Beolab 5 - Four Questionable Technologies

B&O is not an audiophile directed product. It's a high end lifestyle product. It's aimed at a person who wants high quality sound, great looks and ease of operation and setup. I suspect that the typical B&O buyer enjoys music just as much as any audiophile, but unlike the audiophile they keep the same components for years without any changes.

Hdomke, I've been reading and posting these forums for a number of years and I've come to the conclusion that for many audiophiles swapping equipment frequently is normal and expected behavior. They think of it in terms of "upgrading", but to a large extent I believe they just want to change something for change sake. Nothing particularly right or wrong with that. Music lovers, musicians and others just don't seem to have that constant need to change things.

B&O is nothing like Bose. A better comparison is Meridian. If it were me, I'd take the Beolab over the Wilson any day, but YMMV.

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.

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.

Hdomke, one of the issues that comes up in high end audio is system synergy. A great system functions better than the sum of its components. Speakers like the Beolab greatly simplify the issue. If you were to purchase a speaker like the B&W or Wilson you would have to match them to an appropriate amplifier, preamp, digital converter, interconnects and speaker cable. At the sonic level you're dealing with each component interaction can be critical to the overall system's performance. The Beolab narrows your choices down to a single digital source component.. For most audiophiles this would completely eliminate the Beolab from consideration since part of the fun of being an audiophile is working out the system synergy issues! I would also advise you to look at Audiogon members virtual systems and see if you like the visual effect of having a large amount of audio equipment in your living space. Audiophiles like big hulking speakers and 100lb. amplifiers dominating a room. Is that what you want?

Two people have taken the time to listen to the Beolab and report their findings. In reading their comments you should take into account that both writers favor monitor type speakers which excel at pinpoint imaging. If you go to a concert hall you won't hear pinpoint imaging, but a more diffuse type of sound. Instruments emerge from clearly defined areas, but they are not point sources. I also suggest that you re-read the available reviews of the Beolab in light of the posters' comments. A reviewer typically has a product for weeks if not months in order to evaluate its performance. That gives someone ample time to work out issues that can't be resolved in an hour or two audition.

One other thing to consider is that you could get a "better" speaker than the Beolab and paradoxically end up enjoying it less. There are countless posts about people who comment that their highly resolving systems make their music collections sound "bad". This is partly due to the synergy issue I mentioned earlier, but it also involves listener preference in both sound and music. You may not want the most accurate speaker.

Finally, if you like the Beolab concept you should also consider the Meridian line of active speakers.