Beolab 5 - Four Questionable Technologies

Shadrone, interesting speculation, but you need to listen to the speakers. In theory many, many speakers don't work (metal dome tweeters, full range drivers, ported bass alignments, etc.), but that never stopped manufacturers from making excellent sounding designs with the flawed technology.

I listened to the Beolab 5 today. It was in the local B&O store. They were setup in a special listening room (also set up for 7.1). A bit square in shape and with glass on two sides and with no acoustic treatment - so not an ideal set up - although ceilings were high (good) and as with all B&O decor and industrial design everything was modern but impeccable and tasteful.

The B&O rep was very knowledgeable and clearly understood the physics of the speaker although he said the drivers were made by B&O (however I am not sure of this as IMHO is looks very much like the Vifa 3" Dome Midrange D75MX-41-08 or at least it is indistinguishable from this 3" vifa dome).

I listened to mostly "Brothers in Arms", Dire Straits and a few demo disks as well as some DVD's.

Observations:
Excellent articulate bass (it definitely does not need a sub) and they can play fairly loud cleanly. As I had feared, there is some "flanging" in the upper mid range and treble giving an airy or atmospheric quality to the sound with the imaging not nearly as precise as it is on my home system. Vocalists were still centered but not perfectly tangible so that you could say the singer was there in the room standing between the speakers. As has been reported by others, the sound field is very even in a horizontal plane around the room - you could move around and it sounded much the same, however, there is a significant difference between the seated and the standing presentation (I was sitting 10 feet back with the speakers 8 feet apart near the corners of the small room). You need to be seated at the correct height to enjoy these speakers. I also perceived something missing in the lower mid range. It seems the lower mid is covered by a forward facing 6" driver and somehow (to my ears) there was a dip somewhere between 400 and 1 Khz ; perhaps this 6" driver was not as dispersive as the dome mid or I detected a crossover issue. Overall the sound was similar to Ribbons except that you had serious high quality bass, placement was much easier ( no problem 2 feet from a wall) and that the sweetspot was way larger than you find for ribbons.

Nevertheless for some $23,000, this is an expensive speaker and as far as I am concerned the ATC SCM 100ASL is a much better speaker. Personally I would also prefer similar priced Wilsons over this speaker but I am not keen on "atmospheric"or "airy" sound - I much prefer precision. So that is just my taste.

Shadorne, excellent post! Do you now understand why I referred to it earlier as a high end lifestyle product? It's certainly not cheap, but for the money you get a lot of product (speakers, amps, EQ and digital conversion) in what some consider an attractive package.

Shardone,
Thanks much for your VERY thoughtful observations! If I can summarize to make sure I understand, you are saying that for the Beolab 5 speakers:
1. The Bass was very good.
2. There was some "flanging" in the higher frequencies.
3. There was a lack of precise imaging.
4. There was a very wide area for optimal listening horizontally, but not vertically.
5. You perceived something missing in the lower mid range

I'm a relative newcomer to high-end HiFi and I don't know all the terminology, but I think I understand most of what you said. However, I didn't know what "flanging" is, but I looked it up in Master Handbook of Acoustics by F. Alton Everest. He said "In the early days of multitrack recording experimenters were constantly developing new, different and distinctive sounds. Phasing and flanging were popular words among these experimenters." In his glossary he defines flanging as ""The term applied to the use of comb filters to obtain special sound effects."

Is that what you mean by flanging?

I too went to hear the speaker yesterday. Unlike your listening space, mine (at the B&O store in Kanas City) was in a heavily acoustically treated dedicated listening room. My only observation was that it may have been too "dead" since it was optimized for demonstrating home theater equipment.

I listened for a couple hours and was deeply impressed with the natural and unstrained sound coming from the speakers. I tried listening in many positions in the room, high and low as well as way off to the side and it remained excellent to my novice ears.

With me was an experienced audiophile friend. He has a pair of Wilson Sophia speakers at home. He was not impressed. He described the sound as "analytical" "dry" and "lacking certain timbral nuances." He too shared your opinion about the lack of precise imaging. However I tried as hard as I could to hear it with my eyes closed and could not perceive it. And I tried this with two other speaker systems.

I wonder about the "dip somewhere between 400 and 1 Khz" that you heard. Could that have been a function of the room? The reviews I have read have not commented on that and testing does not reveal that.

My wife and I headed into LA for dinner last night and she wanted to do a bit of shopping in Beverly Hills beforehand. So, prompted by this thread, I arranged an audition at the B&O store on Rodeo Drive. She asked me if I was going to buy something.

"I'm going to listen to a $23K speaker", I replied "There is very little chance that I am buying something" "But", I added "That is not the same as No Chance."

Although a bit skeptical, part of me wanted to be so blown away that this post would end with the cliche "I bought the review pair!"

Unfortunately.......

To be fair, the listening set-up at Beverly Hills B&O is horrible. The speakers were jammed into the corners of a roughly 15 X 22 ish foot room. They were within a foot of the front wall behind them and within inches of the side walls.

Nevertheless, bass response was very good. Octave to octave balance struck me as fairly neutral other than reduced output in the upper bass/lower mids. The speakers are definitely on the lean side for a high end design. This may correlate to Shadome's observation about this range. Definitely lean relative to my Merlin VSMs, which themselves are often cited as "too lean" sounding by some on this forum (I disagree).

I heard no flanging effects which I could identify.

I also heard no semblance of a sound stage (Duke Ellington meets Coleman Hawkins can produce a ridiculously wide stage on a good set-up). Tonally, reproduction of this CD was very, very good. I would only note diminution of impact of the bass line relative to what I'm accustomed to. Sax and piano sounded beatiful and drums had real impact. No problems there. Overall, the missing sounstage was the real disappointment here.

Once I switched to Joan Armatrading's DNA the audition went downhill fast. This track features JA's very distinctive voice over guitar driven accompaniment that gets busier as the song progresses. With the volume up, any congestion/compression becomes quickly evident. And it did. Very evident and wholly unacceptable in the price range (I was quoted $19,950). The same problem occurred with Richard Thompson's "Guns Are The Tongues". After that, I cut the session short, thanked the very nice salesfolk and left.

Now the caveat. It is possible that the distortion was due to:

A) A problem upstream of the speakers.
B) A problem with the left speaker - the issue seemed a bit left speaker centric with both tracks.
C) A sympathetic vibration (rattle) somewhere in the room near the left speaker.

The experience was disappointing, but may (or may not) be more an indictment of B&O Beverly Hills than the Beolab 5. If my experience was typical, getting a good handle on this speaker may be difficult.

Good luck.

Marty