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This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Hi all,
Since I own a beomaster 6000 from the 80's I've been looking into the specs and general information about this beautiful receiver. There are some things that I can't find an awnser to, I'm new to this forum and hopefully someone can help me out :)
- I've read that the amplifier section of the bm 6000 is based on the bm 4400, beocentral states: "The power amplifier followed 4400 practice very closely, though for some reason the power supply voltage had been increased, no extra power resulted." It did though, since the bm 4400 is rated 75w@4ohms, while the bm 6000 is rated 75w@8ohms. Am I right?
-Which brings me to the question to why the bm 6000 isn't rated @4ohms; since it was based on an amplifier which was rated both 8 and 4 ohms. And the bm 6000 can drive the 6 ohm rated c/cx series of speakers. Or is it actually 4 ohm and will the actual figure be around 100w@4ohms? But did B&O never put these figures out since it would be too little a difference with the TOTL bm 8000?
-And if it can't drive 4 ohm speakers, (how) can this be accomplished? Sorry if this is a silly question, I'm not a tech guy, just trying to figure things out ;)
Thanks!
Hi I'm wondering the same thing. Did you ever get an answer to your question?
Thanks
It's a fine line between collecting and hoarding, and I'm always dancing on it. Beomaster 8000 x2, Beocord 8004, Beomaster 6000, Beocord 9000, CDX, Beomaster 6500, Beocord 6500, Beogram 6500 CD, Beogram 6500 Turntable, BeoSound 2300, BeoSound 2000, BeoLab 8000, BeoLab 6000, BeoLab 2 Sub, BeoVox S45.2 x4, BeoVox S75, BeoVox S120, BeoVox M150, BeoVox MS150, RL140, BeoTime, BeoCom 1
Don't get too hung up on published specs. They are just guides to compare components that are similar (i.e amp to amp, tape deck to tape deck). An amplifier is going to try and drive whatever speaker load you put on it. Just because B&O didn't list a power rating for a 4 ohm speaker doesn't mean the Beomaster 6000 can't drive it. My guess is most speakers people were buying were 8 ohm speakers including the Beovox speakers B&O was making at the time of the Beomaster 6000. So it makes sense that is what they listed the amplifier specs at. Plus audio manufacturers didn't (don't) publish all different load cases. Notice that the power ratings are almost always for continuous power. If you are listening to an amplifier where the output level is a continuous 10 Watts then you are playing your music really loud....or have really inefficient speakers. At most listening levels an amplifier is typically driving a speaker at less than 1 Watt. The extra power is used in bursts for peaks. Even then I rarely see my amplifiers (with peak level meter indicators) get much higher than a few Watts. Another thing to be aware of is that speaker loads vary during music play. An 8 ohm speaker doesn't stay precisely at 8 ohms the entire time. Back to specs though...the typical listed specs for an amplifier are some sort of continuous power rating (usually for both 4 ohms and 8 ohms), a THD rating, a SNR rating and frequency response rating. They are mostly useful at a high level for comparing similar components. I believe the various manufacturers purposely didn't post specs in a way that one can do an apples to apples comparison. A lot of it is for marketing. On the Beomaster 8000 B&O does mention that they use a measurement standard : IHF A-202. I haven't found that standard to know exactly what it says but on the Beomaster 6000 (Type 225x) they just reference IHF (not a specific version of IHF). On the Beomaster 4400 and 1900 specs B&O doesn't list the standard. So again, you can't really do an apples to apples comparison even within components from the same manufacturer.
That doesn't mean specifications don't have any value. They do give you a ballpark range where you usually see better spec numbers as you go up the line of products. Back in the day when there were stereo stores around I did compare specs of similar equipment to evaluate what different manufacturers were offering at what price. Even though they aren't apples to apples they can give you a broad level of performance expectations within a price range. That's where people start fretting over spending a little more money for a few extra Watts or a fraction of a percent of total harmonic distortion. Can you really distinguish between 0.001 and 0.002 THD?