Beolab 28

I had a listen the other day and I think they’re excellent.

In the press shots there was a limited initial release of silver with dark covers, does any one know what that colour was called on the limited release 1/28

Thanks

Beolab 28 ARC broken?

I received my Beolab 28 pair on monday. They have quite elevated bass 100hz region. Anyway have done now calibration 26 times and factory reset two times and could not hear or see room correction working at all.

When streaming airplay directly to speakers cannot hear any difference room correction ON/OFF even in good will. Tested this with Level and it is night and day difference. I will notice clearly if my bl 50's calibration point is 1,5 meter away from listening point. Have tried totally off and that demo mode "press this to see without correction). Demo mode will make some short higher frequency sound from speakers when you press it but thats all and there is no delay like in Level. When you press demo mode on Level there is 2-3second delay on playback.

Trying to run Anthem ARC Genesis room correction quick measure and bl28 room correction ON/OFF and there is basicly zero difference in response graphs. Bass is really elevated. Wide/Narrow mode seems to affect midrange response.

So I cannot hear any difference or measure any difference? Is this isolated case or affecting more speakers? Or just some user error.

Maybe silly question but are their mics on? And have you let them run the tuning properly? There is a switch inside near the wiring to turn the mic off fully and vice versa

Yesterday right arc on/off.

Swapped speakers today right arc on/off.

Left speaker arc on/off and same on physically different speaker yesterday.

Left narrow vs wide.

Just to be clear when talkin ”arc” meaning bl28 arc/room correction not anthem arc genesis which is off on all measurements.

Speakers will refuse to do room correction if microphone switch is in off position. Room correction process is as fast as in level per speaker.

So physically both speakers are doing corrections on right corner position both hearable and measurable. On left "wall" I cannot hear or measure any difference. Playing on stereo I cannot tell any difference room correction on/off. So maybe it is working as intended at least both speakers are performing similarly on both locations. Same room with Level there is BIG change in sound arc on/off.

28's will make 50's sound like a pussies on most of the songs. 50's go down with force if song demands it but 28's are max attack on bass side all the time. 28's have enjoyable strong tight bass but they are not pressurizing room same way. If these work like intended generally I like 28's sound profile but still bit confused how they sound compared to other B&O speakers and how there are no hearable difference on arc on off when playing stereo or just left speaker. Maybe ARC is not yet complete on software side.

Edit: Maybe hearing a littlebit difference on stereo also on different parts in my room. Takes away bass boominess but effect just is so mild in my listening point and Level etc makes so much bigger change. Maybe I was just expecting bigger difference.

Have tried everything different master speaker, wired/wireless, many factory reset, power off from wall. Pairing these speakers especially when wired together can be painful operation and let the speakers need another factory reset. They can get really confused how to work at all.

How does that centre channel work? Looks like its half behind the shelf?

The midrange/woofer part is located in the upper part of the BL7.4.

That home theater is insane!!! I had the joy of being demoed it several times

Initial one week ownership feelings from Beolab 28.

Background: I received my 50's late spring and those beast's teached me something about front speaker authority. In smaller case my old 20's showed that also. You cannot just compensate something with subwoofers how big they are wont matter. 20's were much more musical than 18's with 2x svs 16 ultra even on bass heavy songs and produced a lot better experience.

50's have funny way showing how good they are (at least for me). In some way when you are listening those they are "not" sounding amazing or yaw dropping. 50's just sound natural and "good", just like you would expect to hear music. There is nothing wrong. Everything is just so smooth and natural your attention is in music not in speakers. After you are used to listen 50's and go listen your other good setups 17+19 and 18+ultra subs you have been enjoying years. They just sound so tinny, weak and wrong. Contrast is so huge and your old speakers are not worse than they were before. 50's are just so much better. You can still enjoy older speakers they are still amazing. Just don't try to do it directly after listening 50's.

Back to the front authority. Before 50's I thinked that big subs would compensate what 18's are missing and been using those 80hz crossover. Nope they are not. It is clearly evident and hearable I am missing a lot authority in front stage. I had listened 28's few times before and with these findings got really tempted to replace 18's to 28's. After 2 day thinking ordered my 28's.

Listening 28's in shop and comparing to 18/20's there made me think that 28's are much closer to 50's in sound design and they are. But now having those a week it is also evident that they definately are not smaller 50's with lesser resource and probably were never aimed to be. 28's might be closest to 50's in current range but gap in sound signature is really big and I am not talking about ultimate performance/sound pressure. 28's are their own segment/league/sound profile.

I think 28's are clear upgrade for everything from older generation speakers. Maybe not the 5's but I personally have no experience on those. 20's might pressurize room better and are more capable lowest movie rumbles. But 28's would have better tighter bass for music and a lot better midrange/highs. So overall 28 is big upgrade for 20.

Biggest weakness in bl28? Altought bass is really amazing in most of music 28 is not at it's best making long low rumbles or pressurizing room. "No *** sherlok" what you would expect from 6,5 inch bass units. I think these are already breaking laws of physics what they are capable doing. Example Hans Zimmer Time is really demanding song from apple music or even more demanding from blu-ray. Trying to run 28's full band fronts will bring speakers on their knees. It starts to sound bad from bluray they are clearly trying to produce sound they are not designed to do. From apple music version it is not sounding bad but compared other music bass performance you might have expected more.Change crossover to 40hz and you will be rewarded. Music directly to speakers and blu-ray trough avr. At least Denon x4500 with pure direct mode will have negative effect for soundquality compared bl28 internal platform. 50's have no such problems, your house might have.

A lot of people are thinking 4x 28's or 2x50's and maybe lesser surrounds. In my opinion these should not be considered as rivals. If we are talking pure b&o setup how you are gonna produce enough proper bass for movies with 4x28's? I can tell you you cannot. Then how about adding 19? Nope, it is really nice sub but it is not for pressure or lowest rumbles and would not do any good if mixed with 28's. You would need something like svs 3000 to complement 28's lowest end. Knowing most subwoofer designs and size you probably wont want to do it. I confess I am bass freak. Maybe 28's bass would be enough for you but for me it is not. No amount will help to achieve this. One pair of 50's will be more than enough to hande all bass you ever need. I still have svs 3000 with 50's for movies. That has nothing to do capability in 50's. It is bass management problem. I have small satellites for atmos and no way direct lfe to 50's. You would need b&o tv (no atmos available) or trinnov processor. Just trying to say 28's are not 50's and should not directly compared to them or if you are comparing then it is hands down 50's they are totally different league. If you have option to get 50's you should just do it.

So much complaint for 28's am I happy? Are they bad speakers?

Yes I am really HAPPY. No they are not bad speakers in anyway. Now listening 28's directly after 50's they won't sound just thin and weak like older generation. They sound really GOOD full band speakers but just different. 28's might not be as neutral and have elevated upper bass but that can sound good. You have nice and full sounding experience. You have really punchy tight bass. Lets say it directly you will have more "hearable" bass than from calibrated 50's on most of music. I am not using subs for music with 28's. There is clear difference between wide and narrow modes just like 50's. Have been really enjoying especially narrow mode with music. And for movies these 28's delivered just what I was missing. A lot more authority and fullness in front of my cinema. More I am watching these more I like the design even the fabric parts. And I really like motorized curtains.

Earlier posts about ARC. I like sound but it is so different from 50's I just wanted to be shore that these are working as intended and not broken etc. ARC effect is just so much milder than on Level or 50s made me really suspicious. Maybe it will get more pronounced via updates in future.

Just few findings in short time period. Feel free to disagree. My initial feelings not the absolute truth.

Really interesting review Allianz. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Thanks for the great review!

Great review Allianz and thanks for the link in the other post

Hi, I think you ticked a lot of the boxes in your review.

I'm also happy with the 28's, though hoping as stated in this forum there will be a neosound stage at some point to connect to an LG OLED and use the 28's as surround speakers besides music listening.

 

I do have a tip to point out for any 28 owner. Take the stickers of the wooden lamellas because I ran into a sad discovery:

The green/blueish stickers with production date / serial number will peel off in a warmer room. Because of the opening and closing movement the stickers roll against the inner fabric and start rubbing of glue and coloring on the fabric. Those fabric covers cost 400€ ex vat per speaker. Not so nice and frankly a production error on B&O's side...

So simple fix, when installing a new set, pull off the stickers!

 

Thank you very much for the reviews. So helpful

Thank you Allianze, 

i am about to make my purchasing decision, just a wk left for me to decide. 

I am getting the 77 inch harmony for sure, but was not sure to get either 4 28s or to get the pair of 50s with pair 18s at the back. the latter is more expensive for sure so was leaning towards the former. 

I was about to get the 28s option in fact have paid advance to my dealer, but then read your review and now am confused gain! 

I love listening to music but i also like watching movies. probably watch more than listen but i am in the media business so both are important. 

my living room is medium size but issue is that there is not much room on the right and left of the harmony for the 50s, they will barely fit due to cabinets. i will end up having 3-4 inch at either end. 

What do you suggest should i still go for the 4 29s or the 50s plus 18s at the back. 

i actually love the look of the 18s compared to the 28s. but am overall very confused. 

i wish someone would just say god damn it just get a instead of b : ) 

I have the 77" Harmony, 90s at the front and until recently 50s as surrounds and 18s at the rear.

I currently also have a pair of 28s on loan replacing the 50s as surrounds.

To my ear there is absolutely no comparing the 50s to the 28s the 50s are so far superior certainly in terms of listening to music.

The 28s are bass heavy and the bass infiltrates the mid ranges to quite some degree. This may suit your taste in music but my taste for female vocals shows bass in test tracks where I did not realise any significant bass was present. This does not suit how I listen or my musical taste.

Where the 28s score IMO is for movies where the forward presentation and commanding presence of the DP is outstanding. This is also the case when using the 28s as surrounds or rears because the major impact of the sound are the various explosions and effects.

In my current tests the 18s are perfect for rears as the 90s ( and 50s) can deliver all the bass you will ever need.

Presumably the 50s will be toed in so that may give a little more room but the 50s are the outstanding value of the B&O range and if you can make them fit you will not regret it.

Is that near enough to God damn it?

For sure there is something unsual with the 28s default setting regarding bass. It is the first time ever in my B&O journey which started a long time ago where a speaker is so bass heavy, boomy even I would say, could have Bose written on the front instead of B&O to be honest.

 

I am still owning plenty of these speakers like BL6002, BL8002, BL3 where adding a BL2 or BL19 is almost mandatory. The 28s are in another league, it reminds me the BL1, but in the opposite. Where the BL1 needed a BL2 to give the full potential (and what a performance with it !) and a few tweaking with the eqalizer settings, here I had to play with the Beosonic (cursor at max between Clear and Dynamic) and decreasing the bass at -6 on the equalizer in the app, so the minimum level of bass you can get. With that I have almost what I am used to have in term of B&O sound signature, especially coming from my regretted Beloab 5 that had no chance to fit the new flat's living room, unfortunately, and that the BL28 are replacing. BTW, nothing comparable in term of sound experience with the BL5, the BL5 are far far far far superior to the BL28 for those who are asking.

 

Wide/narrow modes on BL28 are marketing only to me, I have a Lyngdorf amp with room perfect feature in another room, with it you can really hear the difference between 2 modes, same goes with the room correction that takes 3 seconds to measure and adjust ... what, I am still trying to figure out but there is not much difference with or without)

That being said, they are really beautiful (Initially, I was not liking them much on photos) and have the B&O magic touch with the wood opening, the touch panel on the top of the speaker is really a good idea and is really useful, more than I was expecting, and with removing almost all bass in the parameters that the app is providing you can get a very good sound result, similar or superior to what I am used to with my previous or actual B&O speakers in the SAME RANGE (for those who are trying to compare them with BL5, BL50 or even 90, it is probably just for kidding... hopefully).

The 28s have a tremendous sound stage and sound really impressive if you like bass heavy audio but the bass is not only boomy it thumps!

On the 50s you can hear the full range of subtle differences in the various bass instruments but the 28s (to my ear) just thump.

 

What I'm missing in this discussion is some sort of objectivity.

What do you expect when you drive a Mercedes/Audi/BMW/Volvo of 30.000 EUR or one of 75.000 EUR? Would you get the same experience?

So why compare the BL28 to the BL50. 

Much of the discussion over the last few weeks have been by people - aware of the price difference - asking for a comparison prior to buying.

Objectivity in audio comparisons - that's an oxymoron.

MaxH:

Objectivity in audio comparisons - that's an oxymoron

So true

So why compare if you know in objectivity you can't? 

Posters are asking for comparisons - perhaps we should tell them off instead of offering an opinion

Regarding the boomy bass that folks are hearing on their 28s...is it still problematic after you run room correction?

Henrik has two videos, and while it's YT quality audio, the difference is still night and day.  Is that what others are experiencing?

BL 28 w/out calibration

BL 28 with calibration

BeoFrederic:

Regarding the boomy bass that folks are hearing on their 28s...is it still problematic after you run room correction?

Henrik has two videos, and while it's YT quality audio, the difference is still night and day. Is that what others are experiencing?

BL 28 w/out calibration

BL 28 with calibration

There is a different before/after calibration.

It sounds amazing!!

it is probably depending a lot of the room itself, in mine not much difference before and after calibration as I said above

Carolpa:

What I'm missing in this discussion is some sort of objectivity.

What do you expect when you drive a Mercedes/Audi/BMW/Volvo of 30.000 EUR or one of 75.000 EUR? Would you get the same experience?

So why compare the BL28 to the BL50.

I listened to the 90s and then the 28s, and for a more modest room I’d be perfectly happy with the 28s.

Is anyone able to answer how this would work?

If I hook these 28s up to a Marantz receiver using the pre-outs how does the motorized grills work exactly? Do they close on power down? Do they automatically go to the wide or narrow setting from the last power state? Can I only control this from the B&O app?

I assume they just stay the way the are all the time unless I tell the app to change them which is a disappointment.

Severed_Hand_of_Skywalker:

If I hook these 28s up to a Marantz receiver using the pre-outs how does the motorized grills work exactly? Do they close on power down? Do they automatically go to the wide or narrow setting from the last power state? Can I only control this from the B&O app?

I assume they just stay the way the are all the time unless I tell the app to change them which is a disappointment.

I think that they are mostly opening for wide. And definately closing when receiver turns off at least for me with trigger adapters. Anyway you can still control wide/narrow from app or widget. App will try to say that use beovision for control but just disregard that and press wide or narrow. At first I tought that they will remember last setting used in any input powerlink/airplay2. But maybe now they are remembering by separate inputs... need to confirm that but they have been narrow few times when using airplay2 and wide for tv. Hopefully we will have some option for app in future.

Severed_Hand_of_Skywalker:

Is anyone able to answer how this would work?

If I hook these 28s up to a Marantz receiver using the pre-outs how does the motorized grills work exactly? Do they close on power down? Do they automatically go to the wide or narrow setting from the last power state? Can I only control this from the B&O app?

I assume they just stay the way the are all the time unless I tell the app to change them which is a disappointment.

--

BeoLab 18's. Beolab 3's. A8. A9. A2. H7.

Can your receiver manage latency?

The reason I mention this is that, from what I understand, the line in inputs on the 28’s have a non adjustable delay. This is not an issue with a B&O TV connected to 28’s using power link.

A littlebit investigation. It seems that bl28's will remember last listening mode. Last evening last setting was manually to narrow@airplay and today with tv they opened wide. I have made my own listening mode from "optimal" with only change narrow to wide. With this tv always starts with wide. If I change to optimal then everything is narrow. But if using my own listening mode and airplay and just change wide to narrow it will remember that for some time for airplay. with longer time between I think airplay will revert to wide also. Tv will start wide anyway.

For now this is really good compromise 9/10 I use these with tv and prefer that no need to change narrow to wide mode. For music directly to bl28 no big trouble to change wide to narrow with widget.

 

 

 

 

Sandyb:

Can your receiver manage latency?

I have not yet seen any modern receiver that cannot manage delay/latency.

However there can be problems to have this 100% correct and not even Geoff's fine tables would not solve these.

Example Denon/Marantz receiver's with Audyssey room correction maximum distance to speaker is 18 meters. 18 meters is more than enough needed for bl28's approx 11 meter/31ms or bl50's 9 meter/25ms. BUT Audyssey has a limitation that distance between closest speaker (usually side surround) and any speaker cannot be more than 6 meter. So if your surround is 2 meter away then your front speaker cannot be more than 8 meter away. Anthem receivers have 9 meter limitation and with littlebit calculations you will have it at least 3 meter closer than with Denon/Marantz. Dirac I am not familiar yet.

With Twonky one can stream one's music already to the BL28 (or BS Balance or........)

Just restarted Twonky this morning to do some testing fro the Artists pictures on the Moment and noticed the Balace and the BL28 were listed as Mediareceivers. Both did accept the send stream

Has anyone seen BL28 in regular oak yet? (Not "light oak").

Anyone try to connect a pair of BL28 to power link sockets of a Beosound unit?

In my case I plan to hook them up in an audio only setup to a Beosystem 7000 via Beomaster 7000 or to a Beosound 9000 power link socket. In either case, how does the handoff between built in streaming capability and power linked sources get handled. 

Mostly also concerned about volume control sync. Will I be able to control volume from touch pad on speaker as well as any of the following seamlessly synced. Options include Beomaster 7000 via Beolink 1000, my Beolink 7000, an essence remote, Halo or Beo Remote One BT.

When connected to PL, you can’t use the app and local control on the speakers themselves to adjust anything when switched on by the Beomaster. No possibility to use the Beosonic feature or wide/narrow mode (using the last setting) by default). When switched off you get the normal behavior of the BL28 with embedded net radios and so on.

One important thing: you need to connect both Beolab28 to the beomaster, no possibility to chain them.

Thanks for the reply. Is this different with line-in sources? Thinking Beosound 9000 digital out to the primary speaker instead of PL or Digital streamer like the Hifi Rose /Roon setup? https://eng.hifirose.com/RS201E-info

oli:

 

When connected to PL, you can’t use the app and local control on the speakers themselves to adjust anything when switched on by the Beomaster. No possibility to use the Beosonic feature or wide/narrow mode (using the last setting) by default). When switched off you get the normal behavior of the BL28 with embedded net radios and so on.

 

One important thing: you need to connect both Beolab28 to the beomaster, no possibility to chain them.

 

if (WISA) PL connected the wide/narrow modes are still available to set.

 

PL chained, I do not know, but I have set them stereo paired.

 

edit: BL28 are connected to Harmony.

 

It is not the case for me. I have them connected to an Almando decoder in WISA and can’t adjust the narrow/wide mode. It’s taking the last setting when switching on.

Maybe it is possible when connected to a beovision.

For 28’s if you want to your dealer can provide a splitter for the pl cable

I finally found the support page. Seems PL chaining is possible based on support page. Is it something specific about the Beomaster that makes this different? 

https://support.bang-olufsen.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019609017

Doubleola:

I finally found the support page. Seems PL chaining is possible based on support page. Is it something specific about the Beomaster that makes this different?

https://support.bang-olufsen.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019609017

it describes the way both BL28 can be LAN stereo paired. It has nothing to do with PL.