In principal I think you can do a setup as you describe.

I´m however unsure how the speakers will sound together.

You can feed the Beolab 14 from an ordinary surround receiver. Beolab 5 you have to feed from a pre amp output on your receiver.

I think its up to the receiver if you actually can mix ordinary output and pre-amp outputs for e.g a Bluray source.

I think its better soundwise (and a lot cheaper) to actually get (passive) speakers from one brand, since you will need quite many for a Atmos setup.

 

Or you can do my dream: surround setup with Beolab 7.4's 😁

Maybe the Beoamp 16 could be used for this?

http://beointegration.com/uploaded/sheets/BeoAmp%2016.pdf

It is intended for multizone setups, but a skilled B&O installer might be able to 'tweak it' for that purpose.

If you can combine it with the BL5's, you wouldn't need additional subwoofers.

Could be an interesting project ;-))

MM

 

Thanks MM - never knew of that one's existence.

OP: have you read Geoff Martin's blog posts on B&O speakers and sound design and philosophy.

I think you would find them highly informative.

http://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/

Some on the forum have 4xBL5s for surround sound and perhaps that would be the backbone of your setup.

And then the remaining speakers should be that member of the B&O speaker family that offers the best counter balance.

Ideally the processor would actually be a B&O BS4 replacement :) but who knows how long we will be waiting for that !

However it would have the smarts of knowing the individual characteristics of all family manners and automatically compensate any given configuration.

leosgonewild wrote:

Or you can do my dream: surround setup with Beolab 7.4's 😁

I have 2x BL7-1 Back and 2x BL7-1 Sides running in mono configuration,- would that do ? 😕

Most impressive to give a friend a pair of BL5s! Amazing.

I would not put to much energy into the atmos thing however. So many speakers.

I think the Beolab 14/Beoplay S8 would be an extremely poor choice for mating with the BL5. Remember that the center channel carries almost 3/4 of the sound of a movie, vocals and centered effects. One 2 inch driver will not handle that well compared with the BL5. If you're using a projector or a large screen TV mounted higher up, something like a BL20 or BL9 would be an ideal center channel, or an older dedicated Beo center.

I'm very envious of your BL5s, especially for that price. An outstanding speaker, but going Beo for your whole surround system will be pricey. Dolby Atmos also requires a lot of speakers, and I'm unsure if it will really succeed or be abandoned for the home market, as 3D has been. Most people won't even do what's needed to setup a proper 5.1 setup let alone Atmos. I see it as primarily a system to try and get people back in theaters, the same way wide screen movies were invented to try and lure people away from watching movies on 4:3 TV sets.

Hope you enjoy the BL5s, they truly are spectacular.

elephant wrote:

OP: have you read Geoff Martin's blog posts on B&O speakers and sound design and philosophy.

.

.

Ideally the processor would actually be a B&O BS4 replacement :) but who knows how long we will be waiting for that !

There are different ways of obtaining an immersive sound experience.

of course you can use the native Dolby/DTS/Auro formats and have these decoded from an adequate receiver/prepro.

However, you won't find much source material - at least not at the moment, and only on discs.

Also setting up a cinema home theater for all immersive formats will lead to several compromises, 

since the layout for the speakers aren't quite the same.

 

I tend to agree with those, who advocate for a proper 5.1 or 7.1 setup with  good B&O components.

This might in most cases be more than sufficient - and certainly easier to realize.

 

Dolby Atmos users e.g. often use the (new) Dolby Surround upmixer 

(See this: http://www.klipsch.com/blog/upmixing-with-dolby-atmos/ )

 

If you want more than 5.1/7.1 and you want to stay with recent B&O components, it might be worth experimenting

with the audio upmixer contained in the video engine of the BSys4-based devices (such as the Avant or the BeoSystem 4 itself).

For inspiration on this see: http://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/2013/12/06/bo-tech-trueimage-upmixing/

 

When and if B&O ever will bring a solution, that has native support for Dolby Atmos, DTS:X etc is imo (very) uncertain!

One thing is for sure - if you start out building an immersive setup with the BL5's, it will become a rather expensive undertaking,

since all other speakers idealy should match these (in some way or another).

However, building a setup with two BL19's and several BL17's could end up very nice ;-)

I wish I had the room (and - well - the money) for something like that ;-))

MM

 

It's the acoustic lense I want. No don't you have the power, but the BL7.4 has a clarity that can't be matched