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've been following this thread and seldom is a review made this well. But I can only agree the 9's are awesome!
Too long to list....
Most enjoyable read, and actually prompted me to purchase the Beolab 9's which arrived yesterday. My initial impressions slightly differ from yours John. Having only listened to these speakers at a B&O store for a very limited amount of time and only really had reviews to go by. My previous speakers were Beolab Penta III's which I have always enjoyed but since upgrading to a BV11 55" they looked quite imposing next to the TV, so the 9's seemed like a natural progression.
BL90, BL5 x 2, BL9, BL8000 x 2, Penta III x 2, Penta II, BL2, BL4, BL2500, RL6000 x 3, MS150, MS150.2, A9, A1, A2, P2, Beolit 12/17, S70, CX50, CX100, Beovox 2500, BS9000 x 2, BS3000, BS4, BC2, BS1, Moment, Essence MkII x 2, BS5 Encore, BG8002, BC8002, BM8002, BG5500, BV7-40 MkIII, BV11-55, BV Avant 85", BC5, H8, E8, Form 2, A8...Serene
If you haven't already, consider downloading the Technical Sound Guide and going through all the options. I was able to optimize several settings, not to mention the ones I had wrong. Plus I learned a lot about the product.
elephant:PS I would really appreciate knowing what tracks you think are good standards to measure speakers by
hi,
Although you didn't ask me, I'll butt in with my answer... :-)
go to my very own personal web-log (sometimes called a "blog" apparently...) page at
http://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/
and you'll see on the right side a collection of links to pages that list test tracks by category.
Cheers
-geoff
Geoff Martin: elephant:PS I would really appreciate knowing what tracks you think are good standards to measure speakers by hi, Although you didn't ask me, I'll butt in with my answer... :-) go to my very own personal web-log (sometimes called a "blog" apparently...) page at http://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/ and you'll see on the right side a collection of links to pages that list test tracks by category. Cheers -geoff
Whilst browsing your blog, reading "speaker in a box" article, it says -
If we sweep a sine wave into the driver, keeping the voltage constant, and we measure the sound pressure level in front of the driver, we’ll see that the total system (the loudspeaker in a sealed box) acts as a minimum phase, second-order low pass filter. Therefore it has a rising slope of 12 dB/octave in the low end. The Q of that low-pass filter will be dependent on the relationship of the driver’s parameters and the size of the box.
Surely this should be high pass.
Ban boring signatures!
symmes: consider downloading the Technical Sound Guide and going through all the options
consider downloading the Technical Sound Guide and going through all the options
Sorry if it is a dumb question... What is the Technical Sound Guide and where can you download it? I could not immediately find it on the B&O website. Thanks, js
http://www.bang-olufsen.com/en/customer-service/product-support/picture/beovision-11
Technical Sound Guide is in the middle section. Walks you through all the setup parameters of BeoVision 11 (and V1).
symmes: If you haven't already, consider downloading the Technical Sound Guide and going through all the options. I was able to optimize several settings, not to mention the ones I had wrong. Plus I learned a lot about the product.
Thanks for that, yes I've thoroughly gone through the BV11's system and it's quite impressive, but still doesn't help, had a long session with them yesterday and still find them so artificial and lacking any depth to its midrange, i'm really disappointed.
Luke: symmes: If you haven't already, consider downloading the Technical Sound Guide and going through all the options. I was able to optimize several settings, not to mention the ones I had wrong. Plus I learned a lot about the product. Thanks for that, yes I've thoroughly gone through the BV11's system and it's quite impressive, but still doesn't help, had a long session with them yesterday and still find them so artificial and lacking any depth to its midrange, i'm really disappointed.
Hi Luke
Really sorry to hear of your initial disappointment and frustration. I've sent you a forum PM/Email... but will try and make a post this evening when I have some time, as I've a few suggestions re room placement and acoustics that may help; your issue sounds very much like a placement/room acoustics issue than anything else IMHO.
Unfortunately, no speaker in the world is free from this, no matter how good, but good room setup can make or break a system too, as far as getting top tier, as against so-so results.
Don't despair... and congrats on your setup - the room sounds really nice aesthetically BTW from your description...
Take Care
Kind regards
John...
A busy Friday turned into a busy evening, so it's Saturday arvo that I'm now writing this...my apologies Luke.
I'm really sorry to read of your disappointment, and feel a little concerned that my review comments and thoughts may have lead you to purchase something you're not happy with.
I've re-read my posts here, being as they are perhaps the lengthy writings of a new, excited and happy owner, but even now that the honeymoon period is over, I still feel the same way about the product re it's sound and as an overall ownership proposition v's what is available in the more mainstream 'audiophile' world at the sort of prices being asked for the Lab 9's.
I've got 135 hours up on mine now, and am taking note via a log (hehe, hard to escape the audiophile roots!) to see if the sound 'changes' aka the vaunted speaker running in audiophile claims - even my B&O dealer, who is also an recovering audiophile, says they will take around 200 - 300 hours to sound their best - but I cannot offer any scientific support to such claims - indeed the evidence seems to support that it is more the listener getting used to the sound rather than any changes taking place in the speaker per se, apart perhaps from the first 15 - 20 hours or so, where there are reputedly some mechanical changes due temperature effects and mechanical stresses from manufacturer working their way out - this according to B&W as regards their speakers, and as they state in their speaker manuals.
B&O say nothing about speaker break-in in their manuals, and I've noticed little real perceptible difference in the sound, apart from the fact that I babied them a lot when new, and went through a paranoid period re the bass output and thoughts of damage to them, as I started to play them at louder volumes, but with over a hundred hours on them now, I'm playing at normal room filling levels, including giving them a bit of 'stick' from time to time, and still find the sound quite mesmerising, and often stunning from a musical accuracy and overall enjoyment point of view.
However, I digress, and there's little doubt that in the audio chain, the weakest links are the recordings, and then the speaker and the speaker/room interface.
Audiophiles like to argue endlessly about differences in amplifiers and CD players etc, and then cables and stands and whatnot as regards the sound, and I'm not going to push an absolutist line that says there is zero difference between these sorts of items in the audio chain (albeit from a scientific point of view, that's pretty much the case, and the one that incidentally I agree with) but rather that under proper scientific testing methodology, i.e blind ABX testing, and where items like amplifiers are coupled to a suitable load, and operated within their design limits (i.e. not clipping or being overloaded in any way) any meaningful and repeatable differences in sound have yet to be found.
Audiophiles prefer to try and attack the ABX blind testing methodology and rather rely upon their so called golden ears, - meanwhile dismissing the fact that microphones and test instruments can 'hear' and measure much more than our ears, and the in-depth scientific research into how we do not just 'hear' sound with our ears, but perceive and interpret it with our brains.
Much research has been done into expectation bias, placebo effect and the like, and when noted golden eared audiophiles such as Ivor Tiefenbrun of Linn, who famously dismissed such psycho-acoustic research and digital recording/reproduction in it's early days, whilst promoting his then LP12 analogue turntable, failed, along with numerous other so called golden ears, when put to the ABX blind test, that for the sake of this and many other discussions about audio reproduction, we can focus on the items that DO make a difference - i.e. recordings, speakers and the speaker/room interface.
In the commercial audio scene, much is being made of so called sound wars, where for the sake of broadcasting, streaming and the like, where the target market is likely an iPod dock, 'average' car system, or Home Theatre in a box, large amounts of compression are used to give a 'louder' and more attention grabbing perception of the sound.
Dynamic range suffers, and it's arguable that with the growth of MacBook Pro in a bedroom recording studios, that absolute engineering and audio quality of so called 'pop' music has slipped quite a bit over the last decade or so - many of the folks doing the engineering are self taught amateurs, not tertiary trained experts. Please note that I am not a recording engineer or so called expert - in this regards I am repeating anecdotal evidence from another forum I frequent which has a couple of sound/recording engineers who contribute - Geoff could tell us much more about this than I.
However, general industry opinion has it that nowadays state of the art recording in terms of sound quality, is with movies re DTS HD Master Audio and Dolby True HD, followed by classical (and perhaps SACD) and pop/rock recordings last.
In this context, I would have to say I find the Lab 9's to have a very monitor like sound quality - they are very neutral and transparent to the source recording - hence there is no papering over of poor recordings - and some can come across as somewhat disappointing, as you can hear poor editing, and recording techniques that result in less than ideal sound - or maybe just the limits of the technology given older recordings.
As an example, an older recording I have of Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark, can sound 'closed' and somewhat shut in sounding, with vocals tending towards hard and even a little harsh on some notes; conversely, a much later recording of Diana Krall - 'The look of love' sounds incredibly open, spacious, and with vocals very close miked indeed - a very 'breathy' audiophile vocal sound - but yet with no harshness, hardness, or excessive treble brightness.
Another jazz favourite, The 40th Anniversary Recording on Telarc of Jacques Loussier and the Play Bach trio, reveals drum kit sound that will slap you in the face with the snare and crash cymbals, and pound the room with the pedal beater smacks on the bass drum, accompanied by string bass that on the lower notes, just resonates to the point of making windows rattle; - yet, at the same time there is this wonderfully clean, bright, clear, and yet not hard, or cold, or shouty piano line overlaying it all - a stunning recording, which on lessor kit just can sound thuddy, and boomy in the drums and bass, and cold and hard with the piano in the top end - certainly It's what my SBL's do to this recording.
Solo piano or string quartets can sound full, and realistic, but not any real semblance of excessive bass whatsoever - very neutral, balanced and controlled. Put on a movie with strong LFE and watchout - they'll have you jumping in your seat!
So to sum up the initial point I'm trying to make here, is that recordings can and do vary wildly, and with very different 'sound' - much, much more so than any audiophile cable tweak etc, and that I personally find the Lab 9's to be both very revealing of poor quality recordings, but by the same token, really bring out the best in exceptionally good recordings.
So in the initial instance of where you felt you heard a very overdone and treble lead presentation, with a 'fake' or 'false' vocal sound, I'd look to the recording as the first step in addressing perceived sound balance issues with your new system. It's very difficult to recommend recordings, as I'm predominately an classical music listener, along with Jazz and some Movie soundtracks/electronic music etc, but with a leaning towards natural acoustic instruments in the main.
I'd mainly recommend using material you're familiar with to assess an HiFi, along with some material you're perhaps not so familiar with to give a balance, But importantly, using natural acoustic instruments as much as possible - otherwise with recordings that feature synth, lots of reverb etc, there's not much chance in assessing 'accuracy' or 'transparency' or 'neutrality' etc, as we have no idea what these electronic instruments sound like in real life.
Personally, I listen also to instruments I'm very familiar with and play - piano and trumpet, along with classical voice, as I also sing, and of course this gives me a little extra insight into what a speaker/system is doing with the sound. But just as it's easier to judge a TV's colour balance on things we see in real life like sky, skin tones and grass etc, so it is easier to judge the tonal balance of a HiFi with real life acoustic instruments IMHO.
Geoff has so kindly as always, dropped in to offer a link to some top recordings which as a recording engineer with the highest qualifications I would recommend over anything I could offer - but do try and try out as many different recordings and genres as possible to assess your new speakers - as I say recordings vary wildly and can be vey misleading accordingly in trying to get to grips with a new system.
The other thing I wanted to mention was your sources.
I'd try and maintain as level a playing field as possible, given that you're using multiple sources, as regards settings.
The audio setup in the BV11 is very similar to the V1 - they are both the first new products in the B&O portfolio to use the new digital chassis - and I use the custom sound mode for 'purist' two channel music listening, and the movie mode for Bluray viewing - in each case these sound mode presets are at factory defaults - i.e. loudness filter is 'on' and the separately adjusted bass and treble controls (which appear to have a global setting) are at centre, or 'flat'. - i.e. no bass/treble boost or cut.
The Beosound 5 also has bass and treble controls, as well as loudness, and again I'd make sure they're flat also.
If you're streaming music to your ATV, iTunes allows an EQ setting per individual song or music track - again I'd recommend leaving this 'off'' along with any global sound EQ in iTunes, otherwise, when you change sources, and you have different sound balance settings on those sources, it's going to make coming to reasonable conclusions re any problems you're having with sound, very difficult to correctly ascertain for you.
Lastly, some thoughts about speakers and rooms etc.
The general audiophile rule of thumb re a HiFi setup, is to have the speakers set up so that the listener is at the head of an equilateral triangle. This is so that the listener gets the best stereo sound-staging effect, but importantly, that the listener also gets the best balance of direct and reflected sound - direct being from the speaker, and reflected from the room boundaries.
The further apart you place two speakers in a stereo array, the wider, and yet more unfocussed the sound stage, and central image will appear to be. Conversely, narrowing the gap between the speakers, will tighten and focus the sound stage and central image, but take away a sense of openness and spaciousness in the sound.
Moving coil loudspeakers all beam - that is, the amplitude and frequency response is most accurate on axis with the speaker, and often within tight limits - that for a tweeter is atypically around 10 degrees in the horizontal plane. Hence the recommended audiophile practice of 'toe-ing' in the loudspeakers towards the listening position, such that an imaginary line drawn at 90 degrees from the horizontal plane of the speaker and along it's axis to the listening seat, will result in the axis from both speakers crossing in front of your nose at around 20 - 30 cm or so, when you are seated normally in your listening position.
With the Lab 5, which has ALT lenses on both midrange as well as tweeter drivers, this is less of an issue, but with the Lab 9 which still otherwise uses a conventional midrange - i.e. no ALT lens - I'd still toe-in the speakers as recommended, and note that the neat graphic that B&O supply in the instruction manual shows them toed-in re the differing placement options suggested.
From your description of placement, I note that you have the speakers only 25cm from the back wall. Everybody has to cope with different placement options and domestic restraints, however, wherever possible, I wouldn't personally recommend putting speakers, even the Lab 9's - that close to a wall if possible
Generally I aim for at least 50 - 60 centimetres as a minimum distance away from any side or back wall.
Sound-staging and imaging, as well as bass response will vary in any speaker, with respect to it's proximity to room boundaries.
B&O thoughtfully provide a means of attenuating the bass, via the environmental positioning switch on the Lab 9 to accommodate close to wall positioning without the bass becoming overblown because of unwanted boost due the room boundary reflections in the bass.
However, as you move the speaker closer to, or further away from a boundary, both the sound staging and imaging, and also the sound balance in the mid and treble will change as well.
Further out from a boundary, will increase the ratio of direct sound, and lesson reflected sound as heard by a listener; and the reverse applies. If you wanted your room to have the least influence upon the sound, one would place the speakers well out into the room, well away from any boundaries, and listen near field - that is as close as practicable to the speaker - so that as much as possible of what you are hearing is from the speaker, and not the speaker + room. Many recording studios use this approach, with high quality active monitors listened to up close, and in very heavily damped rooms to be as acoustically 'dead' as possible - or use headphones to remove the room aspect altogether.
However, in the real world, most of us prefer using speakers in rooms, and it means more than one person can enjoy the experience of course!
I would strongly suggest however, if at all possible, moving your speakers a lot further away from the boundaries than 25cm, and do some experimentation with placement, using a recording you know well, to assess the balance between mid and treble, as well as the sound-staging and imaging.
Of course, with the ALT lenses on the tweeter, the polar response, and with it the balance of direct to reflected sound in a room is much better with the Lab 9's than most competing designs IMHO - however to my mind there's a slight drawback there as well.
If you have them too close to boundaries, the treble is likely to be boosted much more by room boundary reflections given the efficacy of the ALT lenses in distributing the treble out to the sides, relative to the midrange, which will beam more and not be boosted by room boundaries to the same degree, when you place the speakers so close to a wall.
Further out, will of course balance out the sound re midrange/treble and room boundary reflections - which is why I strongly suggest you pull the speakers out from the boundaries to at least 50 - 60 cm or so.
Also, I note that your room Luke is moderate to largish, at 10 x 7 metres, and by the sound of things furnished in a stylish, but minimalist fashion.
If you sit well back from the speakers, again considerably further away than at the head of an equilateral triangle, you are going to be listening more in the reverberant field of the room, rather than the direct + room sound you will get from the speakers by sitting closer - hence sound failings are far more likely to be room influenced and contributing to what you are hearing than by any lack in the speaker per se.
The last difficulty that I can think of relates to modern large open space rooms, and minimalist furnishing - a look I happen to love I might add...
Generally speaking, if one balances a room with reflective surfaces opposite damped ones - i.e. a bare ceiling v's a carpeted floor, to help avoid and damp reflections, coupled with the likes of say open bookcases, or paintings hanging on a wall to help absorb and diffuse standing waves, one usually ends up with a room that is more or less acceptable in domestic Hifi acoustic terms.
My space for instance is an atypical apartment from the 50's/60's - concrete floor and ceiling, solid double brick, with wall to wall carpet, painted walls with some coverings, an end wall that is part wall, part floor to celling glass with a balcony, (hanging vertical blinds covering) and the opposing back wall has a bookcase. Furnishings are soft, and for the time being the room is over-crowed/ too cluttered for my taste ideally speaking - I much prefer minimalism as a design/aesthetic ethos. Even so, a clap test, walking around the room, reveals a lot of flutter echoes, and it is still a bit 'live' in terms of reverberation than what I would ideally like, and is undoubtedly the cause of at least some of the issues I had with my previous Naim SBL speakers in terms of a treble that could lean towards coldness and hardness at times - a trait of the speaker, but greatly exaggerated by the room.
So to sum up, I hope I haven't rambled over a whole lot of things you probably already know, and bored you and other readers to tears, but in an effort to help you get the best out of what I believe to be quite superb speakers, I'd strongly suggest paying attention to the distance you have them to the boundaries (far to close IMHO) your seating/listening distance, (that equilateral triangle thing) speaker toe-in, and look to the acoustic properties of the room - balancing hard reflective surfaces with soft, absorbing ones for instance - along with trying out different recordings using natural acoustic instruments.
I hope that my thoughts and experience are of some asisstance, and apologise for the length of my post, yet again!
Well, I, for one, enjoyed your post. A bit anal to keep a written log, ha ha, but great post nonetheless.
Electrified: Well, I, for one, enjoyed your post. A bit anal to keep a written log, ha ha, but great post nonetheless.
Yes, I know it is a bit anal...lol... audiophile habits die hard...
Thanks for the kind words - especially coming from a journalist - I really must try and do some editing on my posts and get the length down a bit - I often have a bit to say, but probably need to précis it a bit more...as I don't want to bore members with my lengthy writing.
Thanks again for the kind words
Ive had a similar experience with my Beolab 9's, which vie had for a few years now.
John is correct, that some of the issues are to do with room acoustics and placement. In my set up they are in a room with floorboards, five metres of floor to ceiling glass on one side and minimal soft furnishings, other than two sofas, no pictures on walls etc.
Then of course is the issue with sources of music... poor mp3s, actual bad recordings on CDs..
However, only a month or so ago I was chatting with John :)..... I downloaded the technical guide for the 9's. Through downloading the guide i realised the woofer, midrange and tweeter could be adjusted via tiny little dials at the rear of the speakers. Essentially i changed the factory settings and reduced the output from the tweeter, increased the output of the midrange and left the tweeter as it was. The factory settings were:
TW 7 Adjusted to: 9
MID 6 4
WOOFER 5 5
i'm still listening to the speakers and may adjust further, but they no longer scream tweeter (in my living space) and have a more balanced sound. I'm not able to give such an eloquent description as John, but I trust this is helpful advice
Regards
David
Beovision 8-40, Beocentre 6-26, Beocentre 2, Beolab 9's, Beogram 7000, Beogram 9500, Beo 5, Beolit 1000, 800, 700, 600, 400, Beocom 6's, Beotalk 1200
Thank you John for all your advice, I have them now slightly toed in and placed about 45cm (I know you said further out but I found no noticeable difference) and it has improved somewhat but still not to my satisfaction. My only other option now is to get some kind of fabric roll down blind for a large glass sliding door that may be causing issues.
Puncher: Whilst browsing your blog, reading "speaker in a box" article, it says - If we sweep a sine wave into the driver, keeping the voltage constant, and we measure the sound pressure level in front of the driver, we’ll see that the total system (the loudspeaker in a sealed box) acts as a minimum phase, second-order low pass filter. Therefore it has a rising slope of 12 dB/octave in the low end. The Q of that low-pass filter will be dependent on the relationship of the driver’s parameters and the size of the box. Surely this should be high pass.
Surely you're right! (and don't call me Shirley!)
Fixed - thanks for spotting the error and letting me know!
Geoff Martin: Surely you're right! (and don't call me Shirley!) Fixed - thanks for spotting the error and letting me know! Cheers -geoff