Evan
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One thing I didn’t notice until I started the re-cap was this burned resistor.
I suspect this artifact is evidence to their history of being thrashed in a large restaurant but this seemed to be the limit to the damage on the crossover. Anyway, needed to order this resistor from Mouser and do some waiting. So I moved on to the amps themselves while waiting for a pair of these resistors to arrive.
After taking the mids out and taking those to the office (more about that later), I decided to pull out the crossovers and start there. Lets get started with the fun, easy soldering of putting new caps into the crossover.
I quickly ordered all the cap kits from BeoParts and a new set of surrounds from good hifi (I think). Both took a long time to arrive in CA and sadly not soon enough for me to do anything about it. I was flying out to Wales in order to start my next assignment at work.
They stood in the corner of the garage not doing anything for about 3 months.
I finally returned from Wales in November and finally had the chance to sink my teeth into these babies. First things first – lets get the mids out.
Looking forward to seeing/reading some more on this project.
Hey Pepps – I’ll write up a thread on it in a little while (have many more photos). I’m in the home stretch and just might finish it this weekend!
However I will tease one thing… Yesterday I did embark on the re-foaming of the midrange drivers. Mission was successful.
Back on track – what Evan listens to:
Living room in UK: Pair of BL5s with BL10 center channel.
Stateside I have very little B&O in current use as most of it is in storage or being repaired. Currently just two BL4Ks serving music duty in the bedroom and a spare BL4k running as a mono center speaker under my TV. Oh and recently re-acquired my BeoLit 15 for mobile listening.
Glad to see you are still kicking around, Rich! I fondly remember those old (BUT GOLD) threads of yours.
I’m back in the US for a little while so I’m trying to sort out one of my other previous acquisitions, BL Penta MK2. They need the full overhaul so I bought all 3 cap kits and new foam surrounds. These will be the main L/R channels in the master bedroom and the basis of a surround system (eventually!).
I’ve never heard the original BeoSound 1 but this is motivating me to do so. I’ve always loved the antenna and button design.
I would say for B&O newcomers, the actual speakers themselves might be the best. By that I mean something from the BeoVox range so they can connect them up to whatever receiver/amps they have already.
Originally what came to my mind was BeoVox S45.2 but I also agree with the BeoVox RL60.2. Both provide epic playback experience and excellent value when either pair could be had for ~$200 US.
For some reason I thought this function was tucked away in the service menu somewhere. I was pulling my hair out trying to find it as I attempted to get my new-to-me BV7 to play nice with an ATV.
I was about to raise hell with my dealer for not actually assigning the inputs/connections/PUCs etc. as I had asked and I thought they fudged it. Turns out they just did the minimum and only updated the PUC library and called it a day.
Thanks for posting this, Guy! I’m down to one remote, the greatest remote, my precious Beo4.
I’m interested but I’m not sure I can provide a rapid solution.. I just relocated to the Cardiff area but have no wheels! This BV5 would serve as bedroom tv for me.
The Edge is a funky speaker. A lot of purists have trouble liking it for the usual reasons but if you approach it from the perspective of high-end, bauhaus inspired boombox I think it starts to make sense. Clearly not meant to be a reference speaker with its odd (but very innovative!) acoustic concept but definitely more than adequate at providing more-than-loud-enough background tunes for partying and day-to-day life at home.
Glad the active bass port was called out here. This feature is by far one of the most overlooked innovations in the entire industry right now.
Thanks, Tignum! Nothingness is one of my go-to test tracks. Apart from it being an awesome song, the distant thunderstorm effect at the beginning is particularly difficult to render for some speakers so I like to use it in my usual test material.
Ok deviating from main topic now but this is an interesting rabbit hole I’m heading down… I did a few more measurements at my listening position of the ‘RT60’ test (on REW this time instead of Audacity) and indeed my room is pretty live. Roughly 40% more live than prescribed in the REW manual. I made two tests, one at left position and one at right position to mimic the speaker locations (I used a sound source different to the speaker as I couldn’t pipe a stimulus to the system just yet). My mind is properly blown as REW is able to do this with a log-chirp and not a noise decay like the usual test method. Anyway, for the “left” test I averaged 416ms.
Photo upload kept timing out for some reason. Here they are in all their final, installed and calibrated glory.Now that the Royal Mail strike is finally over, I can get on with this project and finally hook up these BeoLabs. My cables from Steve were hung up for 3 days in my local post office if you can believe it!
I was shaking (literally) from the anticipation and I was equal parts nervous and excited to finally kick off my very first BeoLab 5 calibration EVAR.
At any rate, it’s all up and running now and simply mind blowing. I am running them in a tiny apartment so they are effortlessly filling the space with some extreme SPL. Unbelievably effortless sound. One main issue I have is I believe the speakers are too far apart for optimal imaging.
I have deliberately kept myself from reading reviews of the 5s ahead of hooking mine up to keep the sound more of a mystery. Even though I have heard BeoLab 5s before, it’s been a few years since the last time I heard a pair. Impressions so far after a few hours of listening: Surprisingly bright, seems like the tweeter working hard and carrying a lot of the experience relative to the midrange. This was especially noticeable in recordings that are light in the treble section (example: Pinback’s vocalist seems to appear lower down on the speaker). However this could be magnified a bit due to the liveliness of my room. Early (and very informal) RT measurements routinely placed my room in the 400ms range. My seating position is quite close to the rear boundary of the listening area so the bottom octave is coming through loud and clear.
The only reason I left my apartment today was to go retrieve Powerlink cables. I have been sat in front of this system all day rediscovering my music collection and it has been incredible. The BeoLab 5 is an epic machine.
Thank you everyone! It really is a dream come true, never ever did I think this might really happen but here we are. I smile every time I come into the room. They photograph much smaller than in real life but
I grew up in the David Lewis era of B&O and you can definitely tell that is my preferred period of products! The guys at the B&O dealer where I got my BV7 called it an “old” tv!
The strangest thing is that the BV7 was never a favorite of mine but that is changing fast now that I can really appreciate it in person. It is so impressive and I like it more and more every day. The picture is still absolutely stunning!
Impulse acquisition from the weekend. I was watching this pair of PentaLab 2’s on FB Marketplace for over a month but decided to finally go after them since I would be passing through the part of town they were listed in. Really nice pair visually but in need of some TLC, right tweeter is dead and all foams need replacing on the midrange surrounds. The amps seem to be in reasonable working order but need a bit of looking at in the future when time allows.
The new BeoSound Moment is helping me re-discover some of my core, favorite tunes I’ve gathered over the years. Discovered this song ten (or maybe 11!) years ago back in college times. Goes without saying, I highly recommend it.
@Evan Your ‘cubical’ at work looks utterly baffling! A full-on hifi in an office cubical? How can that even be?!?! (Looks for big smiling emoji) A most stunning office set-up all the same, bravo!
Hey Pepps – Thanks! I’m very lucky to work in a place that encourages such things. Not visible in the photos is the 8″ subwoofer hiding under the desk haha! If you ever wondered what a desk looks like at a major audio hardware ODM, this should answer it! My colleagues and I work for Tymphany and there are some mega audio hardware engineers (myself included) that are hard at work here. There are a few of us with complete audio systems at our desks. The main function of the mixer is to share tunes between my nearest colleagues (to and from) depending on who wants to DJ on a given day.
Nice video, Steve. Would be great to hear more technical topics like this one! Speakers built with mid-side processing are really fun to listen to.
Is the center transducer really a coax on the 20? That would be an epic upgrade in case B&O decided not to carry over the whizzer-coned 5″ fella found in the 15 and 17.
Here’s a shot from a BeoLit 15:
Not that this woofer is bad at all – rather the best part of the BeoLit probably. Check out that motor!
Thanks to BeoWorld and PrizeDrawBot, my cubicle at work is looking incredible! Super thankful for the top prize in the prize draw.
Currently it is set up on my desk because I couldn’t resist waiting until I returned home but it may stay, I’m not sure. I have cables from Steve on the way and will be connecting this to my BeoLab 4000s at home or patching it into the mixer here at work later on, TBD.
