ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Hi fellow Beoworld members, I’ve found your forum whilst searching for more information on Beovox 5700’s and Beoworld looks to be a wealth of information and knowledge so thanks for having me. I feel it's only polite when joining a new forum to take some time to introduce yourself, if you are not concerned with such etiquette please skip the next couple of paragraphs.
I’m on the fringe of being a B&O fanboy, B&O was the first proper HiFi I heard / saw and was introduced to it by my school friends Father (Beosystem 5500 & Penta MkIII). I was so impressed with this that after graduating I started putting together a B&O system which started with LX2500, Beomaster 6000, Beovox S50. The speakers were replaced with RL60.2 (which I still have to this day and I’m listening to as I type in my Kitchen) and the TV was replaced with either a MX5000 or MX6000 this was early 00’s so I can’t really remember. The Beomaster 6000 got taken out by a power surge and the MXxxxx was replaced by a 46” DLP when HD first came out and at that point I moved on to an AV system.
Back in 2013 I picked up a turntable which opened up the HiFi floodgates and I put together the B&O system I’d always lusted after, Beosystem 5500 (with Beogram CD 6500), TX2 and Penta MKI. I still have the Penta’s (I can’t bring myself to sell them and one day I’ll strap them up to suitable amps) but everything else has gone as it was slowly replaced with vintage British equipment. It has been this love of vintage British HiFi equipment that has brought me full circle back to B&O.
I’m a big fan of 1970’s Celestion speakers and have a pair of Ditton 44’s in which I have reworked the crossover and installed the MD500 from the Ditton 66 / B&O 5700. Although I’m perusing HiFi I still love AV and I use the modified 44’s as front left and right, when I found out about the 5700’s I thought they would make an excellent centre speaker. So after a couple of months of watching eBay I have a pair of 5700’s en route.
I’ve re-capped my 44’s a few times and have found Ansar SuperSound (for polypropylene caps) and Mundorf E-Caps with an Ansar SuperSound bypass (for electrolytic caps) provide the best tonal balance for the Celestions so my plan is to use this same combination with the 5700’s (keeping stock values). Does anyone have any recommendations for replacement B&O caps?
I will be re-capping both pairs of 5700’s as I would like to put these up against the 44’s. As previously stated I have re-worked the 44 crossover to that of the 66’s (I have also re-wired, rebuilt the crossover for better inductor spacing / orientation and taken them external) and whilst they do produce some glorious vintage sounds there is what is best described as a resonance in the network. This is at its worst around certain vocals and sounds like distortion, what are users views on the 5700’s and how the crossover is implemented, does what I’ve just (albeit poorly) described similar to your experience with the 5700’s?
Finally, has anyone rebuilt the 5700’s crossover, looking at the crossover board it looks to me like noticeable improvements could be made by re-spacing / orientating the inductors has anyone experimented with this?
I don't have anything useful to add but I'm looking forward to hearing your opinions after they arrive and you start a recap with your past experience with the brits.
I have a set of 5700 I picked up locally for almost nothing a couple months ago and was totally underwhelmed. I found them to be sloppy sounding for lack of a better description and inconsistent. Albums that didn't have much range sounded ok but classical or electronic music were painful to listen to. Original electrolytic caps and tropical fish film caps are still in them and they sit waiting to move up the priority list of projects. I definitely prefer my little RL 60.2 to the 5700 in their current state.
The 5700's have arrived and I've spent an evening with them.
Peter: ...I have a set of 5700 I picked up locally for almost nothing a couple months ago and was totally underwhelmed. I found them to be sloppy sounding for lack of a better description and inconsistent. Albums that didn't have much range sounded ok but classical or electronic music were painful to listen to. Original electrolytic caps and tropical fish film caps are still in them and they sit waiting to move up the priority list of projects. I definitely prefer my little RL 60.2 to the 5700 in their current state.
...I have a set of 5700 I picked up locally for almost nothing a couple months ago and was totally underwhelmed. I found them to be sloppy sounding for lack of a better description and inconsistent. Albums that didn't have much range sounded ok but classical or electronic music were painful to listen to. Original electrolytic caps and tropical fish film caps are still in them and they sit waiting to move up the priority list of projects. I definitely prefer my little RL 60.2 to the 5700 in their current state.
I know where you're coming from and know what you mean by sloppy, the bass is very loose and quite lazy (do your woofers have dust caps? as I'm sure you know the 5700's are a sealed speaker and need to be air tight), new caps may remedy this but I have my doubts? I got best results by having them very close (~3") to the rear wall which is masonry. My experience with sealed speakers is that they respond well to some bass reinforcement from the rear wall and in that respect I'm fortunate that all the walls in my room are solid masonry with very little resonance I don't know how well they'd respond to dry wall, what construction is your rear wall? My suspicion is that the ABR whilst achieving a lower bass response is slowing and bloating the bass. This is certainly my experience with the Ditton 66's, my DIY 66's do not use the ABR (crossover and cabinet adjusted accordingly) as again I find the bass response is lower but at the expense of speed and impact, personally I do not like an ABR for anything larger than an 8" (this is just my personal opinion).
I would also agree they seem to lack dynamic range, I know both the tweeter and mid are capable of more than this and I do believe this could be vastly improved by re-capping and re-orientating the inductors. New caps speak for themselves, see here for a guide on inductor placement (http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/coils.htm).
On a more possitive note I think I prefer the crossover arrangement in the 5700's to the Ditton 66's. In my OP I asked for opinions about any detectable resonance in the circuit whilst it's still there it is dealt with far better by the 5700 crossover. Vocals are far clearer and have way more texture and this is with 40+ year old caps! I'm hoping to find some time today to convert the mid range filter of the 66 crossover to that used in the 5700's.
I can't really compare the RL 60.2's to the 5700's. I use the RL's for near field listening ~4' and the 5700's far field ~13'. I have tried the RL's in the same room and they're just too small, like wise the 5700's would not work at 4'.
Now I'm going to order new caps and wire for the 5700's and hopefully will get some work done to them in the next week.
The link on inductor placement you posted is interesting, I then spent a good half-hour working to increase my knowledge base on crossover design.
I feel as if I'm just learning to listen to music in the past year. And I'm still building my repair and diagnosis skills to bring equipment back to original condition. So much to learn much less work toward improving original design.
I've already replaced the rotten foam dust caps. And I too found that they responded much differently to placement in regards to wall and floor than the ported speakers I'm accustomed, (drywall and wood flooring 8' listening distance in an open layout apartment) and having the 5700 up on stands did not help the spastic ABR, it was almost as if the resonance kept building within the cabinet when they were off the floor. When it comes to bass response, I'm not sure what speakers that label themselves as studio monitors as big as these are suppose to sound like. I'm of the generation that was brought up thinking big speakers make big boom sounds and big boom is all that matters. As I alluded to earlier, I'm still learning to honestly listen to music.
I'll be looking forward to learning how your recap and modifications sound to you.
In case you missed it:
http://archivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/t/22168.aspx