BL3 "broken" tweeter; much quieter than BL9 !

I have had a pair of BL3 with BS2300 in my bedroom and BL9 with BS9000 in the living room for quite a while now. 

After buying a BS3000 with a pair of BL6000 as rear speakers (simply adding a 2nd Stereo system to the living room and feeding it with the rear channels of the sound) I´ve been fiddling around with different options on how to set the speakers up.

When i had a BL3 as center speaker i noticed that it was much quieter than the BL9, even when "giving it the same sound" as one of the BL9.

So i put the BL3 and BL9 as a kind of "couple" stereo system with 2 of each kind for each side and hooked the 3s through the 9s to the BS9000 and turning them on/off in all possible ways to listen to the same musical pieces.

The difference is enourmous. It almost appeared the tweeters on the BL3 were off. I checked by squatting in front of them and covering the mids - they aren´t. I use fully wired PL cables everywhere - the service manual for the BL3 says to use MK3 semi balanced cables; could this be a problem ?

tl;dr: How can i check wether the tweeters are working correctly ? 

BL3 Type 6892 Serial: 17xxx14

BL Type 6217 Serial: 22xxx05

hello

 

I use  bl3, bl9 as surround speaker on a set up with beolab 5 at front. They are connected to a beovision not a beosound. 

I use the same powerlink mk3 cable for the bl3 and 9 with several powerlink splitters.

For stereo listening I select speaker 4, so the sound goes to every speaker at the same volume level.

I didn't notice any issue concerning the sound coming from the tweeter of the bl3 or bl9.

It is not rare to have a defect tweeter on a bl9 or bl5, should be also the case with bl3.

 

 

 

I said that I use the same mk3 powerlink cable for the bl3 and bl9, that's not perfectly correct, as I use several cables (long distance) mk2 and mk3. 

It has been two years since the post and i have moved on to Beolab 5 as my main speakers. I put the 3s right next to the 5s and set up a 1:1 comparison with similar level and on the fly switching with spotify. 

Both Beolab 3 sound muddy and lack so so much detail. It is the same thing as with the Beolab 9.

 

I have come to the conclusion that the speakers simply sound bad IN COMPARISON  to Beolab 5 and 9. Can someone confirm this who has made 1:1 comparisons between either 5 and 3 or 9 and 3 ?

Maybe some other opinions?

Lennart25:

It has been two years since the post and i have moved on to Beolab 5 as my main speakers. I put the 3s right next to the 5s and set up a 1:1 comparison with similar level and on the fly switching with spotify.

Both Beolab 3 sound muddy and lack so so much detail. It is the same thing as with the Beolab 9.

I have come to the conclusion that the speakers simply sound bad IN COMPARISON to Beolab 5 and 9. Can someone confirm this who has made 1:1 comparisons between either 5 and 3 or 9 and 3 ?

Maybe some other opinions?

Hi Lennart25,

I have all of those speakers and can confirm that, to my ears at least, the treble of the BL3s sounds less clear and less extended than my BL9s and BL5s. Perhaps a touch more sibilant.

As I mentioned in a separate thread, my S3s (costing one tenth of the BL3s’ price new) sound way better: more transparent, more dynamic, more extended at the frequency extremes.

Lawrence

Check the tweeters. They can be broken even though they are still playing.

You mean by measuring the impedance as instructed in the service manual?