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I have a Beovision 12 (first generation) with a pair of Beolab12-2 as left and right speakers (acoustic lens mounted up). Rear speakers are lab 8000 and there is a lab2 sub.
The TV is mounted in a BIG room. It is approximately 8wide by 9m long with 4m ceilings. We view the TV from a sofa approximately 3m away from the TV (in other words there is another 6+ meters behind the sofa until you reach a solid wall) A beosystem 3 ties it all together.
Distances have all been set correctly and speaker volumes have been calibrated.
The problem I have is that frankly the system sounds pretty mediocre. When playing movies it is difficult to hear dialogue and I have had to up the center speaker levels to understand what is going on.
My question:
1) Is the problem the size of the room?With almost no reflective surface for the sound (except the floor in front of the sofa) does the sound just dissipate?
2) Could the problem be that there is something wrong with the speaker in the TV (the dealer in Sweden who sold it me says no)
3) Would changing the System 3 to a System 4 which I understand it has far more ability to 'tune' the audio make a difference.
I am a life long B&O addict and this for me very expensive set up is a big audio disappointment. The picture is wonderful however!
Thank you for any advice.
best
philip
Hi,
I don't know if I'm able to help - but I can try.
Some quick answers to the first three questions:
1. I seriously doubt that the problem is your room size - unless you live in a gymnasium.
2. If your dealer says that there is nothing defective with the loudspeaker in the BV12, then I would assume this to be true.
3. The BeoSystem 4 certainly has more customisation capabilities - however, it might not be the first solution to the problem. Let's try to figure out the problem first.
To start, I'll need a little more information.
- can you be more descriptive about the problem than "pretty mediocre". Is the level of the centre speaker just too low, or is it a bigger problem than that?
- the loudspeaker in the BV12 was optimised for dialogue intelligibility. It is not capable of delivering bass - so it needs external loudspeakers (which you have) and the BeoSystem 3's bass management system to deliver the low end in the centre channel. I don't understand from your comments that you are expecting the centre channel to deliver bass - but I just want to get that out of the way as a possible expectation issue.
- what Speaker Types have you set in the BeoSystem 3?
- you say that the distances and levels have been set correctly. How, exactly, did you set the levels?
- do you have the same problem when watching television (especially news programs in mono)
- what speaker mode are you in when you watch movies? Does the problem exist in all other Speaker Modes?
- what is your source? If it's 5.1 (say, from a DVD or Blu-ray) are you SURE your player is sending 5,1 to the BeoSystem 3? (My home DVD player, for example, was in a default stereo downmix mode when I received it). I didn't even notice this was the case until I upgraded my television with some surround loudspeakers and noticed that things weren't behaving at home like they were at work.
This might not be enough questions - but it'll get us started. :-)
Cheers
-geoff
Dear Geoff,
Thank you for your prompt reply - I had to take a lightning trip to the US and have not been back to a computer till today.
Some answers to your questions:
What does pretty mediocre mean: To get the dialogue levels right I have to both up the sound level of the center channel (or rather lower the relative level of left and right) and I have to really crank the sound (up to 70 plus) to be able to hear what is going on. If I lower the total volume it is difficult to follow what people are saying. If the sound is loud however things don't sound muffled - they sound 'ok'
Center channel: I am not expecting the center channel to deliver any bass. Just decent dialogue.
I have to tried watching any movies in mono.
Distance levels were set with a laser measurer and the sound levels set with a radio shack sound meter (I know not the most accurate but not set with an iPhone at least!)
I honestly have not watched much normal TV so I can't comment.
I watch movies in speaker 5 setting.
The source is almost always apple TV. I am fairly certain that it is being sent as 5.1 When I check the input/output it says input is 5.1
Is it possible that one or more of the speakers in the Beovision could be broken. I once had a lynn speaker where the tweeter was gone and it caused problems. Is there anyway to test this?
Also please note the room is very big. The total room size (including the open plan kitchen and dining room) is a box that is roughly 15 x 9 m with 3.8m ceilings!
Thank you so much for the quick reply.
Best
Philip
Beosound Stage, Beovision 8-40, Beolit 20, Beosound Explore.
Chris Townsend:I experience exactly the same thing on my 11-46, and I used to have the same problem on my old 7-40 mk3 with a Beolab 7-4. To hear dialogue I have to put the sound to 65-70, then action starts and you have to turn it down to say 49. The best sounding TV I have for vocals is my old 8-26. Clear and crisp. I find the source matters too. I watched the Inglorious Bastards on BluRay last night, and kept most of the street up trying to hear what's being said. Tonight the kids watched Avatar and it was fine. I could select the speech setting, but then you loose the meat of the sound.
To hear dialogue I have to put the sound to 65-70, then action starts and you have to turn it down to say 49. The best sounding TV I have for vocals is my old 8-26. Clear and crisp. I find the source matters too.
I watched the Inglorious Bastards on BluRay last night, and kept most of the street up trying to hear what's being said. Tonight the kids watched Avatar and it was fine. I could select the speech setting, but then you loose the meat of the sound.
I think that this is quite common for "cinema" recorded sound, it is very dynamic and you can find yourself riding the volume control a lot. Most TV's have a "compressed" or "night" listening setting which reduces the variation between loud and quiet and some find this easier to listen to.
Ban boring signatures!
Tonker:The 11 has the night mode but it dumps everything else in pursuit of hushness. Handy for a question Time, hopeless for Saving Private aryan! Beovision 11-46, Beovision 8-26, Beovision 3-32, Avant RF 28, Beosound 8, Beolit 12, Beocom 2, Beotime, H6 and Form 2, Beo 4's and a 6.
BeoNut since '75
elephant: Tonker: The 11 has the night mode but it dumps everything else in pursuit of hushness. Handy for a question Time, hopeless for Saving Private aryan! Beovision 11-46, Beovision 8-26, Beovision 3-32, Avant RF 28, Beosound 8, Beolit 12, Beocom 2, Beotime, H6 and Form 2, Beo 4's and a 6. Interesting your comment about the bv8-26 ... On the bv8-40 I am constantly surfing the sound waves with the beo4 volume control !
Tonker: The 11 has the night mode but it dumps everything else in pursuit of hushness. Handy for a question Time, hopeless for Saving Private aryan! Beovision 11-46, Beovision 8-26, Beovision 3-32, Avant RF 28, Beosound 8, Beolit 12, Beocom 2, Beotime, H6 and Form 2, Beo 4's and a 6.
The 11 has the night mode but it dumps everything else in pursuit of hushness. Handy for a question Time, hopeless for Saving Private aryan! Beovision 11-46, Beovision 8-26, Beovision 3-32, Avant RF 28, Beosound 8, Beolit 12, Beocom 2, Beotime, H6 and Form 2, Beo 4's and a 6.
Interesting your comment about the bv8-26 ... On the bv8-40 I am constantly surfing the sound waves with the beo4 volume control !
I know someone who treated himself to a (non-B&O) surround sound system to go with his Samsung TV. He couldn't get used to it and now, like as not, if you enter his living room he'll be listening through the "crappy" internal speakers!!
It seems a surround experience with adjustable dynamics would suit a significant number of people, so that they could dial up a dynamic setting (something between the full delivered sound and the compressed nightime setting) that suits their own ear and environment.
Chris Townsend:All I want is a button to elevate the vocals. Is there a setting that might help?
I don't have a BV11 and so don't want to muddy the waters, however as vocals are mainly front-centre channel, can you lift the centre channel volume on it's own perhaps?
"....can you lift the centre channel volume on it's own perhaps?"
That is exactly what you can't!
On my BV8-40 I some times would like to lower it - but I can't.
You can only lift/lower all other channels.
Hope we get an explanation from 'he', who is responsible
MM
There is a tv - and there is a BV
I agree with this as well. I have turned up the tweeter volume on my BV11-55 to be able to hear dialogue easier. The BV is stand-alone with only built in speaker
Sorry, poor choice of words, should have been treble. Will check exactly how when I get home later
I could make two suggestions:
1.) Check the settings on the BeoLab 2. This makes huge difference. I once changed the settings on the BeoLab 2 to give it a bass boost. That was a disaster. It made the dialogue awful. Follow the correct settings suggested in the BeoLab 2 for the appropriate speakers.
2.) Check the settings on your blu-ray player. I use an Oppo 103. At first, I found the dialog to be really low. I found that the settings regarding splitting audio and video on the dual hdmi connections is really important. With the wrong settings, the sound can be down-mixed to 2 channel and sound really messed up.
I'm super happy with the cinema sound from my BV9 and BL5's! Best surround I've ever heard.
Too long to list....
phult: What does pretty mediocre mean: To get the dialogue levels right I have to both up the sound level of the center channel (or rather lower the relative level of left and right) and I have to really crank the sound (up to 70 plus) to be able to hear what is going on. If I lower the total volume it is difficult to follow what people are saying. If the sound is loud however things don't sound muffled - they sound 'ok' Center channel: I am not expecting the center channel to deliver any bass. Just decent dialogue. I have to tried watching any movies in mono. Distance levels were set with a laser measurer and the sound levels set with a radio shack sound meter (I know not the most accurate but not set with an iPhone at least!) I honestly have not watched much normal TV so I can't comment. I watch movies in speaker 5 setting. The source is almost always apple TV. I am fairly certain that it is being sent as 5.1 When I check the input/output it says input is 5.1
Hi Philip,
Sorry it took so long to get back to you.
I really don't think that your room size is the problem - even though it's quite big - unless you have a very reflective room. However, your description doesn't seem to indicate that this is the issue, since cranking the level up to 70 would only make things worse in this case.
I was worried that your Apple TV was sending 2.0 and the BS3 was up mixing - which could be one part of the problem. however, you say that your input is reading as a 5.1 signal, so that's not it.
Speaker Mode 5 is the correct setting, so this shouldn't do it.
So, I'm still confused as to what to suggest - but here goes...
If it were me, the first thing I would probably do is to (temporarily) set up the BS3 to think that there is only a centre loudspeaker and nothing else. This would at least let you find out whether the BV12 internal loudspeaker itself is behaving. It should not be expected to give you any bass - but it should deliver dialogue very well. If this doesn't live up to you expectations, then you may have a problem with the internal components, as you mentioned.
However, if that test works out, then I would add the external front left and right loudspeakers only and see if things are still holding up. If not, then you'll have to describe why it's not and we'll take it from there.
Hi again,
I tried out a BV12/BeoSystem 3 today in our BeoLiving room (with 4 BeoLab 5's as the front and surround loudspeakers), partly to see how things were behaving. The BeoLiving room in Struer is something like 7 m x 8 m (I'm guessing) and fairly reverberant.
I found that I had to do some tweaking to improve the intelligibility of the dialogue - so maybe you're having the same issue. I did the tweaking in the following order:
Speaker Distance
The distances to the loudspeakers was set up "correctly" when I arrived in the room, with the accurate distances set to the 5 loudspeakers from the centre of the sofa. I changed this. I set the distance to the front loudspeakers measuring in a parallel line from the sofa to each of the three loudspeakers instead of from the centre of the sofa. For the surrounds, I changed the distances to the measurement of the distance between the loudspeaker and the closest person on the sofa.
Take a look at the attached diagram. The black distance line was left unchanged. The red distance lines were the ones that were set when I arrived and the green lines were the settings I used for my "calibration".
This helped, but not enough, so I also tweaked the Speaker Levels as follows:
Speaker Levels
I first set the levels by ear (I forgot to bring my SPL meter), and then had a listen to a couple of Blu-ray's. For 2 of the 3 films I found that the dialogue generally felt a little buried in the sound effects. So, I went back in and dropped the front loudspeakers by about 3 steps in the Speaker Level menu. I dropped the surrounds by about 5 steps (in other words, 2 below the fronts).
These two tweaks helped a lot!
I also noticed that Volume 70 wasn't offensively loud for movies (I rarely run that loud at home - although OurLiving room at home is considerably different from the BeoLiving room at work...) as I would have expected (I normally tune loudspeakers in that area of the volume setting, depending on the source and the location).
One extended comment here about the drop in level for the BeoLab 5's. The BeoSystem 3's centre channel output was originally designed 10-or-so-years-ago with a behaviour like the BeoLab 7-4 and the BeoLab 10 in mind. This means that it sends the centre channel audio signal out on both the Left and Right outputs of the Centre PowerLink connector - and the BeoLab 10 (or 7-4) takes those two signals, sums them, and sends the output of there sum on to the internal filtering.
The BeoVision 12 loudspeaker was built slightly differently. It is treated as a single loudspeaker channel, just like (for example) a BeoLab 3 - so it can play either the Left or the Right input channel - but not the sum of the two. It was done this way because, back when we made the BeoVision 12, we knew that the BeoSystem 4 was coming sometime in the future, and it treats the centre channel information just like the other channels - one audio signal per PowerLink channel (this is also true for the subwoofers). So, the BeoSystem 3 "thinks" that the centre channel is 6 dB louder than the BeoVision 12 actually is. Consequently, the Speaker Level must be adjusted to accommodate this.
However, this should not cause concern - some people believe that this will result in a loss of headroom on the remaining loudspeakers (since their levels have been dropped in the Speaker Level menu for alignment). This is almost never the case - and makes me think that it's a good topic for discussion on the B&O Tech blog in the future.
cheers
Geoff
This is EXACTLY the kind of answer I needed. It will be a few weeks until I can test out your solution but I so very thankful for your answer (which as I can understand it is that the center channel NEEDS to be louder than L, and R plus maybe the distances need to be tweaked).
We are building a new house in the UK and you just made a sale for another BV12 system!
Thank you for all the help
PS I assume your original advice that a Beosystem 4 would not be worth it still holds up.
phult: This is EXACTLY the kind of answer I needed. It will be a few weeks until I can test out your solution but I so very thankful for your answer (which as I can understand it is that the center channel NEEDS to be louder than L, and R plus maybe the distances need to be tweaked). We are building a new house in the UK and you just made a sale for another BV12 system!
Until you try this out, please don't assume that it'll work. HOWEVER please don't be nervous about tweaking the levels or distances as you see fit. It might not need it - but it certainly can't hurt to try. Just because the settings "look" right doesn't mean that they are right. One of my (many) favourite quotes is form Duke Ellington who said "If it sounds good, it IS good." Generally, I find that a little louder and/or a little earlier on the centre channel can help intelligibility a lot. It's not necessarily a good idea for multichannel music, but that wasn't part of your complaint.
If you are considering buying a second BV12 system, then I would certainly say that the BeoSystem 4 gives you far more customisation and tweaking possibilities than the BeoSystem 3. My original advice to you was not to NOT buy a BeoSystem 4 - it was to not buy it as a first solution to your existing problem. If you try a single malt scotch and you don't like it - the solution is not to switch to martinis (see Humphrey Bogart's last words as good advice). The first step is to add a drop or two of water. If that doesn't work, try another single malt. If you don't like that one, then try a Macallan's...
As for me making a sale for a BV12 - I wonder if I can get a commission. Probably not... ;-)