Powerlink / Speakerlink / Line in to Beolabs

[speedsixdave]

Hi all, I’ve been around B&O stuff for a long time now but only using Beovox and other passive loudspeakers. I recently stumbled on a reasonably-priced pair of Beolab 3000s which I snapped up of course, and now I’ve found some slightly tatty Beolab 4000s too for a very good price. I’m currently running a Beomaster 3300 and Beogram 1902. The BM 3300 has no powerlink sockets, only 2-pin DIN speaker outputs. To date the 3000s are a fair way from the BM in our dining room, running on long but fairly decent copper speaker cables into their Speakerlink sockets. I hope to use the 4000s in the lounge near the Beomaster, and have just ordered one of Steve Marriot’s Attenuated Converters to connect the Beomaster to the 4000s’ line-in ports. But part of me wonders if I should jump and get a Beosystem 9500 or 8500 with powerlink sockets. Sorry for the long preamble – my questions really are these:

(1) 2-pin speakerlink into the Beolab 3000s – does this utilise the Beolab amps or bypass them, effectively turning my Beolabs into Beovoxes? Do we think using the line-in sockets on the 3000s would sound better? I guess I can test this when the Sounds Heavenly attenuated converter arrives.

(2) Powerlink. A Powerlink connection from a ‘new’ Beosystem 9500 would obviously have the advantage that the displays on the 3000s would light up, but is there any other real advantage over the line-in port or indeed the speakerlink? My traditional hi-fi folk wisdom tells me that long speaker cables should be heavy gauge copper wire (which they are at the moment), and the Powerlink cables look pretty thin given that there might be eight separate wires in there. Should I be worrying about that? The furthest 3000 is about 20m of cable away from the amplifier, and I fear that I’d need about £100 worth of Powerlink cables to connect all four speakers. Is it worth it??

 

Thanks in advance for any helpful hints. Active speakers are all new business to me!

 

Dave

[Steve at Sounds Heavenly]

Hi Dave,

Welcome to Beoworld and thanks for your purchase from my site! Speakerlink (eg. on Beomaster 5500 and Beocenter 9000) is an amplified output which is then reduced down again in the same way that my attenuated converters do. Powerlink (eg. on Beomaster 6500 and Beocenter 9500) is a low level signal taken before amplification, so this is theoretically higher quality when connecting active Beolab speakers (as the signal has not been amplified and then attenuated again). However, either option can high great sound when wired with good cabling.

Please don’t worry that Powerlink cables aren’t as thick as traditional passive speaker wires. As Beolab speakers have their own amplifiers built in, the Powerlink signals don’t need to carry the heavy currents that are required for passive speakers. This means that thinner cables can safely be used without losing signal quality, even over long distances (I suggest 20 metres as a sensible limit).

Also worth noting is that some systems (eg. Beomaster 5000, 5500, Beocenter 9000) have RCA pre-out sockets, which are also un-amplified and volume controlled, similar to Powerlink. These can be used to connect Beolab speakers, once the speakers are set to “Line” mode.

Finally, Beolab 4000 comes in two versions, mk.1 speakers have a separate RCA line input for use with a non-B&O system or early B&O system without Powerlink, whereas the mk.2 versions use their Powerlink sockets to connect when in Line mode. You can tell mk.1 speakers as they have a power button on the front of the speaker, while mk.2 speakers don’t have this. I can help with cables for either option!

Kind regards, Steve.

[speedsixdave]

Hi Steve,

Thanks very much for the speedy response – very useful and interesting. And yes, I meant Beocenter 9500, not Beosystem. Late night posting!

So a speakerlink input converts the high-level signal to a low-level signal within the Beolab, then re-amplifies it? That is some sort of madness but I guess allows the Beolab amplifiers to optimise the signal for their own drivers. I will try the 3000s with the line-in connection when your attenuated converter arrived and see if my insensitive ears can tell a difference.

My new old Beolab 4000s are Mk 1 with the RCA port so no problem there, I have lots of RCA cables around to experiment with at least.

I did not know that the Beocenter 9000 has pre-out sockets, that’s interesting to know. That makes it an option too, though I guess I would still need 4-pin speakerlink cables from that to make the displays on the Beolab 3000s work. It’s not critical but might be nice.

Am I right in thinking that the Beocenter 9500/8500 is the only ‘wedge’ amp/receiver/center that has both Powerlink sockets and an RIAA phono pre-amp? I would not really use the CD player and certainly not the tape deck at this point so was also looking at Beomaster 4500/3500 receivers, but as far as I can see these would need an external pre-amp to work with my Beogram 1902.

Thanks again!

[Steve at Sounds Heavenly]

Hi Dave,

Yes, the 9500 was the only system with Powerlink sockets and an RIAA pre-amp built in, as the 9300 system that followed it lost the RIAA pre-amp (this was a rare case of the follow-up having a LOWER model number than the previous model!)

The other systems of the era (Beomaster 3500, 4500, 6500 and 7000) with Powerlink sockets didn’t have RIAA pre-amps, as they relied on the Beogram having a pre-amp built in.

However, earlier systems (5000, 5500 and 9000) without Powerlink all had RCA pre-outs which could be used to connect Beolab speakers, as well as RIAA pre-amps for an older Beogram.

Anything can be connected, but in some cases an external pre-amp or special cable will be needed, which I can help with if required. Hope that helps!

Kind regards, Steve.

[Guy]

Steve at Sounds Heavenly wrote:

The other systems of the era (Beomaster 3500, 4500, 6500 and 7000) with Powerlink sockets didn’t have RIAA pre-amps, as they relied on the Beogram having a pre-amp built in.

It was a very rare accessory but BM6500 and BM7000 could be fitted with an internal pre-amp, as described back here:

https://archivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/p/7576/67094.aspx#67094

EDIT: The last couple of posts of the linked thread above also refer to RIAA add-ons for the BM3500 and BM4500 – I would imagine that these are quite rare!

[speedsixdave]

Thanks gents, very useful.

Steve, the attenuated converter arrived extremely promptly yesterday. I look forward to having a play with it over the weekend!

[Steve at Sounds Heavenly]

Hi Dave,

Glad to hear that it arrived safely. Please drop me a message via my website if you need any help getting everything working.

Kind regards, Steve.

[DengKao]

Hi, nice to read along.
Short question. I just received my Beolab 1 set. To quickly enjoy some music I used the line inputs. Can it be that the ‘performance’/volume is a little bit hesitant?
I have the feeling the speakers are not ‘opening up’.
I have orderd powerlink cables to connect the BL1 to my Beovison 4 65″ with Beosystem 3. I have a Beolab 2 sub and the Beolab center BeoLab 7.2.
So all the cabling will be hidden soon.

I assume the sound will improve with the powerlink connections, what do you guys think? I could not find any reference on the difference of quality between line and powerlink.

Kind regards
Dennis

[Stan]

With respect to the question of will PL cables sound better then line-in RCA cables, the answer is “it depends”.  I don’t believe there is a hard and fast answer because the RCA cables are of an unknown quality.  Let us know what you think.

[DengKao]

Thank you Stan, It is just that I have to wait for the PL cables to arrive. So I connected the speakers via the Line. The speakers seem to have ‘reserves’ in sound and volume. So my guess is that the line out is too poor to feed the BL 1’s properly.
Can’t wait to connect the BL 1’s to the Beosystem 3…

[Author]

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