Beolab 3s are great speakers but I must confess that I think they are seriously under utilised as rear speakers. I would be very tempted to put Beolab 4000s at the rear - the advantage of the ALT lens in the Beolab 3 may actually be a disadvantage in the setting you have as the treble will lack vertical dispersion. The point source of the 4000 will allow possibly better radiation if the speakers are above head level.

I am sure your dealer would be happy to let you try both and decide on which is better.

I have 7-2 as center, 9 as front and 4000 as rear, like you, my rear are placed on the side walls (2 meters above floor) with the speaker pointing a little down. 

I think they sound very good, I personally like the sound of the 4000's very much.

Just found a picture of the 4000 as rear speakers in my setup. I still need to get the red cover for them :-)

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MightyQuinn wrote:

Greetings Everyone

My wife and I have talked about getting a B&O system for years, and yesterday we finally pulled the trigger and purchased the following:

Beosystem 3

Beolab 9 (front channels)

Beolab 7.6 (center channel)

Now we need to decide on the rear channels.  Seems like the Beolab 3, 4 and 4000 are the primary contenders.  Our AV room is relatively small and there is no space behind the listening area for speakers.  Instead, the rear channel speakers will be placed on the side walls slightly above head level. My thinking is that the Beolab 3 might be preferable for this situation because it can be aimed so that some of the sound is directed to the back wall to improve surround imaging, but this is merely speculation on my part.

Any opinions?  

Cheers,

TMQ

Hi,

It's pretty normal to see a BL9 / BL3 combo in the listening rooms here in Struer (with various Centre Channel options). This works fine for movies where the surround information is usually fairly uncorrelated with the front channels.

However, if you're doing multichannel music, then you'll need to match your BL9's with more BL9's in the rear... Unfortunately, you'll have to build your own wallbracket for that configuration, though... ;-)

One word of caution: in order to ensure that your configuration is behaving, make sure that you start with correct Speaker Distances and Speaker Levels on the BS3. For day-to-day use, I have a cheap SPL meter that I bought online for this, but the nearly-free app on my phone works almost as well. Use that as a starting point, but don't treat it as religion - if you prefer more (or less) from your surround channels, add spices to taste!

Cheers

-geoff

geoff martin wrote:

One word of caution: in order to ensure that your configuration is behaving, make sure that you start with correct Speaker Distances and Speaker Levels on the BS3. For day-to-day use, I have a cheap SPL meter that I bought online for this, but the nearly-free app on my phone works almost as well. Use that as a starting point, but don't treat it as religion - if you prefer more (or less) from your surround channels, add spices to taste!

Cheers

-geoff

 

Geoff. could you please be more detailed on how to use the SPL meter app. I mean distance from speaker that someone should measure and what could be expected to be measured and be considered as ideal. Thanks in advance

DrDimitris wrote:

Geoff. could you please be more detailed on how to use the SPL meter app. I mean distance from speaker that someone should measure and what could be expected to be measured and be considered as ideal. Thanks in advance

Hi Dimitris,

Give me a couple of days and I'll write up a decent explanation of this - I assume you're specifically thinking of a BeoSystem 3 with a multichannel loudspeaker configuration... Correct?

Cheers

-geoff

geoff martin wrote:

DrDimitris wrote:

Geoff. could you please be more detailed on how to use the SPL meter app. I mean distance from speaker that someone should measure and what could be expected to be measured and be considered as ideal. Thanks in advance

Hi Dimitris,

Give me a couple of days and I'll write up a decent explanation of this - I assume you're specifically thinking of a BeoSystem 3 with a multichannel loudspeaker configuration... Correct?

Cheers

-geoff

Hi Geoff

Looking forward for your explanation, I actually just downloaded an SPL App for my Android, but would also like to know how to do it correct 😕

Thanks.

geoff martin wrote:

DrDimitris wrote:

Geoff. could you please be more detailed on how to use the SPL meter app. I mean distance from speaker that someone should measure and what could be expected to be measured and be considered as ideal. Thanks in advance

Hi Dimitris,

Give me a couple of days and I'll write up a decent explanation of this - I assume you're specifically thinking of a BeoSystem 3 with a multichannel loudspeaker configuration... Correct?

Cheers

-geoff

Yes....and no. 🙂.  I have a BV7-32, with surround module (not BS3 based). I have set the distances and levels on the speaker menu, but i want to check it also with my phone SPL meter to see if i am correct on my sweet spot. My setup is BL7.1 as center, BL2, BL8000's fronts and BL4000's rears which have been also specified on my Beovision's speaker configuration. Thank you again.