[Evan]

Glitch wrote:

I think that the Beolab 50 is one of the best styled speakers that B&O has ever made. However, B&O may have done “too good” of a job making them look “not like a speaker”.

This is an interesting take. It is indeed elegantly styled however I think we are starting to split hairs (we is everyone in this thread). What I think is the distinction between all of these speakers and our comments above is the geometry.

50 is truly a unique animal in terms of B&O speaker design. There is not a single, slender, delicate, maybe even striking feature about them. It is a heavy looking speaker. The 5s have aluminum discs from outer space and a strange, slender neck with a step change from its conical base. 18s and 28s are packed with unique details like the acoustic lens, or moving frets and the floating column/sub combo on 28.

I can see how 50 would generate little conversation. I think generally speaking, most average folks expect speakers to be big and heavy. The 50 is big and heavy. It is a speaker.

[Evan]

I have almost no experience listening to BL2500s. If the bookshelf category is a constraint for this project, you could consider BeoLab 4000s, those are indeed very affordable these days. However, not sure how “close” these two speakers are in power and spectral capability.

If the speakers aren’t confined to a bookshelf then I would recommend a floor stander. 8000s are also great value these days.

[Evan]

I am trying hard to think of any working B&O items in my garage haha! Certainly nothing that is in use.

BS2300
Penta amp x2
BG1202
BG4002
BL Penta x2
BV Penta x1

…all busted or in some state of waiting on repairs.

I think the only working units are extra Beo4s! 😀

[Evan]

Hi Bogener,

Indeed, there will be a separate volume for the midrange speakers, just like the original Penta design. Overall, the plan is to utilize the extra volume (there is a lot in the current design) I have to try and do away with the port. I prefer sealed speaker designs personally so that will be the initial direction of the acoustic concept. However, all of this still needs to be verified with some measurements. Basic system resonance and overall response still need to be measured before I can make any concrete decisions. If I end up going back to a ported design, I will definitely lean on my 3D printer for it. Time will tell!

Currently the rest of the cabinet box design is… well…. very box like 😀 The box is intended to made from wood as it is currently modeled below.

Here is the current (but very basic) interior layout of the cabinet. You can see there are a few small vertical pieces that make up the midrange cabinet volume. The horizontal piece is simply there for bracing and stiffness.

 

I really need to get back into this project! Life has been in my way lately, stealing away spare time. Also the furniture rearrangement in the house has disrupted the need for this speaker altogether so there is currently not a strong household demand for this beast.

[Evan]

Tignum wrote:

Working on a 1994 Trek road bike restomod project – but not without some music playing on the BeoLabs! I had two of these for less than 100 euro’s, stripped them and had the cabinets powdercoated. As they are centerchannel speakers I feed them 2xL and 2xR (tweak in the RJ45 wall outlet). They are connected to a BLC that gets the NL from an Airport Express. Happy with my (once) 6000 euro garage soundsystem 🙂

This is awesome! We clearly need to start a garage/mancave/workbench photo thread!

[Evan]

kirin wrote:

Hi Evan, I agree with Johan, that looks very good, as the „stripes“ (do you say something like that in English?) of the BV7‘s back are taken over into your design, really very nice. Is the apple tv getting on in that mount? Hopefully not very much. Edit: btw, congrats also to the BL4000 stands! 🙂

Appreciate the comments, thank you! Mission accomplished – I did want the mount to look like it belonged. Apple TV seems to be just fine in there, the ventilation seems to be working alright. Glad you like the BL4K stands as well 😀

[Evan]

Tignum wrote:

Hi Evan, that looks very natural! There is this thread where a range of ATVs was listed for dimensions and IR sensor location: https://forum.beoworld.org/forums/topic/fitting-a-new-apple-tv-into-a-beoplay-v1/. Maybe useful. Regards, Johan

Hi Johan – thank you! I may release some other designs depending on demand, appreciate the link!

[Evan]

Here it is all done, a nice little weekend project! I plan on offering this for sale, if anyone would like one, please feel free to PM me. Not sure what other Apple TV versions might fit but this is currently designed for ATV 4K Gen 2. Also, if there are other 3D printable / CAD related challenges anyone has been thinking about, would love to hear them.

[Evan]

I bought my MK1 BY7-55 in 2022 for 1250GBP, with high motorized floor stand and a BeoLab 10 and a Beo4 included. The dealer even included a 1 year guarantee. I’m pretty sure, at the time, it was one of the cheapest in the UK. Unbelievable value honestly. The depreciation is staggering!

In US money this is apparently $22,140…?

[Evan]

Lately I’ve been trying to clean up my main AV setup – the BV7 and BL5 system in my living room. First task is to make a home for the ATV so I decided to design [and then print] a mount for it on the uprights of the floor stand.

Here is the design so far. Might change the appearance a bit but currently working on tuning the geometry to fit.

[Evan]

AdamS wrote:

I’ve been inside my Beovox MS150.2s in the last day or two. A few years back, one of the midrange domes started distorting and, on taking it apart, it turned out that the voice coil had become partially detached from the former and was rattling around in the gap. Odd, but a replacement driver from Beoparts (now: Danish Sound Parts) fixed it. Then, about six months ago, I realised the other speaker was making similar noises. I took it apart on Monday and, yes, you’ve guessed it:  Well, another replacement unit is on its way to me, but I was initially taking this personally and wondering what the universe has against my MS150.2s in particular! However, lying in bed last night I had a sudden realisation. When I took the speakers apart to replace the first failed midrange, I noticed that in the past, someone had obviously re-capped the speakers and done a pretty shoddy job of it. Consequently, when I was ordering a Danish Sound Parts capacitor kit for some other B&O speakers, I ordered a kit for these and fitted it last year. During this process, I found that whoever had done the crap job had fitted a 33uF capacitor where there should have been a 3.3uF in the same place in both crossovers. Checking the circuit today, it turns out that this capacitor is in the high pass section of that very unit, so it would have dropped the crossover frequency drastically, and sent bass frequencies to the dome. No wonder the flippin’ coils keep cooking themselves and falling off! Hopefully, it’s not a fix I’ll have to repeat again. Meanwhile the next loudspeaker job awaits, but this isn’t a B&O one – sorry!

Interesting story, Adam. Cool that you were able to find the root cause! Who knew the capacitor values were so important! ;D

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by Dillen.

[Evan]

Hey BeoWorlders,

The final 3D model of the upright table stand for the BeoLab 4000 is now available for you to 3D print. I’ve tuned and tweaked my CAD model to create as accurate a copy as possible but with some notable changes to enable 3D printing.

Special thanks to Dick Andersson “Beomaster” for truly enabling this project by supplying me with an original stand to put my calipers and radius gauges on to make sure the model is as accurate as possible. Thank you!

You can now download the STL file from my website here:
https://www.evanbunner.com/downloads

I’m now printing units for those who have already reached out to me about getting some of these made. They will soon be in your hands! If you would like me to print them for you I would be happy to do so – please just reach out and let me know what you are looking for. I’m US based but can help ship them internationally too.

Enjoy!
Evan

[Evan]

Evan wrote:

Working on the first iteration of a printable BeoLab 4000 upright / angled table stand. This is an eye-balled clone right now and will have the opportunity to fit-test tomorrow!

Forgot to share the results! Pretty good for estimating from photographs. Soon I’ll have a real stand to put the calipers on and make a more precise clone.

[Evan]

Printing more BeoLab 4000 stands this weekend:

Cool timelapse here

[Evan]

Working on the first iteration of a printable BeoLab 4000 upright / angled table stand. This is an eye-balled clone right now and will have the opportunity to fit-test tomorrow!

 

[Evan]

Hahaha! Before I signed in and saw the Futurama reference, you reminded me of the same thing!

[Evan]

Exciting times everyone – I get to update this thread!

The order of the posts isn’t quite right in the new forum format but I am here to declare the final chapter in this long journey.

Long ago in 2021 when I learned my employer would assign me to our Welsh office for one year, I immediately knew this would be the perfect opportunity to acquire my dream setup – a pair of BeoLab 5s. As you can read in earlier posts, this mission of acquiring (and enjoying!) BeoLab 5s was executed swiftly however my assignment has long since ended. So what ended up happening?

Well I returned to America full time. Here are the details.

Back in August(?) of last year I packed away this precious gear as I exited Wales and prepared to relocate back to the US permanently. In the weeks leading up to my departure I needed to build pallets and packing material capable of transporting all of this immense gear back to my current home state of California. Sounds simple but at the time, my only car was a Caterham Seven so transporting lumber and pallets from around town was not an option. I had to be resourceful and modify pallets available at my office place. Luckily this was achieved in the end but they all required great additions in able to securely transport the BeoVision 7-55 and its floor stand. Luckily I still had the original packing for the BeoLab 5s so that wasn’t so hard, but man was this a ton of work. Several long evenings after work and a few weekends were needed to get absolutely everything done but I did it.

After getting over my anxiety of shipping my dream system across the ocean I managed to get a quote and initiate the whole process of getting the items collected and shipped across the pond.

So why am I telling you this now?? Well all of the gear showed up in four great wooden crates yesterday.

A colleague of mine had to come and save the day, there was no way I was getting all of this upstairs on my own!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with the final implementation of my 2008 dream system. Later today I will be testing everything (I had to get my hands on some step-up transformers, but more on that later!).

 

 

 

[Evan]

Hey everyone! Busy weekend here but managed to hustle the printer along to make some progress. 80 hours later, I have two very sturdy woofer baffles ready. These parts need a little bit of clean up but overall they are in great shape.

Looking forward to getting some of this assembled!

[Evan]

Have you listened to a set? I find them to be highly capable. They don’t really need too much extra bass for music in my opinion, however, they do need a boost for use in home theater applications. It isn’t my favorite speaker in the whole world but it does many things extremely well for its price point and size. Its not too large considering its capability and it is very accessible price-wise. Clearly was a high runner back in the day judging by how many I find available second hand these days.

The sad reality is that these are hard to find in sorted condition. They are one of the more easy to find bits of B&O in the US but they have usually lived hard lives and are completely neglected leaving all the maintenance/overhaul work for the second owners. Most likely, the mids will be rotted, the caps will need replacing and the amps (if equipped) have some issues to sort as well. My overhaul activities have revealed that the foam tape that seals the enclosure pieces together will also need replacing. However if all of that work is indeed done already, you would get at least a couple decades out of them without issue.

Would be great to see new transducers and an updated crossover become available for the Penta. As I’ve mentioned in my ongoing Penta project, the drivers are pretty vanilla – nothing special.

That being said, I think there is something special about Penta as a system. It is a speaker worth preserving. I hope B&O shines a light on it but in a more collaborative and novel way than the typical “c” projects so far. There are so many Pentas out there in the world to rescue. We should work (as a community) to develop a second life for them that is approachable for the prospective B&O community AND enthusiasts. Sustainability has been a topic on my mind in recent months, it is an area in the loudspeaker industry that needs a lot of attention and innovation. Perhaps B&O could support a way for people to easily bring these speakers back to life or some kind of cradle-to-cradle product cycle for these instead of developing a fresh version of the speaker that is completely out of reach for most folks.

[Evan]

Here is the baffle sub-assembly design so far. Still need to complete the design of the tweemid baffle and design in the enclosure for the midranges.

[Author]

Posts