I'm not an expert but highly doubt your claims. B&O have always used pretty good drivers for their speakers - Scanspeak, Seas and the like. If you want to have an improvement in sound you should concentrate mass manufactured components like capacitors for example. I'm not sure whether the Beolab 8000 is the ideal candidate for modifications though.

Cheers

And you know that how? Marketing brochures? Advertisements? From people selling the same? I really don't think you have a clue about audio design, and believe me listening to what the ad folks say is a lousy way to gain any knowledge. Are you aware that almost all "rigid" drivers have significantly poorer performance than soft domes and traditional doped paper or plastic cones? They have internal self noise and severe near band breakup modes because no driver is ever rigid at all frequencies and drive levels, and when rigid drivers do breakup they don't have enough self damping to reduce the amplitude of the breakup modes and tend to ring. It takes significantly more effort to coax acceptable sound out of them, but they do have an obvious marketing cache.

But go ahead, let us know your results.

B&O are one of the best companies with respect to speaker engineering I've encountered, they have known about things that matter, like power response, and have designed for it since the 70s. If they truly felt other drivers were superior don't you think that, given the price of their speakers, they'd have gone that route long ago?

Hi Jeff,

thanks for your insightful comment that I can wholeheartedly follow. However, do you think that the same argument can be applied to the use of capacitors and other components of amplifiers and crossovers? Because from what I've heard, improvements are in fact possible when it comes to these electronic components since B&O as a mass manufacturer has used not so high quality stuff in this regard (and of course, components age). What do you think?

Greetings

I think there's a difference between better with respect to caps and such where that means more reliable, better measured specs, and such and between "exotic" devices that tend to get a following that in my opinion is far outside their actual performance differences, if any. This especially goes for the substitution of exotic devices into circuits designed with the specifications of more mundane components in mind. Particularly in speaker crossovers, a lot of people substitute high end film caps that don't have as much insertion loss, which tilts the frequency response by raising the output level of the drivers, usually tweeters. This will be described as "improvements in detail and air" and such, and after a while people will sometimes get tired of the new voicing of the speaker, and instead of saying I made it too bright, will say it's no suddenly revealing of all the deficiencies in my system. So they will go out and  buy some overpriced wire that acts like a low pass filter, or turning down the treble, and claim that cable is superior. Yes, over the years I've gotten a tad cynical about such things. 😎

In a lot of older B&O the component choice was determined by what would fit into the cabinet, in addition to cost, and that led to some unfortunate choices, particularly as far as longevity is concerned. That said, in many cases small ceramic disk caps reek. I am far more familiar with speakers than electronics as far as design goes, having done the former and not really the latter. So, I guess the answer is it depends. I'd make substitutions of higher quality, more reliable devices before jumping on the exotic bandwagon, but in some cases such exchanges obviously can work. I know of a guy who does quite nice restorations of old HK gear and he upgrades the caps and resistors in critical paths to more reliable, modern ones with good sonic results. He isn't a big fan of truly exotic circuit redesign or swapping though.

It's a subject that can stimulate a lot of controversy in audio circles though, gives everyone something to argue about!

Beolab wrote:

 

Has anyone dune this, or can recommend drivers that can fit the speaker holes ?

I was thinking Scanspeak Neodyne speaker drivers, but haven't find any who fit the holes.

 

The speakers holes will be the least of your problems.
Since you work for B&O, I assume you must have access to the drivers T/S parameters. If not, you can probably have them measured.
Keep in mind that the cabinet, filtering, damping, reflecs etc. have all been taken into account when designing the speakers.
If a driver with even a slightly different T/S would have suited the speaker any better, it would have been made and fitted.
Any change in T/S away from the original will worsen the speakers performance.

1 ohm was 1 ohm 30 years ago and it is still 1 ohm today.
The same goes for the T/S parameters.

Martin

I am sure it will sound 'different' 😁

Are you planning to use another amplifier for your mod then?

MM

Dillen wrote:

1 ohm was 1 ohm 30 years ago and it is still 1 ohm today.
The same goes for the T/S parameters.

As you have access to B&O engineering facilities to calibrate your new drivers etc. why not ask the B&O design engineers what drivers they would recommend, surely they are best placed to answer your questions factually??