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Hi all,
Parents have just gotten a new TV setup. Are sound setup thus far has just been LR audio channels, taken from a SCART socket, going straight into the Beosound 9000 with a pair of BL8000 speakers.
That setup has unfortunately always sounded rather 'tinny' to me, lacking in bass and in clarity when it comes to dialogue. I suspect that the key issue here is the lack of subwoofer and a centre channel, and that we'd be better off with a 3.1 or 2.1 system.
Given that we're no longer using analogue out to the TV (HD at long last!) it's probably as good a time as any to figure out a better set up.
What do you guys suggest? Price is a bit of a limiting factor here. In the next few months budget is tight – max around £800 to £1k – but I think we can gradually build out a system over the next couple of years. New B&O products are probably going to be far out of our budget range, so looking at used items and other brands.
I'm thinking something along the lines of starting out with a Beolab 7.1 or 7.2 off eBay. Presumably, however, everything will need to hook up with a receiver? (I'm not the most well-versed on audio kit!).
Separately, we have an old Beocenter 9000 and a pair of Pentas. Recently one of the Pentas seems to have gone awry – the light at the bottom always shows up as red. Our local B&O dealer has unfortunately disappeared (we're in Oxford). Cost again is a bit of a concern, particularly since it's an ageing set anyhow... any advice on finding a suitable technician?
(Of course one option is that we build out the Pentas for our home cinema – I've always preferred the sound to them).
Thanks!
Edit: whoops included a lot of redundant text.
Any advice much appreciated! Bit of a newb so apologies if I'm asking anything super obvious.
Sloaah: That setup has unfortunately always sounded rather 'tinny' to me, lacking in bass and in clarity when it comes to dialogue. I suspect that the key issue here is the lack of subwoofer and a centre channel, and that we'd be better off with a 3.1 or 2.1 system.
Got a lot of questions here. Let me address this one.
I also had a BL8000 set up as primary for TV use and found them great for that use, though for music understandably given their dimensions lack sub bass. But for dialogue was perfectly acceptable, certainly better than bultin TV speakers. Adding a BL2 at the time was great for movie enjoyment.
What TV are you using?
How do the BL8000 sound with music to you?
In retrospect, 'clarity' is a bit vague of me – I mean less that it's muddy but more that separation between dialogue and other audio isn't great. I suspect that's actually principally an issue associated with stereo setups in general, since in 5.1 mixes dialogue principally comes through the centre channel separately.
The new TV is a Samsung 55" Q7F. Without doubt the BL8000 is much better than the built-in speakers! That's not saying a huge amount though . They're definitely fine, but even my M-Audio BX5 D2 monitors give a 'fuller' sound in my view. I'll give them a proper listen through again over the weekend, and report more specifically!
I find BL8000 better with music. Though to be honest I've always preferred the Pentas for music – though they definitely are a bit less detailed.
Are you running the BL2 through a receiver?
Sloaah: Are you running the BL2 through a receiver?
At the time I ran Bl8000 & Bl2 off a DAC preamp type receiver, connected via toslink to an AppleTV. Today I simply have pair of BL9 and a S8 connection hub , LG OLED and two (2) Apple TV. One for the video and another just for airplay without the television. The upcoming Beosound Core can replace this Airplay service.
Yes I agree you're probably missing that low mids, personally found that the BL8000 had a scooped low mids ~200hz, mids ~1k. But even the Bl9 are nowhere near as precise as my proper Klein Hummel O300d studio monitors! Bl9 enjoyable yes, accurate no - not that I want them to be.
Since it seems you're 'used' to the sound of forward studio monitors, try adjusting the low mids with eq. Also bear in mind the 8000s are 90s loudspeakers, so a laid-back sort of sound is their target.
Yes the BL8000 don't require a Beosound system, some sort of DAC & preamp will work for them in analogue mode. Unless of course you do use the BS9000 as a receiver.
davidr:Today I simply have pair of BL9 and a S8 connection hub , LG OLED and two (2) Apple TV. One for the video and another just for airplay without the television.
BeoNut since '75
The S8 is a pretty neat solution. What do you do with the satellites? Use them as rear speakers?
Definitely will try playing around with EQ a bit more. That makes a lot of sense.
Thinking in more detail about a possible centre speaker, what other speakers from past B&O line-ups have a similar sound signature and at a pinch could be laid flat?
(For example, I could pop a single BL 4000 under the TV / split the centre channel and run it to two BL 4000s).
Just the S8 hub itself can be purchased which is what I did.
Bear in mind the S8 is stereo 2.0 only with zero tone controls or the like. Though given your Samsung set has optical out (as usual) and a 'universal' IR remote. Connection hub must 'learn' IR commands from some remote for volume control - the Samsung remote can do this fairly sure. I would think the S8 hub is an elegant solution for connecting Bl8000 to modern tele.
Beosound Core also could be another option though more $$ but gain Airplay/chormecast for music.
elephant:[ Brilliant 💡 David I wish I'd thought of that ! I bought a GoogleCast dongle instead of repurposing a retired 720p ATV
Brilliant 💡 David
I wish I'd thought of that !
I bought a GoogleCast dongle instead of repurposing a retired 720p ATV
hehe thanks.
Sort of a work around since I bought a ATV4; they pulled an 'apple' and removed the toslink port. So I simply kept my ATV3 as a airplay receiver using the second input on S8 which works wonderfully. My use case is that if I wish to have music I don't need to tele switched on. Beosound Core seemingly can replace this. So would just have the ATV4 and Core.
Also old Airport kit make nifty reliable airplay receivers.
Hi,
Not meaning to hijack this old thread, but I thought it better to build on the knowledge in this thread than start a new one?
In summary: My question is do you recommend to setup a dedicated 5.1 system for TV and keep a different system for music CDs, or to try to use BO speakers for the TV sound system?
DETAILS:-
I have a pair of Beolab 8000 speakers and a Beosound 9000 and all works well. I bought it because I missed playing my CD collection and I dont get on with iTunes nor iPods, which sound tinny and boring. So yes, I am a newbie here.
I connected the 3.5mm headphone jack from my LG TV to the BeoSound Aux and can play my TV back through that. However, the sound is not distinctively better than from the TV (more a case of how good the TV speakers are nowadays - this LG TV is certainly far superior to the 10 year old Panasonic it replaced).
This setup does not give me the benefits of 5.1 nor Dolby Atmos, nor DTX.
So the question is; should I continue to play music through the B&O but buy a 5.1 system that has all the above features from something like Bose or Sonos, or is there a BO equivalent?
Or, should I try to create a 5.1 system with 4 BL8000s plus a centre speaker and bass? An AV receiver such as Marantz could drive all that (using DIN to RCA phone converter cables). Or is there a BO AV unit I could buy?
This is ignoring the question of how to keep the BeoSound connected to speakers ... I know there are Y cables that can split off both the speakers and the output from BS; but is there a danger of having all turned on and causing a problem? So, lets ignore that for now and see if you advise to use BL8000s in a 5.1 scenario, or recommend to get a new dedicated 5.1 system just for the TV and keep my music separate.
Thanks in advance,
Ravi