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This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Good morning,
I'm looking for some guidance as to whether or not the Beolab 5's are compatible for use with the Beolab 2. Seems a strange question however my set-up which was working beautifully up until yesterday was an Avant 55 TV with a pair of 8000's as fronts, 4000's as rears and a 2 for the sub. I upgraded to a set of Beolab 5's for the fronts and Beolab 9's for the rears and now the sub will not join in the harmonious party.
I've run through the sound set-up tests and when highlighting the Beolab 2 it does produce the test tone / rumble. For good measure I have also swapped it with another system and it works perfectly in there.
Rightly or wrongly I was told that the beolab 5's will cancel out the need for the Beolab 2 which I hope is not the case. I know the 5's can produce good base in their own right however I don't want to remove the separate subwoofer from my system and have it do what it's designed and built to do.
Is there something I can change in the set-up which will see my Beolab 2 spring back into action?
Regards,
Thomas
If you have BL5's... then you don't need the BL2... the BL5's are waaaaaaay more powerfull than the BL2. I don't know the correct config for your setup. But adding a BL2 will not improve the quality of your setup.
Karel.
Hi,
I have bl5 at front and bl9 at rear with a room of 70 square meters and don't absolutely feel the need of a bl2. I had tested the bl2 at the back with bl8000 before using the bl9 and it was usefull for distributing the bass effect into the room.
with the bl9 at the rear now, it is ansolutely useless. I don't mean that the bl9 will replace completely the bl2 but the fact that they produce each a lot of bass, then the massiv power of the bl5 is extended along the whole room.
So if your bl9 are very far from your couch then it can help you otherwise let the set up as it is. You will mess it up completely.
4 beolab 5, beolab 9, beolab 10, beolab 5000, beolab 8000 mk2, beolab 6002, beolab 3500, beovision 7 55 mk2, 2 beovision 11 46 mk4, beotime, beosound ouverture, beosound essence, beoplay A8, beomaster 900 RG de luxe and the collection continues...
Thanks guys for your comments. I appreciate what you are saying however my question is how do I get them working together. . . . .
I may well decide down the road to remove the BL2 however I want to be able to make that decision for myself and therefore I'd greatly appreciate if someone tell me if it is possible and how to do it as they set-up has automatically stopped using it.
BL5s and BL2s can be connected as if they were any other Beolab combo.
Power link Source to the "in" PL socket on the BL2 and then PL "Out" to a BL5. Daisy-link on to the 2nd BL5 to the first via PL sockets. This filters the LFE frequencies from the BL5 (20hz cross-over IIRC).
However, if you are connecting the SPDif from a source to the BL5 all bets are off. Full spectrum will go digitally from the source to the BL5 and the BL2 will need an additional routing.
However (again), as previously mentioned, the BL5 have a) a larger and more powerful Subwoofer than the BL2, b) are in stereo pair (subwoofers) and c) operate significantly faster and better time-aligned than the BL2. The BL2 are notorious as a "slow" subwoofer.
If you like tonnes and tonnes of bass-thump go ahead and link them all up. If you want top-rate musical accuracy, connect the BL5s digitally and without the BL2.
In my opinion there is no need to use the BL2 next to the BL5. I recently upgraded from my BL1/BL2 combination to BL5. This was a huge step forward; also for the bass levels. The BL5 can produce much more powerfull and much better controlled bass levels. When connecting it in a 5.1 setup; I would expect that the sound processor in the avant would not send any sound to the BL2 since the frequency range of the BL2 can cover this entire spectrum.
If for some reason you want to use the BL2; you could try to trick the avant by selecting other front speakers in the sound setup. But I do not understand why you would want to do that. I would personally prefer to sell the BL2, buy some nice drinks from this profit and sit back and enjoy the great BL5 sound :-)
Bieele:I would personally prefer to sell the BL2, buy some nice drinks from this profit and sit back and enjoy the great BL5 sound :-)
as you can find in the technical sound guide:
"Forexample, if you have a system thatincludes two BeoLab 5 and a BeoLab 2subwoofer, all bass (whether from themain input channels or the LFE input)will be directed to the BeoLab 5s. Inother words, the BeoLab 2 will receiveno signals. This is because a singleBeoLab 5 is capable of playing louderthan a BeoLab 2 in all low-frequencybands. Consequently, routing lowfrequencies to your BeoLab 2 will beequivalent to downgrading yourloudspeaker system. If you wish to do so,this can be overridden using theAdvanced Settings of the BassManagement and Bass Re-direction."
so there should be a possibility to do what you want!
i also have BL5s and a BL2 in my setup (which is left from my previous BL8000/BL2 configuration).
the was i use it: the BL2 stands unplugged next to the BL5s just for design reasons :-)
i love the design of the BL2 :-)
regards
I once came across an installation with Lab 5 and Lab 2. The customer was complaining of poor sound quality from his Lab 5s. I removed the Lab 2 and the customer was amazed how good the resulting set up sounded!
In less than a week two post coming from new owner of beolab 5 and new member on beoworld, one visibly untested during purchase and the other one used the most unappropiate way.
It's christmas not the first April !
Amazing
Hi Sheffield - Thanks for your help on this and glad it's not just me that likes the look of the BL 2 and if I could keep it in my system it's a personal choice thing.
I've since been playing around with the set-up with and without; various types of music and movies and I will be leaving things as B&O intended as the sound from the 5's & 9's is pretty damn awesome without the BL2. It is a shame as I do love the way it looks plus I did spend a lot of time and effort this time last year chasing out the entire lounge in order to bury all cables and have a very neat and and cable free set-up. So the decision is now whether to keep it there for aesthetics or sell it and my other BL2 and upgrade my other set-up to a BL19
@olvislab - Your comments were most helpful . . .thank you
Apologies that should have opened "Hi -Mike" . . . .