Hi,

The Beovox Cona is, apart from a beautiful piece of equipment, a passive speaker from the B&O-range (speakers ending in -vox are passive), which means that it does not have a built-in amplifier. When it comes to connectivity, it works with both B&O and non-B&O-receivers, as long as there is an amplifier between the Cona and the receiver. It cnnects with speaker cables (i.e. not with powerlink).

I guess that some of the more technical guys in here can give you some more details if you want to know the specs. 🙂

The Cona is somewhat unusual for today, where amplified subs tend to dominate due to the presence of an LFE output on most home theater gear, a line level signal.

The Cona is designed to accept speaker level signals, it has no amp, it's a dual voice coil 8 inch woofer in a vented enclosure (a very cool looking enclosure!). You connect your L and R speaker leads to it, then connect speaker wires from it to your L and R speakers. It has a passive crossover that filters the low frequencies to the Cona and sends the higher frequencies to the satellite speakers connected to it. I believe it's setup to use with 4-6 ohm speakers, I don't think the CX series were 8 ohm, so be aware that if you use say 8 ohm speakers the crossover will have a different overlap.

Thanks Milton and Jeff,

Good point on the ohms, hadn't thought of that.  Wonder how much impact that would make -- sounds like it could be significant.

At one time on another thread I was going to try and build a Cona clone, and had info on the xover, but I don't have it right now before me. If I had the values of the xover for low and high pass xover I could compute the effect if I can find my speaker stuff and books. Might not be as large as the typical peaks and valleys in normal room response due to room acoustics though. Worth a try regardless, if it sounds good, so be it!

I use a Cona in exactly the setup outlined by Jeff with a pair of CX 100's as the satellites. It would certainly function with a non B&O amp and could be set-up very easily, I would however recommend CX series speakers be used exclusively in tandem, not only because the combination sounds surprisingly good, but also because the Cona was specifically designed for CX speakers to give them a fuller sound picture (as the CX speakers have a limited low frequency output).

Additionally, its featured in the MOMA (copy/paste link below) and quite collectable. Definitely worth picking up especially if it's for a reasonable price.

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A6943&page_number=1&template_id=1&sort_order=1

Another thing to consider in addition to speaker impedance is efficiency. A satellite with substantially more or less efficiency in dB/watts would not mate properly with the Cona, making the bass balance either too thin or heavy, respectively. But, if you have the Cona and have the speakers, set it up and listen, best way to tell. If it sounds good to your ears that's all good!

Thanks for the input, everyone -- Harold