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
I purchased a deep red A1 the day it was released. The first song I played I discovered an issue with it. 54 seconds into the song there is a vocal shift to the left channel (I believe). It was barely audible on the A1, it was very faint as if I was only listening to the right channel. I'm sure this doesn't happen on very many songs, but it did on the first song I played! I alerted BeoCare to this, and even provided them the song as it wouldn't be easy for them to get. A few weeks later I hooked up the A1 to my laptop to check for an update and there was one!
I immediately played the song again to see if by chance it was fixed. I still could barely hear that part. About a week later I was over someone's house and I played the song again... and I could clearly hear that part! I was very excited and attributed it to the update, but the unit somehow needed a reset. I even sent BeoCare a thank you!
November 11 I took the long trip up to my nearest B&O dealer to hear the BeoSound 1 and hopefully 2. They did not have the 2 yet but I checked out the 1 with the song. The vocal shift was barely audible on the BeoSound 1. I played it on the BeoSound 35 to demonstrate the difference to the salesman and it did sound wonderful on the 35! I then demonstrated it on the A1 to show it was working. I just thought the BeoSound 1 did not get the update yet, but I was sure it would get it. I really wanted to hear the 2, so I decided to wait, but the 35 is on the list now!
Last night I was playing the song again on the A1 and it was back to barely hearing the shifted vocals. I tried it from several devices with no difference. What happened and why is this issue off-on-off??? There was no device update after the first update.
I'm sure this issue can be fixed, but it makes me want to hold off on the BeoSound 1 and 2 until I know it is fixed.
Mark,
I just got my A1 (in red, too) yesterday. What was the song? What part of the song is it? I'd like to go home and test out what you are hearing!
The song is:
Artist: Kanna Hashimoto
CD: Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu
Song: #2 - Arigato (arigato ～ ありがとう )
The beginning of the song in Romaji
Madoromu doyou no gogo kara mezamete
Tsukue no ue no shashin wa osanaku hohoemu
News wa itsumo kawarazu
Kono mune itameru koto bakari (bakari is the vocal shift - easily identifiable)
This is not an easy song to find, unless you buy the CD from somewhere. PM me for more information that may help!
"You think we can slap some oak on this thing?"
I'm saying there is a software problem downmixing 2 channels into 1 channel.
Edit: Well at least intermittently!
So far it is most noticable on that song, but I'm sure the probability is there for other songs, how noticable... depends on what is going on in the song.
If it is hardware then it doesn't look good for a software update, and this probably applies to the BeoSound 1 and 2 also. That diminishes my desire for either of those now.
Mark-N:That diminishes my desire for either of those now.
i would try to set the device on mono-output and then stream it both to a mono and stereo system.
Wohnzimmer: BeoVision Avant 55", BeoLab 11, 12-2 und 12-3 für 5.1-Sound + appleTV 4K und Philips BluRay-Player; BeoSound 2, BeoSound 3000 (fast nur noch Deko)////Schlafzimmer: BeoEssence MkII, BeoLab 4000 + Samsung 46"-TV////Büro: BLC NL/ML, BeoSound 35, Thorens TD320MkII, Samsung 32"-TV, WesternDigital 4TB-Server////Bad: BeoLab 2000; alles CAT7 verkabelt////Küche: M5 (drahtlos) plus diverse apple-Geräte (imac, macbook, ipads, iphones, timecapsule, watch)
I did state in the original post that I played the song on the BeoSound 1 at the dealer and it had the same symptoms. I would think the results on the BeoSound 2 would be the same.
How likely would this problem be limited to one quite obscure track. I can accept (just barely though) it happening on a US $249 speaker, but I would not invest $1500 or $1900 for something with this kind of flaw.
I understand what you are saying.
But is it a "B&O flaw" or a flaw in the process generally? Is it possible to guarantee perfect transformation of every stereo track to mono? I don't know myself but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't the case. it sounds odd that it happened on both devices and I wonder if it might be a peculiarity of that particular recording.
it would be interesting to hear if anyone else has encountered similar issues.
Duels:I understand. But is it really a flaw as such? Is it possible to guarantee perfect transformation of every stereo track to mono? I don't know myself but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't the case.
If it was designed to discard information from the music then it wouldn't be a flaw. If I was designing such a product, if I couldn't guarantee a perfect transformation of every stereo track to mono, then that would be a show stopper. If this is acceptable to some people then that is fine.
Does that apply to the BeoSound 1 or 2? These are high-end products from a highly respectable audio company, not some product that you buy in a drug store! I do expect more from Bang & Olufsen, they have critical listeners evaluating these products before their release. I can understand some anomolies slipping through, but it shouldn't be from carelessness in designing, or written off that these are casual listening products.
It is obvious on the song listed above because as this word is sung, all the instruments cease, so it is an important affect. I'm sure this is happening in other songs that are a little less noticable, but probably still noticable.
I don't know if this is funny or sad how people are trying to justify this design problem?!
When the BeoPlay A2 came out there was a problem with deep base. On several of my songs it sounded like someone was banging a balloon. It was reported to BeoCare and fixed. I guess it wouldn't have bothered many on this forum!!!
Mark-N: Does that apply to the BeoSound 1 or 2? These are high-end products from a highly respectable audio company, not some product that you buy in a drug store! I do expect more from Bang & Olufsen, they have critical listeners evaluating these products before their release. I can understand some anomolies slipping through, but it shouldn't be from carelessness in designing, or written off that these are casual listening products. It is obvious on the song listed above because as this word is sung, all the instruments cease, so it is an important affect. I'm sure this is happening in other songs that are a little less noticable, but probably still noticable. I don't know if this is funny or sad how people are trying to justify this design problem?!
Good afternoon,
Do you own a "traditional" hi-fi system (B&O or other) using a receiver or amplifier with a mono switch? If yes, it will be interesting to check if the problem occurs here also when the track is played in mono. One possibility is that the instruments were recorded with a phase shift or phase inversion for one channel, causing a cancellation effect when both channels are mixed. Recording and mastering errors definitely exist, so one want to rule out that first.
Mixing the left and right channels has been done since decades in FM transmissions to allow mono FM radios to continue to work and nobody ever complained. But a flawed recording with phase inversion in one channel will definitely cause problems.
Good luck,
Jean
jvezina: Good afternoon, Do you own a "traditional" hi-fi system (B&O or other) using a receiver or amplifier with a mono switch? If yes, it will be interesting to check if the problem occurs here also when the track is played in mono. One possibility is that the instruments were recorded with a phase shift or phase inversion for one channel, causing a cancellation effect when both channels are mixed. Recording and mastering errors definitely exist, so one want to rule out that first. Mixing the left and right channels has been done since decades in FM transmissions to allow mono FM radios to continue to work and nobody ever complained. But a flawed recording with phase inversion in one channel will definitely cause problems. Good luck, Jean
I don't have any older equipment any more, and I can't think of anyone who may have anything with a mono switch. My receivers in the 70's and 80's certainly did! I would love to test this out but at the moment I am at a loss.
If this song has phase inversion I would think it was done intentionally for the effect. That word "bakari" certainly stands out when you are listening to it in stereo, and almost sounds a little synthesized. It is something that you wait for when listening to the song.
Now the quest begins to find a way to listen to it on a system I can switch to mono. I would really love to know.
The weird thing about the A1 is that it did play the song correctly at one point. It is now back to discarding or cancelling out that information.
Thanks for the informative reply!
Mark
leosgonewild:Is this the song? It's a live recording tho. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VKsyngG5eUw
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VKsyngG5eUw
Yes! That is the song! But this live version pales in comparison (to me) to the studio version. I did try this live version on the A1 and it plays fine but it does not incorporate the studio recording tricks!
If anyone has a system with a mono switch and would be able to help me out, please PM me. I would love to know...
Wow... so many replies since yesterday haha. Anyway, I listened to the track (it's actually on soundcloud) and that part is definitely lower in volume. I don't think it's an issue with the A1 favouring a particular channel. The first thing I did was play a couple of Beatles tracks that are heavily separated. If the A1 only played the left of right channel, you'd either get no lyrics, or no drums.
Anyway, I think it's just the nature of the effect of the part you speak of. I produced music some time ago, and it's just the way that part of the song was manupilated. It's very similar to the surround channel signals of early Dolby Surround.
If you want to replicate it, just listen to a song with headphones, and pull the headphone jack out slightly.
I haven't tried it, but if you played that song through a surround sound processor, I bet you that part would play louder through the surround channel.
Well, I just read jvezina's reply, and he's right on it... it's a phasing technique during production. I just couldn't remember the term earlier.
Also, here is a link if anyone else is interested...
https://m.soundcloud.com/william-ekkebus/kanna-hashimoto-sailor-fuku-to-kikanjuu-02-arigato
Earle:Well, I just read jvezina's reply, and he's right on it... it's a phasing technique during production. I just couldn't remember the term earlier.
I would like to thank everyone for their help. I now understand the issue.
I downloaded Audacity and converted the track to mono. I then played it on my BeoLab 17's through the Essence and the word bakari was barely audible. The phase was changed just for this portion for the effect.
Now why this was more audible for a time on my A1 is the real mystery!
I still have to consider my options of the BeoSound 2 and BeoSound 35. I just wish the BeoSound 35 was a little smaller.
Hi,
One of the form members sent me a message asking me to take a look at this thread.
Perhaps I can provide some answers here - although some of the guesses above are basically correct - I'm just backing them up with some math.
I grabbed a portion of the song around the "bakari" moment and did a little analysis in Matlab.
If you plot the signal at that word for the Left channel, the Right channel and a basic mono sum of the two channels (a simple left+right addition), then the result looks like the following (note that the y-axis of the plots are in a sample-by-sample dB FS - which is not a real dB FS, but will do for this discussion).
Thank you very much, Geoff!We love you and aprreciate your well defined explanations, your knowledge, your work at B&O! Cheers! Thomas
No no... thank YOU!
;-)
cheers
-g
Geoff,
I very much appreciate you looking into this and your explanation! This leaves me with a tough decision! Although this will probably only happen on 1 song I have out of thousands, it is making me rethink a little about getting a BeoSound 2 for the kitchen. The truth is I loved the BeoSound 35 when I saw it at my dealer, especially the display on it. It's great walking up to it and seeing the artist and song title. The only negative is it is just a few inches too big where I would like to put it. If the BeoSound 35 was about 34 inches I would already have it! The BeoSound 2 is still very tempting!
Oh the tough situations creative audio engineers put me through!
Please don't jump to conclusions about the BeoSound 2. It has two midrange drivers that are aimed to either side of the device - and these are not playing identical signals. In other words, on this particular portion of this particular song, I would expect that the BeoSound 1 and the BeoSound 2 will behave very differently...
However, exactly how differently they behave will also depend on how they are placed, and where you are listening from.
So, I would suggest that you try it out on the BS2 and make a decision based on what you hear. But don't judge the BeoSound 2 based on a 2-second clip of one song played on a BeoSound 1 or a BeoPlay A1.
Cheers
-geoff
I'm glad to hear that there may be a difference between BeoSound 1 and BeoSound 2, I just wish my dealer had a BeoSound 2 when I made the long trek up there! If size of the unit was not an issue, I would get the BeoSound 35. I would like to think that the weighting factor for this decision wouldn't rely too much on this situation, but it does to some degree show me "a" difference between a mono and a stereo system.
I don't mean to put you on the spot... but is it possible you could play that on a BeoSound 2? I will buy it in an instant if it is better! I offered to send a CD to my closest dealer (I have a few), but I've never heard back from them.
Hi Mark-N,
I can play the track on a BeoSound 2 - but I don't know whether I can tell you if you will think that it is better. If those two syllables of that one word in that song are louder on a BeoSound 2 than on a BeoSound 1 - does this mean it's better? Or would you like more information than just how loud it is?
I don't mean to sound sarcastic (although when I read what I wrote, it certainly looks sarcastic) - it's a genuine question... Please let me know what, exactly, you would like me to test.
You have no idea how much I appreciate this, for something that would appear so small.
When I "believed" it worked on the A1 for a few weeks, I could hear the word "bakari" but it did sound a little lower than the rest of the vocals. I even demonstrated this for my dealer. This was fine for me, I could hear the word, at least better than before.
I understand what is going on with that portion of the song now, so it's not a *big* issue, but if it is a little more audible than the A1 or BeoSound 1 I would be happy.
The reason for all this... I like that song a lot! If someone were to ask me to play my [current] favorite song, that would be it! Not many people ask me that though!
I do plan to make another trip up to my B&O dealer at the end of the month, hopefully, but if it sounds acceptable to you I would probably call up and order it sooner.
I've just done some measurements of the BeoSound 1 and the BeoSound 2 for you.
Due to the fact that the slice of a song that we're discussing is so small, I didn't use it for the measurements. Instead, I put a BeoSound 1 and a BeoSound 2 side-by-side in the listening room, and sent a signal to each of them (one at a time), and measured the output level at the listening position about 3 m away.
The signal was pink noise, band-limited from 200 Hz to 2 kHz (to reduce our attention to the midrange - which is a rough guess of where the "Bakari" sample sits in the frequency domain.
I then measured the sound pressure level at the listening position as I changed the correlation coefficient of the two channels sent to the loudspeaker that was playing at the time.
My conclusion from this test confirms what I suspected when I wrote to you yesterday:
For this portion of this song, the BeoSound 1 and the BeoSound 2 behave very differently (due to BS2's two midrange drivers, which are not producing a simple mono sum of the stereo input). More specifically, the measurements indicate that the "bakari" portion of that song will be as loud in a BeoSound 2 as it is in a "normal" stereo pair of loudspeakers like the BeoLab 90's that I have here (even if those two loudspeakers are in one device, as in the BeoSound 35).
Just to make sure, I listened to the song in both speakers. The BeoSound 1 drops in level on "..kari", just as you describe. The BeoSound 2 plays the word at approximately the same level as the preceding vocals - there is no noticeable drop in level. I get the same overall impression of level-vs-time as when I listen to the excerpt on the BeoLab 90's in the same listening room.
So, the only outstanding question is why you have a memory of this NOT happening on a BeoPlay A1. However, I'm going to leave that as a historical artefact - life has to have some mystery...
As a side note, to be honest, I wouldn't have dived into this excruciating minutia if this were just one weird artefact in one song. However, this small moment in that track is interesting because the left and right channels have a correlation coefficient of almost -1. To over-simplify considerably, negatively correlated audio signals produce a feeling of "spaciousness" in a recording - particularly when that information is in the midrange. So, this little word in that song shines a bright spotlight on an aspect of stereo that is often buried. However, the fact that it behaves "correctly" (more or less) in a BeoSound 2 is an example of how one spatial property in stereo is preserved - even in what appears to be (but isn't) a "mono" loudspeaker. Another example of where this would behave differently is if you play the same track on a BeoVision television that is set to output a multichannel signal using the True Image upmixer. In this case, that word will come primarily from your surround loudspeakers, and then the tune would jump back to the front loudspeakers immediately afterwards.
Hope this helps!
Hi Geoff!This is certainly way above and beyond what I was expecting! Prior to your posts I would have incorrectly expected the BeoSound 1 and BeoSound 2 to have handled this similarly and may not have gone back to check out the BeoSound 2. I will admit that it is extreme base a purchase on one song out of over 8,000 songs in my library.
It may be difficult to describe my excitement in hearing how the BeoSound 2 performs! I am very much looking forward to it!
I would like to thank you for your help and analysis of this issue, and thank the engineers in the design of the BeoSound 2 to take advantage of its speaker configuration! I may be the only person who is affected by something like this so all this attention is indeed humbling.
The BeoSound 2 will be ordered by the end of the day!
Hi Mark,
I don't think that it's extreme to have a reference, and to desire that a loudspeaker meets your expectations... I have different expectations from you, but they're also based on listening for how a loudspeaker behaves at a particular moment in a particular track - I just use a lot of moments in a lot of tracks... ;-)
Enjoy your new BeoSound 2 - I hope that you're happy with it!
Thank you, Geoff, for everything that you've done for me!
I can certainly understand that you have different expectations, and test moments from lots of tracks. There is a lot riding on your opinion. I can comfortably rely on your ears and opinions.
While I have great B&O systems all over my house, I am very excited about the BeoSound 2. While not exactly portable it is one system that I will be able to move around! Now I just have to wait an hour until my dealer opens up!
I'd take Geoff's signature on mine!
Well I just forfeited the Geoff Martin Signature Edition version!!! I just ordered it and they can get me one from local stock, so I *should* have it by Monday! I am very excited and can hardly wait to hear the BeoSound 2 for the first time! Guess which song it will be?
I wanted to thank everyone involved with this, and to show my vast appreciation to BeoWorld I upgraded to gold again! Best forum experience ever!
BeoNut since '75