That ad is an insult to Beolab 5.

No B&O owners would want to swap out their BL5's for those ugly boxes. The BL5 looks and sounds better. 🤒

The owner have probably heard a pair of BL5's after he'd bought those B&W -and realised what a mistake he had made 😂 Too bad for him...

I think it's worth pointing out that if you want sound through those B&W speakers, you also need to purchase an amplifier. B&W recommend a set of quite expensive Classé monoblock amp's, with all the extras you require ...

They're not bad speakers, far from it, they're just not as good as BL5s - something you'll find out once you've tried the BL5s, without your judgment being clouded by the audiophile desire to be on one's knees tweaking and adjusting instead of listening.

The most ugly speakers I've ever seen. The zeppelin ipodspeaker from B&W although is one of the most beautifull in it's class, unfortunatly the price tells us that too....

I have to say that it didn't even cross my mind to compare them to the beolab 5. They're of a complete different order. B&O looks a lot more mature and has a better design. 

I noticed a pair of 802s in the paper last month. Basement finishing I think it was...

Anywhoo...

I read a comment somewhere on the internet where an owner of the 802s was saying how he humored a neighbor with a listen of a pair of BeoLab 5s. He said the bass wasn't tight and so forth, can't remember it all.

DozeRockChicago wrote:

Just wondering what you all think of to why people bash the sound.

Because they're dumb.

Is there better? Sure!

B&O is a pricey, but quality product (on the whole). Their products click with some people, and don't with others.

I can think of several products which I would say sound better than an equivalent B&O product. I can also think of many, many more which sound worse. B&O's audio equipment is by far not the most expensive thing out there, and alot of times, it's as good as or better than the more expensive product. Factor in the build quality, Danish (mostly) labor, in-house production, and superior materials, and there you go...

Danes build the finest audio equipment, I think. Danish craftsmanship seems to be always a superior thing. And these companies, like Bang & Olufsen, usually strive for the most neutral, accurate sound quality possible for a given product and it's associated limitations. B&O just makes unique, attractive aesthetics important too.

"Products which I would say sound better" is probably the key phrase here. Each of us hears differently. What sounds more life-like or pleasing to one is not to the other...

Jon

Jon wrote:

And these companies, like Bang & Olufsen, usually strive for the most neutral, accurate sound quality possible for a given product -

You raise an important point. Many want a heavy bass-boost and use playback that has very little to do with accurate reproduction. B&O has the live sound of acoustic instruments as their benchmark.

Which is why many musicians like what they hear from B&O ...

Coming very late to this discussion...  Hi-Fi World reviewed some older B&O products a few months ago; not the usual 'put-down' but quite positive!

Apart from some Beocom phones back in the days, Beolab 5s got me into B&O (I don't have them anymore because of a lack of space presently).

I got interested in them, because it's really hard to find "domesticated" active speakers (as opposed to "powered" speakers). I seriously can't listen to passive speakers without having a fit with all the distortion present right where you don't want it.

Add to that the nicety of well powered amps feeding the active crossover, and the metal disperser making it possible to not make do with just a single seat in the room where the stereo image is good.

When I had my BL5s I also had my AVI ADM9.1s for nearfield monitoring, and these days, this is what I use for critical and pleasurable listening at home.

Most people see good design and think one can't have both good design and good quality. It is possible, as is evident in their speakers in particular.

Often, I have found, the people most adamant that B&O sucks, are the same people recommending BOSE, NAIM, and/or passive speakers in general. The same people who will swear with their life at stake that they can tell the difference between a proper dimensioned £10/set speaker cable and one costing £3000/meter/channel.

It's these people, subscribing to the pseudo-science of cable manufacturers, passive speaker manufacturer's marketing speech, the people who like the sound of NAIM, not realising that the "NAIM sound" is special, but only because they voice their products, in effect distorting everything that goes through it. These people don't understand the principles with active speaker design and all that entails. They don't even understand electricity.
Now, I'm not saying that one should know anything about all that before choosing B&O, but it seems the people who dislike B&O the most could do with a little education.

A small mediocre 2-way active speaker (powered by big enough amps, say, 100W)  costing, say, £1000 will eradicate any passive speaker the same size no matter which one, and no matter if it's powered by  2000W amps, "biamped" - regardless of cost.

It is of course the crossover that makes the difference. If properly implemented, you have to be a real *** to screw it up, and the difference becomes even more evident if you go to 3-way speakers and compare an active design to a passive.

Sorry if this is too much off on a tangent, but naim  and bose ...

What really drives me up a wall is the arrogance that people have with Bose. From both sales persons and owners. They seem to think Bose is the answer to everything. "Oh, you have Yamaha + JBL? Well I have Bose..." La-Tee-Da! Hype!!

I own some bose stuff so I can say this. 😎