We got ours a couple of years after they were released.

Last year had to replace the chassis as one of the speakers started to make crackling noises.

Has been fine since.

Still love them too. Never regretted getting them.

Peter

Hi, I bought a brand new pair in May 2015. In august 2018 one speaker stopped working and the warranty did not cover this. I have to change the chassi in a 3-year old speaker at the cost of 1.800 Euro. After this I could not trust these speakers and bought instead a pair of Beolab 50.

Best Regards

Martin

Martin wrote:

Hi, I bought a brand new pair in May 2015. In august 2018 one speaker stopped working and the warranty did not cover this. I have to change the chassi in a 3-year old speaker at the cost of 1.800 Euro. After this I could not trust these speakers and bought instead a pair of Beolab 50.

Best Regards

Martin

Incredible that a company that sells premium speakers to a very high price, does not care about a customers very expensive speaker that dies after 3 years.

I know warranty is 2 years, but since this is "known" issue, I would say they should give the customer credit on something like this. I could understand they deny after 6-10 years, but a speaker at that price, should last more than 3 years.

/Weebyx

Weebyx wrote:

Martin wrote:

Hi, I bought a brand new pair in May 2015. In august 2018 one speaker stopped working and the warranty did not cover this. I have to change the chassi in a 3-year old speaker at the cost of 1.800 Euro. After this I could not trust these speakers and bought instead a pair of Beolab 50.

Best Regards

Martin

Incredible that a company that sells premium speakers to a very high price, does not care about a customers very expensive speaker that dies after 3 years.

I know warranty is 2 years, but since this is "known" issue, I would say they should give the customer credit on something like this. I could understand they deny after 6-10 years, but a speaker at that price, should last more than 3 years.

/Weebyx

Completely agree. I am astonished actually. Thanks for this thread Steve as I too was going to make a BL5 purchase at some point down the road. Its frustrating because I still want to as the design is breathtaking to me. Hmm, why do B&O always make it so difficult for customers? Nothing is ever straightforward with this company. Lab 50s too much money. I just wouldn't spend c£20k on a pair of speakers.

as a rule of thumb 5's last anywhere between 10 and 15 years before they need something to be repaired, usually the chassis as the bass tends to shake the capacitors loose etc. Once repaired they last the same amount of time again.

the Mk1's don't have a huge stack of chassis's left but the mk2's are fine for replacement parts. Obviously there are some lemons and a lot depends on how it was used and at which volumes as the bass is the real killer of electronic parts. Mostly if you take a possible chassis fix into account while buying, or using it as a bargaining ploy, and the price is still acceptable then you'll be fine.

Hi,

When I talked to the "repair-man" who repaired my old Beolab 5 which needed a chassi swap,  he said that a Beolab 5 Chassi will last about 6-8 years. That is his experience. He has replaced about 30-40 chassis of Beolab 5 the last 10 years in south of Sweden. Yes, my Lab5:s went wrong after about 3 years which is a very short time. But I dont think that 10-15 years is the normal lifetime for a Lab 5 chassi.

I think also that even If you buy a pair of Beolab 5 used today and they work well 5-8 years ahead, the question then still is there: Does B&O still in 5-8 years have any exchange chassi for beolab 5? If not, the speakers is worth zero money.

 

/Martin

 

Some years ago I came across a technical article (that I can no longer find) claiming that the original BL5  microphone calibration had a notional life of about 200 uses, but that owners often liked to demonstrate the calibration to visitors to the extent that the mechanisms often suffered premature failure. Apparently B&O thought that calibration would only ever take place a handful of times.

I have no idea whether this article was based on fact.

Graham

So there is still spare parts for MK2?

I know you can order the discs.

vikinger wrote:

Some years ago I came across a technical article (that I can no longer find) claiming that the original BL5  microphone calibration had a notional life of about 200 uses, but that owners often liked to demonstrate the calibration to visitors to the extent that the mechanisms often suffered premature failure. Apparently B&O thought that calibration would only ever take place a handful of times.

I have no idea whether this article was based on fact.

Graham

mine are from 2003; i bought them second hand 10 years ago; they then were in excellent condition.

never had one problem with them and for the last 10 years i used them every other day on average.

i did not count the number of times I ran the calibration but it is still working.

i do have some doubts BO have limited the number of calibrations (why would you) but will not do an experiment to get final prove :-)