I owned a pair of BeoLab 90s for approximately 12 years.

During that time, each speaker needed its chassis replacing twice.

One of them was on the way out again when I got rid of them. 

politician wrote:

I owned a pair of BeoLab 90s for approximately 12 years.

During that time, each speaker needed its chassis replacing twice.

One of them was on the way out again when I got rid of them. 

Do you mean the BeoLab 5s? !!! You've done well if you've had the 90s for 12 years!

When your BL5 needs to be repaired, a swap of chassis is always done when it comes to the electronics. You can't order separate parts from the chassis.

That has a downside and upside, The costs can be significant, but then you are pretty confident that all the electronics are ready to go for the next years. I think it's relative, when you bought them new for the retail price then the costs for those are easier to handle then when you bought them second life and have to pay for the same amount of costs. 

I think there is a connection between reliability and ICE power based amplifiers from the first and early days it was released.

Until now I've fixed at least a dozen BL5's on component level and am familiar with the fact that once a BL5 becomes defective, the damage can be on different parts of the chassis. So, a chassis swap is the safest and quickest way the fix a BL5.

About the microphone failure, the microphone is belt driven and measurements are stored in a memory. These can fail, but fixed.

Beobuddy wrote:

When your BL5 needs to be repaired, a swap of chassis is always done when it comes to the electronics. You can't order separate parts from the chassis.

That has a downside and upside, The costs can be significant, but then you are pretty confident that all the electronics are ready to go for the next years. I think it's relative, when you bought them new for the retail price then the costs for those are easier to handle then when you bought them second life and have to pay for the same amount of costs.

I think there is a connection between reliability and ICE power based amplifiers from the first and early days it was released.

Until now I've fixed at least a dozen BL5's on component level and am familiar with the fact that once a BL5 becomes defective, the damage can be on different parts of the chassis. So, a chassis swap is the safest and quickest way the fix a BL5.

About the microphone failure, the microphone is belt driven and measurements are stored in a memory. These can fail, but fixed.

The Beonic Man wrote:

Do you mean the BeoLab 5s? !!! You've done well if you've had the 90s for 12 years!

I did, yes. Typing error! BeoLab 90s and 50s are what I have now.

Definitely glad you posted this Steve, I have just deleted a bargain of BL5's from my basket. Incidentally how does the chassis fail?

There is nothing more nothing less issue regarding reliability than any other speaker with a lot of electronic embedded. Don't forget that it is the first B&O speaker to have so much digital stuff built in. Reliability is of course depending of the stability of the electric network, like for all electronic devices, like with a computer for example. I am pretty sure that BL50 and BL90 will have exactly the same "reliability" issue in comparaison to more simple speakers like a BL1 or BL8000, or of course a Penta, even more than the BL5 probably with the amount of embedded software which is not really a B&O strength...

When I bought mine from the dealer, he told me that most of the failure he noticed with these speakers was due to either the electric stability (which can be easily improved), or the intensive use of them at a very high volume like if it was matter to sound a night club 24x7...