Used Beolab 5's

I'm loving my recently purchased Beolab 5's and now considering buying a second pair for another location. In light of the recent rumblings/rumours about the possibility of a new Beolab 5 replacement speaker on the horizon, I think I'll try to find a good used pair of 5's to purchase, at hopefully a decent deal.

if the speakers are 5-7 years old, are there any major risks that I should be aware of and be watching for, other than the obvious exterior condition and making sure that they work. As they will be out of warranty, are there any common issues that I should watch for that would be costly to repair? Any advice/tips would be greatly appreciated.

Check:

Speaker cloth condition.

Acoustic lenses have no cracks, tears or creases in them. Children love poking speaker cones...

Condition of discs that focus radiated sound for scratches and dents.

Calibration process same in both and no distortion during this.

Connection panel for broken sockets and missing pins etc..

Microphone extends and retracts smoothly.

Spend a good hour listening to them at high-ish volume to see if distortion appears or protection circuits kick in indicating either electrical overloading or thermal.

Use remote on both speakers to check IR system function in both works.

Serial numbers with a dealer so that they aren't stolen.

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Great suggestions.

 

From memory there has been very little "problems" with Beolab 5's on this forum. 

Because of the high cost and the extreme weight of these speakers, the majority of them are usually fine as they don't get moved a lot and are typically owned by owners who tend to care for them. They're also not old enough yet to exhibit the types of capacitor problems, speaker degradation and such inherent to a lot of B&O equipment. Most problems can be checked visually as everything tends to be exposed that matters. However the only exception to this is the 15 inch woofer which is actually concealed to the eye but fairly exposed to objects that might get lodged under the speaker and damage it. It's a little bit of a shock the first time you move one of these and reach your hand near the bottom to find it doesn't take much to grasp the woofer by accident. You can tilt the speaker over a bit and shine a good flashlight inside the bottom grille to make sure the woofer and its surround are not damaged.

Obviously, make sure to obtain the PIN codes if at all possible. I believe the oldest ones don't work with the sync cable and that may be a concern for some. Otherwise, the age is relatively irrelevant if you're talking about out of warranty pairs regardless. Interesting note with the S/Ns by the way, BL5s were one of the few B&O speakers that were not necessarily sold as an S/N matched pair or even subsequent digits, so don't let that throw you off.