Beolab 5 - Four Questionable Technologies

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

""The term applied to the use of comb filters to obtain special sound effects."

Is that what you mean by flanging?

Henry

What I mean by flanging is exactly that. In the case of two tape recorders playing the same signal slightly out of time then you will get a "comb filter" frequency response - some frequencies double where the signals reinforce and other frequencies completely cancel. There is a harmonic relationship between the signals that cancel and the signals that reinforce. The sound can be either "full" or "thin" depending on the instrument. True "flanging" as done on the guitar will give a "swirling effect", perhaps this is what Marty expected to hear and did not, --- with true flanging the time delay is varied (not fixed) with a foot pedal and this creates dramatic movements of the sound.

In the case of the Beolab 5, the sound is bouncing off the frizbee on top, it is also posssibly bouncing off the bottom frizbee on the bottom and thirdly it is hitting your ears directly from the dome drivers themselves ( no bounce ). So in essence it is like having three tape recorders all playing exactly the same music with a FIXED time delay between each recorder and the volume levels different (the loudest sound probably comes from the reflected sound bouncing off the underside of the frisbee above the dome driver, the next loudest may be either the direct energy from the driver itself or the sound reflected again off the bottom frizbee after it has already hit the top frizbee) These three signals are identical except they are offset (time delay) with respect to eachother and of course the principal one is much louder than the others. Critically these all radiate into the room with their fixed delay. So your ears will hear all three signals mixed or muddled together (they are much too close in time to separate into "echos"). The time delays are very similar to natural reflections and what I am describing are all well known facts about how audio delay can affect the perception of audio. Notice how Figure 5 - Comb Filter With Signal Level Adjustment bears a slight resemblance to this frequency plot.

In the case of the Beolab 5 the delays (if they exsit) would be of the order of 1/2 to 1.5 millisecs (governed by the distance between the frizbees of around 8 inches and the speed of sound in air). This may affect cymbals, horns, vocals and lead instruments. IMHO, it will likely make the treble sound less harsh or piercing.

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."

I would agree with your friend. I found the sound to be slightly congested/cluttered in upper midrange. Treble sounds were not crystal clear and precise. It made for a softer more agreeable and less revealing sound then I would normally associate with Wilsons or another forward "precise" type speaker. I agree about the timbral nuances and this is perhaps my perceived issue with the lower mid range sounding too "thin" (and this could indeed be room related). However, as Marty pointed out the speaker was, on the whole, very neutral sounding.

Bear in mind that my criticisms are aimed at a $23,000 speaker...on the whole the sound was what most anyone would call wonderful, amazing or awesome (as it darn well should be at this price!!). The bass response, as I have previously stated was particularly impressive.

However, given my taste for transparent sound; take my comments with a good pinch of salt! I want to hear the sound as close as possible to what is on the source...additional colorations, no matter how pleasing, are something I try to avoid. Since you are looking for something that you can live with for twenty years then your judgement is what counts!

Marty and Shardone,
Thanks for the ongoing discussion! It helps educate me before I spend a large amount of money.

The biggest concern with these innovative speakers that you both share is the missing soundstage. I gather you are referring to the lack of the illusion of the musicians laid out properly in space in front of you. I wonder if that flaw is the price one pays for the benefits of the Acoustic Lens technology? This technology allows for a much wider “Sweet Spot” but perhaps the sweet spot we get isn’t as sweet as it would be in a more conventional speaker.

Being new to High End Audio, I can’t say that I’ve developed my skills at detecting the soundstage yet; but it must greatly enhance the sense of “being there.” To help accomplish this, do Audiophiles always try to sit at precisely the right spot when they are doing active listening?

You both also complained about “congestion/compression” and “congested/cluttered in upper midrange”. Please help me understand. I’m guessing that you mean that in parts of the music the differences between instruments might blur, which makes it hard to differentiate or even identify the instruments?

Funny that you should end the last post by writing “I want to hear the sound as close as possible to what is on the source...additional colorations, no matter how pleasing, are something I try to avoid.” I spent a couple hours in the afternoon listening to the B&W 800Ds in a very fine listening room. The words that kept coming to my mind were “natural” and “real”. Perhaps those are the speakers I will buy…

But I remain deeply interested in the Beolab 5s. One variable that has undoubtedly had a big impact on all of our listening experiences was poor listening rooms. It would seem to me that the ideal next step would be to get the Beolab 5s and the B&W800Ds into my listening room at home, preferably at the same time for some extended A:B comparisons.

Is that a reasonable next step?

Design has much merit and is well thought out. My problem with a all digital amped, DSP loudspeaker is time. We all know how well computers age will this loudspeaker be fairly worthless in the future like a old computer or DAC? Will advancements in dig amps and DSP make it primitive in the near future? While folks who bought conventional loudspeaker designs can still upgrade amps etc. Will the digital section hold up as well as the transducers or if it gets a voltage spike is it toast?

Hdomke,

To get a sense of soundstage go to a nearby high end dealer and ask him to demo any speaker that he feels will impress with its soundstage. Most will be able to find a recording and system that will make it very clear what the term means. Ironically, some people (justifiably) point out that you rarely hear this type of spacial illusion at a real performance. Usually, that is quite true. Yet, the quality in a stereo is critical to me. YMMV.

BTW, I can't state with confidence that the Beolab 5 doesn't image (soundstage) well. Few speakers will do so when jammed into corners. Also, the congestion I heard at demo may be due to distortion generated by the speaker as loudish, complex musical passages tax the drivers and force them to misbehave. Or, as I noted, it could have been the set-up or some defect. I was not listening at crushing levels and I found the problem instantly identifiable. I find it hard to believe that neither of the reviews linked to this thread mentioned the problem, so I'm inclined to believe that it was unique to the Beverly Hills set-up.

OTOH, Shadome may have heard a similar problem. It's quite possible that the wide dispersion pattern makes distance from the side walls critical to best results. A speaker which pours so much energy off axis may sound congested due to early side-wall interactions. Shadome, how was the set-up at your demo?

To sum up, I left the demo feeling like I knew very little about the speaker, other than buying this speaker would require an in-home demo and a large listening room. I don't know if B&O would accomodate such a request.

Good Luck,

Marty