective in some oddball way?

Thank you, Jeff! 

Good to know that this setup "should" work! 

I really think that I bought a broken Sub. After listening and trying a few times I noticed that its (low) volume is inconsistent and sometimes it buzzes in various ways.
Probably some bad capacitors in the amp, not sure if its worth fixing, bulky and ugly as it is. 

Buy cheap, buy twice. 

beoboehm:

Thank you, Jeff! 

Good to know that this setup "should" work! 

I really think that I bought a broken Sub. After listening and trying a few times I noticed that its (low) volume is inconsistent and sometimes it buzzes in various ways.
Probably some bad capacitors in the amp, not sure if its worth fixing, bulky and ugly as it is. 

Buy cheap, buy twice. 

Sadly often true, but not always. So worth a shot. It does sound like something might be odd with the sub. Hope you get it all sorted out and find a sub that works for you.