Beolab 6000 speakers

[the_lhc]

Originally Posted by Kumar

Special - which means expensive - cables are a marketing rip off to part you from more money. Any decent thickness copper cable works, all it has to do is move the electrons along. Bass quality can be affected if the speakers are wired out of phase, check that too.

These are active speakers, it's not possible to wire them out of phase.

[JensRasmussen]

Originally Posted by the_lhc

These are active speakers, it's not possible to wire them out of phase.

Actually it is possible if the RCA line signal cables are not ok.

I suspect that Powerlink Cables were used in the BC2300 and different cables used in the Sonos setup

Correct?

Mvh
Jens

[the_lhc]

Originally Posted by JensRasmussen

Actually it is possible if the RCA line signal cables are not ok.

I'd hope that wouldn't happen with decent bought cables, sure if you were making your own up and didn't know what you were doing but...

[N0RM]

Hey guys. Let me shine some light on your discussion on cable quality. As mentioned above, it is indeed quite impossible to make the Beolab 6000 speakers work out of phase, since these are active speakers. So, the RCA cables transport the basic audio, which is only amplified once inside the speakers. And I did not make the RCA cables myself.

Surprisingly maybe, I bought better quality cables yesterday (at 6 Euro per 2.5m cable, so not the 'rip off' ones). Even the guy at the (specialty electronics) store thought that it would not help, but it did! The bass is much better now, but I still have the feeling that it is not optimal. So now I am wondering whether even better RCA cables would again improve the bass...

[buzz]

N0RM,

Experiment with small changes in speaker placement.

[N0RM]

What do you mean? I don't think that placing the speakers somewhere else will change the sound...

[Kumar]

Originally Posted by N0RM

What do you mean? I don't think that placing the speakers somewhere else will change the sound...

It will actually, speaker delivered bass is reinforced by walls/corners, so moving the speakers closer to these ought to make a difference to the bass output.

[buzz]

Originally Posted by N0RM

What do you mean? I don't think that placing the speakers somewhere else will change the sound...

Small movements can result in very dramatic changes in sound -- moving your ear location changes the sound too.

Try the following experiment:

Play a very thumpy rock radio station. For our purposes all we need is a very active, aggressive bass line, we don't care who is playing or if we even like the track. With a pack of Post-it notes in hand, walk close to the walls and mark the spots where the bass seems louder. Keep your ears close to the walls. You will notice four spots where the bass seems even more accentuated. Mark these with a double Post-it.

Now, step back and survey the Post-it locations. !! They are more or less regular. Notice anything about those extra loud points?

Those Post-it locations are known as "peaks" because the bass is louder there. About midway between these peaks are "nodes" where the bass will be minimal. The location and severity of these peaks and nodes depends on the room dimensions. A square or cubic room will have more pronounced peaks and nodes.

As you become more familiar with detecting these locations, you may become aware of similar behavior in three dimensions out in the room.

In any case it turns out that this behavior is "symmetric". By this I mean that a speaker placed at a peak will tend to be more efficient in the bass and less efficient at a node. You can use this as a type of tone control for your room. If you want aggressive bass, move the speaker to a peak.

---

Implied in all of the above is a major point that most audiophiles ignore -- the room is the single most important component in your system. Pouring tens of thousands of dollars into cables, electronics, and speakers without doing anything for the room, is poor use of funds.

[N0RM]

Interesting! However, the problem is not that the bass is not loud enough, but that its sounds as if the bass sounds are distorted. Almost as if the speaker is torn, but I checked that this is not the case. And, as indicated before, the bass distortion has decreased after using better cables.

[buzz]

N0RM,

I'm having trouble imagining what you might be hearing.

The connectors that B&O uses on the BL6000's are subject to corrosion. Make sure that you have a good connection.

Are both speakers similar with respect to the distortion?