Chaka wrote:

They seem to blow so easily.

Uh-oh :-( 

In answer to your question the amplifiers, drivers and chassis on the BeoLab 9 all seem to be very reliable on the whole.

However, the tweeter is a weak point and I've had plenty fail, giving the orange light.  Not a fortune to fix, but this shouldn't happen on a speaker of this price.

Lee

Despite the incorporated protection (thermal overload, ABL) - which I might point out no passive speaker has - I would think if you punish it enough, for long enough, amplifier clipping or more general overheating of the voice coil could destroy a tweeter.

Being an 'ex' audiophile I exercise caution - in a listening room 5 x 4 metres, I seldom go above 55 on the volume for music, and 60 for movies.

In moments of gay abandon, I've cranked it to 62 on movies and large organ works - but that's about it, as any more and I would be inviting a visit from the PC neighbours, or their agents, the police....lol

And at that consistent volume, I've had no issues.

By way of contrast, when I bought the speakers and demoed them in a private after hours demo, the dealer cranked it to 82 on clips of the movie Avatar with no deleterious effects - but then that was in a large showroom, and there's no way I'd listen at that level at home.

So my thoughts are that the speaker is much better protected against overload than any speaker operating in passive mode with a seperate amplifier, but there will inevitably be limits, sooner or later.

Cheers

John.. 😐

Just a question: What is the maximum level on your scale. For me it is 90 at a Beovision 8. Audio levels go from 45 to 60, video levels go from 45 to 65, when I listen at my medium and loud levels.  I don't know how to give a certain number with my Essence. My ears decide what is good for me.

Speaking of levels, at least here in the States, there's no standard for what the level is/should be. What I mean is this. In my grographic area, certain television channels are much louder than other (CBS for example, sounds much louder than PBS) and CBS's dynamic range; the level between commercials and programming is incredibly wide, my wife and I have to pay particular attention that our fingers are on the volume button when watching it. Here's a quick rundown of the volume levels for our BV11/BL9 combination for comfortable listening / ability to hear voices, etc at a level which isn't too soft, but not too jarring

CBS 37-42

ESPN 42-50

PBS 38-45

AppleTV when playing video: 35-38

HomeMedia when playing music from NAS: 31-35 (sometimes even lower)

HomeMedia when playing videos from NAS: 31-45 depending on the source / rip

BeoMusic (Essence w/BL20), I don't know the exact value (I wish it had a numerical indicator on the volume), I can say that the circle is between 1/3 to 1/2 complete, again this is highly dependent on the recording level.

Chris Townsend wrote:

Watching Apple TV i can comfortably watch a movie at 67-75(adverts are very loud over 60!), but on Apple Music nothing above 60. Watching Sky 62-65.

 

 

Bluerays anything up to 90! It seems the signal strength from the 7's internal player is very weak.

Actually the blu-ray movies have much more dynamic range than music content. Modern recordings are generally all heavily compressed to bring the 'average' level up (at the expenses of sound quality of course).

Getting back to the OP's question, I don't think I've ever pushed my 9's to the point where I was afraid they'd go orange. Maybe my ears are too sensitive to loud sounds (or I'm just a coward), that I think it would become very uncomfortable for me well before they'd reach that point.

Thanks guys.

Off to the repair shop (again..)  LOL