Beolab 9 vs Beolab 18 as rears

29 replies
The delay of my Theatre is the shipping company.  The curtains stopped working on one of my 28s. B and O is sending me two replacement BL28s.  The shipping company decided to hold the Theatre so they could ship/deliver it and the 2 new 28s as one shipment.
In the meantime I turn on my BS Level then Join on one of my Beolink devices.
By second pair of Beolab 9s arrived yesterday. I can confirm that they sound GREAT as rear speakers with the Theatre. My setup is as follows:

Center: Theatre

Front L&R: BL9

Surround L&R: BL1

Rear L&R: BL9

Front Height L&R: Theatre up-firing speakers

Rear Height L&R: BL4000

 

The BL9s as rears give a very balanced, enveloping, warm bass. The sound is much more natural than when I used BL6000s as rears. The BL6000s as rears sounded distracting and unnatural.
Thanks! I am setting up my Theatre this evening.
I just watched "Top Gun Maverick" with 9's as rears. Absolutely amazing! The added bass of the 9's in the rear is perfect. I had planned on added a BL2, but now with the 4 BL9s I don't think it could improve upon the sound.
In fact if I remember the older bass management routing table on the older Beosystems the Beolab 9 is ranked higher than the Beolab 2 (plus you have 4 of them!). Though in theory with the new distributed bass system any additional bass driver is probably helpful to some degree.

Glad to hear you like your setup!
Reading the comments here makes me even more eager to try my 9s as rears.
unfortunately I am sick with Covid right now so am lacking the energy to do so.
@Razlaw,

Get well soon, buddy!
Thanks!  And a question that is tangentially related to this thread.  I am trying to add a speaker to the Theatre with a BeoReceiver 1.  That is how I will connect the 9s although right now have a 6000 connected to it.  The Theatre sees the BR1, plays a tone from the 6000 when doing the room sense, but does not add the 6000. I see no option to identify what kind of speaker is connected to the receiver and am wondering if that is perhaps why it is not adding it. Anyway to identify the speaker?
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