What a great thread this has turned into! Thank you, I'm learning a lot!

Jeff wrote:

Sounds too like your speakers show the old saying, the more DSP and other corrections you do, the more correct it is, the smaller the sweet spot. I guess theoretically you could make it completely perfect but only at a single point in space, ruined by the fact your ears are not at that point but on each side of it. 😐

I suppose that would be just a corollary of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle 😁

This is a great thread. I have at least three #3's in daily use and one #5: Jamo Graphic panel speakers at the summer house connected to a BM5500. Those speakers are on my "for sale" short list, though...

Geoff Martin wrote:

Hi everyone,

Another question to the group.. (Peter if this could be turned into a poll, that would be very nice!)

I'm curious as to what people are using to connect to their loudspeakers. I'm not interested in the sources themselves (i.e. Blu-ray player vs. CD player), but the device that is directly connected to the BeoLab loudspeakers in your setup.

 

1. I have BeoLab 5's connected to a B&O device
2. I have BeoLab 5's connected to a non-B&O device
3. I have another BeoLab loudspeaker connected to a B&O device
4. I have another BeoLab loudspeaker connected to a non-B&O device
5. I have a non-B&O loudspeaker connected to a B&O device

 

It should be possible to answer with more than one of these options, if applicable.

Just to get the ball rolling: my answers at home would be 3 and 5

Thanks for your help!

-geoff

[Please visit the original post to access the poll]

For those who chose #2 or #4 (I fall into one of those categories), I'm interested in why you are using B & O speakers but not B & O electronics.

D

Geoff Martin wrote:

Doonesbury wrote:

Could we have a picture and/or description of the speakers?

 

Login to view image

 

Per loudspeaker:

 

• 1 x link (on axis, flat to 40 kHz - in case you're impressed by that kind of thing)
• 1 x  (5.25") (chosen for its Bl curve)
• 4 x Peerless woofer (10") (same woofer as in BeoLab 9 - times 4)

 

 

 

• each driver in its own sealed cabinet
• each driver with its own DSP chain and amplifier (yes, that makes 12 channels of amplification in my living room)
• total size is about 35 cm x 35 cm x 1.8 m

 

The crossovers are currently at 80 Hz and 1.5 kHz to keep the vocal range in the same driver. (This is why I picked the Scanspeak midwoofer - to be able to push it down to 80 Hz and to not be beaming at 1.5 kHz. The 1.5 kHz crossover was chosen because that's where the horizontal directivity of the midwoofer and the tweeter match.)

Frequency range is <10 Hz to >40 kHz on-axis.

Max SPL is unknown - but loud enough for my 5 year old when he's playing Gangnam Style - so that's probably loud enough.

Cables by Steve. (Thanks Steve!)

Cheers

-geoff

P.S. The story behind the 4x10" woofers is a fun one. I used to have a pair of prototype loudspeakers (left over from a listening experiment done in the research department at B&O in the 1990's) at home which had, on the bottom, 18" woofers in roughly 80 litre cabinets. When we moved into our new house, I replaced these with a pair of small-ish floor standing loudspeakers with dual 5" drivers in a ported cabinet. I turned them on, and my wife's first comment was "Those are okay, but I want the bass back". That's when I started designing my own speakers. I needed a smaller footprint than the 80 litre cabinets, but the same surface area (and a reasonably close maximum excursion) as the old 18" drivers we used to have. So, I settled on four 10" drivers per loudspeaker (which give an equivalent total surface area as a 20" woofer). We got the bass back without having two black up-ended coffins in the living room.

Puncher wrote:

But which studio monitors???

The typical design of a relatively modern studio monitor is to produce a loudspeaker that has

• low distortion
• as-flat-as-possible magnitude response on-axis
• off-axis response hasn't been important in the past, but some of the more serious companies are now paying attention to this. This is less important in a studio, since the traditional way to design a recording studio is to absorb the first reflections
• when you turn them up, they behave as linearly as possible for as long as possible, until you hit a "brick wall" (and the red lights on the front come on)

Of course, things are changing rapidly in that world as well - so this list is more "what's been done for the past 10 years or so" rather than "what's happening today".

As for the actual brand and model - I'm not naming names. :-)

Cheers

-geoff

Geoff Martin wrote:

As for the actual brand and model - I'm not naming names. :-)

Cheers

-geoff

I'm gonna make an educated guess: One of the brands of speakers used, comes from UK and its name starts with a "B" too. 😁

I have seen a picture somewhere on the net that shows B&O speakers in the B&O studio, prototypes and some B... & ... speakers. :-)
But a big reason for NOT buying the british highend speakers anymore: They move production even of the highend stuff to China. But that's another story.

I like your blog/website so much as it is very interesting and fun to read.

Geoff, I admire the work you do for B&O and therefore for us! Thank you for that!

btw: Does B&O invest into cloning you? What do they do when you are 70 years old and they need a new Tonmeister? I guess they will have the same problems in the sound department as they now have in the design department after David Lewis passed away.

Afternoon all,

Very interesting thread and comments

I second the expressions of enthusiasm and respect for Geoff's blog site and for his contributions to not only B&O, but the audio world especially, which of course includes Beoworld

I voted 3, as I have a V1-40 to which is connected a pair of Beolab 9's.

Main audio/critical listening source is an Apple TV connected via HDMI to the V1-40, streaming ALAC files from my ITunes library on my Mac.

Given that it's now open source, I wonder why B&O still doesn't support ALAC? (Apple lossless audio codec)

I'd eventually like to move to an B&O audio device, but one that would support ALAC, as well as FLAC, AIFF, WAVE etc.

Ripping CD discs is pain enough without having to further play around with the likes of Max and cross converting files.

ALAC support in your next audio playback/streaming device please B&O.... :-)

Cheers

John...  :-)

Thank you, I see your point.. 😁  I'm curios to see the how B&O are going to exceed the sound quality of BL5´s in the future. My guesses it that the new "bl5" will play louder with less distortion and have more features like wireless etc. and updated design.

Thank you for a interesting post even if its a bit off topic at the moment. Sorry for that.

Best regards

K

I do not think Geoff was referring to B&*. As they do not build studio monitors, more hifi-oriented speakers. I guess he meant a company from Finland that builds grey/black and now white monitors that is widely spread in studios around the world. But I have no proof for this. =)  

I promise that I'm not talking about NS-10's. (although we also have an old pair of those lying around in a storage room in the basement. Just in case they come back in style as a studio reference). ;-)

Cheers

-geoff