I can sympathise though I think the reseller will have sold these based on his understanding of when they were originally bought. In the time frame you mention, there have been no software updates of note - there was 3.00 released in 2008 but this was not designed as an upgrade but rather to go with a different design of PCB. The Beolab 5 is one of the finest speakers money can buy and apart from an early software upgrade that corrected some issues with connections, no significant changes have occurred since.

However you paid for a product that would appear to be not what was advertised and you could return them for a refund on that basis. I think the difference in price would be very little between what you have and what you expected though. Beolab 5s are sought after second hand so I am sure the seller would be happy to take them back as he will no doubt be able to sell them easily.

Taking them back at approx. 2.000$ less than I gave is actually the only thing the company offered.

Not reasonable - if you have been wrongly informed of the age, you have a case. Is this a British company and how long have you had them? You do have certain rights as a consumer but these vary from country to country. You would probably be responsible at least in part for transportation. Buyer's remorse is clearly another issue - companies cannot simply refund if you change your mind. From a performance point of view, I cannot see that a newer pair will be any different, so if you are happy with the sound, I would keep them.

It did take me five month from delivery until I discovered the problem with the age. I wrote the company immediately after that. They didn't respond as described in my first post. When they finally did, they asked me to confirm the age with B&O. I did that and forwarded the B&O statement to the company, but then once again they did not respond.

Now, since I am pretty tired with the situation I made a review of the company at an online review site, and within 2 days they rang me threatening with a lawsuite. ( I did mix up some numbers in the review, but of course I corrected that immediately )

It's now been little over a year since the delivery. The speakers are from Q1 or Q2 2007 and B&O confirmed that the speakers most likely have been used for demonstration or testing prior to the first sale to an employee.

kimchr wrote:

Taking them back at approx. 2.000$ less than I gave is actually the only thing the company offered.

For sure you have a case my friend. You have been deceipted. And since we are a B&O enthusiasts forum, i think it is fair to state us the name of the company in order to make us more careful in future purchases. 

I would imagine the threatened law suit was bluster - though I obviously did not see what you wrote!! If factually accurate, the review would be very unlikely to result in any form of legal redress. I think you are outside any timescale that would allow return now so personally I would live with it. Your 5s should run 2.61a software which is fine. There is a later version but this was introduced to take in account a new volume control IC and is not suitable for your speakers - there is no performance issue here.

I would suspect that you could sell these privately very easily.

Did you pay a fair price for them? Are there any material signs of aging and do you think they sound different from the way they should? Whilst I can understand your disappointment, I am not sure there is likely to be any significant difference between speakers of those age , given that they were not abused. I am not sure speakers wear out that easily. Without recourse to law, I doubt there is much you can do. If it were me I would mark it down to experience and enjoy the speakers.

@ Peter.  Very nicely said.  

would you have not bought them knowing they were 4 years old?  I also think you should just forget about it and just enjoy the speakers because however old they are still one of the best speakers for sale.