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
Sorry for this VERY late post, and the length of it, but I really liked to share it with you I have had the great pleasure to participate in the trip to Struer, and what a trip. First of all, thanks to Beoworld and B&O for this trip, indeed memorable.
Beside the arrangements I also had the pleasure to spend some time talking with Mr. Geoff Martin. At the dinner at Venø kro; Steve and I were sitting next to Geoff and had a chance to ask a lot of questions.I must say, that I have seldom met such a knowledgeable and truly dedicated person in my life. OK, I am only 39, anyway. But I am very grateful having met Geoff and I think that all of us at Beoworld are very thankful for the replies Geoff makes.Also, B&O do actually read some of the feedback make on Beoworld as this is very “close” to the real world, as Geoff says. Here are some of the points that I remember from the trip in relation to sound, feel free to add in.
What are the constraints of a good sound?We talked a little in the sound session and also with Geoff and his colleague Jens about the constraints of good sound, and here is some feedback we got. The weakest link in the chain, typically, in a very rough order of order of worst-to-least worrisome are:1. The recording to which you're listening (quality of it)2. The listening position3. Loudspeaker setup and calibration4. Noise floor of the listening room5. Listening room acoustic behavior at the listening position6. Loudspeaker performance (which means a lot!)7. All the other little things..(DAC, cables, connectors etc)
Compressed musicDue to the above mentioned limitations, it was Geoff’s belief that it would be very difficult to distinguish between a CD and i.e. MP3 256 VBR (or 3 320 CBR). I.e. if the room has very bad acoustics, then it would not matter at all. But in the perfect world it would make sense to listen to SACD’s with high quality DAC’s etc.
Is there a B&O sound (Beosound)Question here was if there exist a kind of beosound. As we were told, in the top range speakers, speaker developers tend to find the best possible sound possible which basically is the “same”, and B&O think that for the price, the BL5 really delivers a great sound compared to others.But, since it must be possible to combine all different kind of speakers in the surround setup, then there must be a kind of similarity in the sound. But, there are differences; therefore Geoff does not think it makes sense to use i.e. Speaker 4 if the speakers are different.And, in regard to how the music should sound like, i.e. how does B&O know that the speakers deliver the correct sound, then B&O mostly used the same 15 songs to compare. And one of the songs was produced by Geoff Martin. The “soundpeople” therefore have a good feeling of the “correct” sound.
Beolab 5It is very seldom B&O experience any situations where the BL5 does not sound as intended. In (almost) all situations, placement, a re-calibration and minor adjustments to the sound settings do the work. As Steve notes, there might be some music in certain rooms where the BL5’s will not sound perfect.
BeoSystem (BS3)BS3 is a very complex module in regard to sound. I.e., all speaker combinations (center, front, side, rear, Sub) are programmed into the BS3 in order to optimize the sound experience. This gives B&O a very complex speaker-setup matrix to maintain. This and other issues give a lot of limitations with the BS3.I.e., it is not possible to disable the sub in the speaker 2 mode (i.e. if you would like to avoid the BL2 when using BL9’s).
V1Some of us have seen that the sound setup in V1 does not look like the BS3 at all, and this was actually intended. Gone are all the limitations from the BS3, as the V1 is developed from scratch. Therefore there are not constraints to only use 5 speaker modes.
BL2 and BL9’sThere have been some posts about using BL2 with BL9’s, and the statement from Geoff here is quite clear. The BL2 can play the lower frequencies loadly! It has a lower frequency range also.But, if you i.e. combine the BL2 with 4 BL9’s on the V1, then the 9’s will handle the bass management.
B&O as loudspeaker producerDid you know that B&O is one of the biggest loudspeaker producers in the world?
Last note, or a quote from Geoff that I like a lot:If you hear something, and you like it, then you don't need to ask why - you just do. There is no "why".
I hope you can use this post as inspiration.
Beolab 28s Beolab 9s Beolab 12-3s Beolab 1s Beolab 6000s 2 pairs Beolab 4000s Beovision 7-55 Beovision 10-40 Beoplay V1 32 inch Beovision Avant 32 inch Beosound 1 (CD player) Beosound 3000 Beosound 5 Core Essence MKII Beoplay M5
Actually, no he does not. I got this specific answer from on this part also:"Also, at some low frequencies, the BL9 is louder. They cross each other in terms of how-loud-at-what-frequency. So, on average, they're about the same, but at any given (low) frequency, one of them will win. The thing to remember is that, typically, people only buy 1 BL2, whereas they never buy only 1 BL9's"
I can't remember that Geoff Martin said that any specific speaker setup (4x9's, 4x5's or 2x5's and 2x9's etc ) is better than another.
As I understood from Geoff, in the V1 sound enigne, if you have i.e. 4x9's and 1xBL2, then the 9's will take over the Bass Management. The way I understand this is that the Bass handling is "better" if you have 9's attached compared to BL2, and this is how the V1 is configured, unlike the BS3.Personally, I have 9's in front and a BL2 connected to my BV7, and at home we like the deeper (or louder?) "rumble" that the BL2 can deliver compared to the bass in the 9's. BUT, I do not like the bass in the BL2 for music compared to the bass in the BL9.
What I really would like is to have the option to disable the SUB in speaker 2 mode (it is already disabled in speaker 1 mode). Meaning, BL2 for movies and no BL2 for music.
Don't waste your money with your proposed speaker upgrade. Movies aren't worth the investment! Rather, start saving for the forthcoming model above the BL5's!
B
The good thing with the 5's, as we were told, is that the engineers actually had much more space (or cabinet volume) as what they were used to. In other words, plenty of space for i.e. the bass.
Normally all B&O speakers are quite small compared to other brands. It is going to be interesting if the new 5's also are allowed to be "big" speakers. "Big" does bring some advantages.
beolion: BeoSystem (BS3)BS3 is a very complex module in regard to sound. I.e., all speaker combinations (center, front, side, rear, Sub) are programmed into the BS3 in order to optimize the sound experience. This gives B&O a very complex speaker-setup matrix to maintain. This and other issues give a lot of limitations with the BS3.I.e., it is not possible to disable the sub in the speaker 2 mode (i.e. if you would like to avoid the BL2 when using BL9’s). V1Some of us have seen that the sound setup in V1 does not look like the BS3 at all, and this was actually intended. Gone are all the limitations from the BS3, as the V1 is developed from scratch. Therefore there are not constraints to only use 5 speaker modes.
So the V1 has audio capabilities that are more advanced than the BeoSystem 3? Hopefully this a sign that there is a BeoSystem 4 in the works based on the V1 design. I would be very interested in such a device (two actually). At this point, I cannot justify the purchase of a BeoSystem 3 (too expensive, too outdated, and ML based without the capability of adding the impending ML replacement).
B&O, if you are designing a BeoSystem 4, PLEASE add digital outs for the BL5. Also, you might as well future-proof it by taking 4k TV into consideration (if that’s possible). Lastly, I like the trend (in the Beoplay products) of the devices being user upgradable (for software), please continue this trend.
According to my dealer, something new and improved must come instead of the BS3, both Picture and Soundwise. Going to be interesting to see.
But, I have great respect for the BS3 (and V1) as the systems contain configurations for so many different spekaer combinations. I.e. if you use BL5 as rear and BL9 as front, then the system must adjust for this. As Geoff Martin said, they also had to take the most "unlogic" speaker combinations into account.
beolion:As I understood from Geoff, in the V1 sound enigne, if you have i.e. 4x9's and 1xBL2, then the 9's will take over the Bass Management. The way I understand this is that the Bass handling is "better" if you have 9's attached compared to BL2, and this is how the V1 is configured, unlike the BS3.
I'm very curious about this, as I'm also investigating an B&O speaker configuration to put with my new V1 TV. Thoughts are 9's front, and 3's rear, OR 9's all around.
In the technical sound guide for the V1, with respect to the bass management logic table, the only speaker that a Beolab 9 will re-route low bass to, i.e. bass management, is the Lab 5.
So yes, if you have 4 x Lab 9's and 1 x BL2, the 9's will handle all the low bass, and nothing will be crossed over to the BL2.
However, there is also the .1 channel, or LFE in a surround sound movie setup, and here I wonder if, in a scenario where a BL2 was connected to a V1 along with 4 x Lab 9's, whether the BL2 might solely handle the LFE.
Certainly if you had no BL2 connected, then I would think the Lab 9's would handle the low bass AND the LFE.
However, if a BL2 was connected, and DID handle solely LFE, then it would be 'off' for music, but 'on' for movies, and I should imagine put out lower and louder bass for LFE than a pair of Lab 9s' - but then if you had 4 x Lab 9's would you really need an BL2 for LFE at all?
Unfortunately the technical sound guide doesn't mention what happens with respect to LFE in terms of bass management, so I am pondering, musing, and guessing/wondering.
PS. Many thanks for posting such interesting and informative remarks made by Geoff...
Kind regards
John...
beolion:According to my dealer, something new and improved must come instead of the BS3, both Picture and Soundwise. Going to be interesting to see. But, I have great respect for the BS3 (and V1) as the systems contain configurations for so many different spekaer combinations. I.e. if you use BL5 as rear and BL9 as front, then the system must adjust for this. As Geoff Martin said, they also had to take the most "unlogic" speaker combinations into account.
Are you able to provide any background for your estimate?
Do you have any hints as to what the new speaker will be like?
My GUESS is that it will have the ability to adjust the sound at the listening position (hinted at on a website discussion of a visit to the B & O plant) and have a relatively flat depth like the BeoLab 12, all while providing the performance of the BeoLab 5.. Again, these are all just guesses.