Has anyone auditioned the BeoLab 5 speakers?

I heard them at the B&O showroom in Beverly Hills on 3 separate occasions during spring and summer of 2008. Truly terrible every time with audible break-up at modest SPLs. I'm pretty sure that one of these speakers was defective, but 3 auditions over 6 months and store employees never addressed the issue. Cant't dismiss the product, but how can you ever get comfortable with the price tag when they can't arrange a decent demo.

Marty

PS It's always possible that the speakers weren't defective, but I honestly doubt that.

They appear to use the Vifa 3 inch dome midrange (D75MX-31-08). This is the same as is used on some PMC's.

It is a good sounding midrange but it cannot play very loud without compression/distortion.

In the sake of resurrection:

I auditioned the Beolab 5 and I left the store in state of shock, how great these speakers are. Absolutely stunning especially at very high and painful spl they sounded composed and I could not detect much compression & distortion. Absolutely brilliant.

Now, what I don't understand is why so many people are negative about them... I really don't, it doesn't make any sense... After all this is 21st century!! I welcome technology advancement.

I own both, a traditional setup (Audio Research GS, Wilson Puppy) in my weekend home, and Beolab 5's with BeoCenter 2 in my DC apartment. I must say, there's just no comparison ... in an unexpected way.

If the traditional setup is like a Mercedes Benz AMG S65, then the B&O's are an Audi R8. They each offer a great — yet completely different — ownership, listening and 'wow your guests' experience.

IMHO, the B&O's easily keep up with their counterpart in every way.
The biggest difference is in their qualitative sound properties. The traditional setup I describe as "warmer and fulfilling". The B&O's as "accurate and dynamic" and they both have similar presence and staging (Despite the 'acoustic lens', I still position the B&O's in a traditional manner).