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Hi all,
A couple of months ago I acquired a nice BeoSystem 4500, which now is hooked up to a Bose Acoustimass 5 II. Great sound but not the looks to match the BS4500.
So found a nice pair of BeoLab 4500, ready to install next week.
My question now is:
Can I hook up a BeoVox Cona to this? Preferably coming from the BL4500 like a BeoLab 2 would be installed. Or is the only option through the 2L/R outputs on the back of the BS4500? And will the Cona be in sync with the BL's?
Thanks for your feedback!
Siegfried
My first B&O!!
Beocenter 9000
I can't think of any reason why this should not work - It obviously means running two extra wires from the 4500 to the Cona which has a dual voice coil so it can take two inputs. Whether it is a good idea is another matter. The Cona was specifically designed to compensate for the small volume C40/CX50 and goes up to 175Hz. Normally you would attach the Cona to the Beosystem 4500 and then the CX50s to the Cona. The Cona has a crossover to filter out frequencies below 195hz. In your case, this would probably be detrimental to the sound so not unreasonably, you would put the Cona after the 4500s. However if you are driving the Conafrom the Lab4500 amplifier, be aware it has a built in bass boost which will sound odd through the Cona and the Cona is also quite directional unlike the Beolab 2 that has a crossover filter at 120Hz. You would be adding frequencies between 40 and about 70 Hz which don't add that much musically unless you are into organ music. Let us know how you get on.
Peter
Thank you Peter, for your quick and clear answer.
At first glance at the connections my intention was not to put the Cona after the BeoLabs but straight from the BeoMaster. But if I would where to connect on the Beolab? On the two wired connections after the amplifier? If you say it won't blow up anything I will give it a try, just out of curiosity...
If you go after Peter's description (which I agree might produce an odd-sounding result) you would indeed wire the Cona between the Beolab amps and the actual speaker.
But you could of course connect the Cona alone to the passive speaker outputs on the Beomaster, while the Beolabs can stay on Powerlink (as I assume they now are). I suspect that this setup won't sound optimal either, but there's no harm in trying - give us a report if you do that!
The Cona should probably be connected to the Speaker 1 outputs that have active muting. It would work at Spkr 2 as well, but you won't be able to mute and it will probably produce a quite loud power-on thump.
--mika
I wouldn't use the filter on the Cona but simply run the Cona in parallel with the 4500s. Still wouldn't do it myself but probably the easiest to see if was worth it.
I recently had the pleasure of listening to a stereo setup consisting og 4 BV5000 and 2 Conas. It was powered by a BM5500 and setup with 2 5000s over a cona for each side. 5000s in parallel from the cona, so using the cona's filter.
The result was, imo, largely underwhelming. There was plenty of sound but it was lacking in both clarity and particularly in depth. And i actually think that my own lonely pair of 5000's has more depth than with the cona setup.
So not recommended from me :-)
Back again,
I tried it, BS4500 with 2 BL4500 over the powerlink connections on the wall (excellent sound by it self btw), with the BV Cona and two BV CX100 at the back....
Listened to it one minute and quickly reconnected the Bose Acoustimass again, much more bass power and clarity, together with the BL4500. Feels like the BS4500 has to much power output for the older speakers.
Maybe the Cona and CX100 are of poor quality, what i dont think because i checked all the foaming and even cleaned out the Cona. That setup just didn't work for me.
The Cona is not even close to being on par with what we consider a proper subwoofer today. It can compensate for the lack of bass of the BeoVox CX100 but that's about it. Don't expect much from the Cona. It isn't a true "subwoofer" as we think of them today. It is rather pretty, though.