Bang & Olufsen Beovox 5000 Speakers!

[Ibemiked]

Recently picked up a pair of Bang & Olufsen Beovox 5000 Flat panel wall hanging speakers. I wasted no time in getting these. I saw them for sale locally and immediately went to pick them up. As soon as I saw them I was sold on just the looks alone, once I got them home and hooked up I couldn’t of been happier with the sound! I wasn’t expecting a lot of Bass but was pleasantly surprised with what I heard. Bass is good but the overall clarity and quality of these speakers is very good. Very crisp, clear sound. Very small footprint, with the ability to be wall mounted. Some flat panel speakers such as the older Magneplanars are flat but are recommended to be (I believe) 12” from the wall. To me this defeats the purpose of having a flat panel speaker. I’ve seen newer models of the Magneplanars that are sold with “swivel” type mounts that can be adjusted when in use. I personally have never owned Magneplanars but have heard very good thins about them. These B&O’s are only comparable to the MMG’s in the fact they are flat panel speakers, the B&O’s are not ribbon speakers, the B&O’s have 3 drivers. Tweeter, mid & woofer. I have them hooked up to an older Pioneer VSX-9700s receiver (125WPC) it powers them very well. They seem like they could handle more power no problem. I have a subwoofer also and it makes a perfect setup really bringing out the bass. Another good thing about these speakers is unlike a lot of other B&O models it has Nice binding posts, banana jack type. A lot of B&O speakers had built in speaker wires with B&O plugs for termination. To summarize, I love these speakers and couldn’t be happier with them, and to top it off my wife loves them! That’s a 1st! I’ll add additional photos when I get a chance, this is the photo the seller posted.

 

[Nat]

Any driver produces a frontwave and a backwave, and without some method of keeping the two waves apart, the backwave will cancel the frontwave as soon as the two meet. A very large panel which would keep the two apart for a long time will minimize the loss of bass, but large panels are pretty traumatic domestically so they are not commercially viable.
The B&Os are standard dynamic driver/enclosure speakers, just in a very thin box.
Magnepans are planar speakers, and a large part of what sounds right about planar speakers is related to the inevitable resonances of any enclosure, so very few, if any, planar speakers are meant to be in an enclosure. However, absent an enclosure, that backwave is meeting that frontwave, and there goes the bass. So situating the speaker far away from a wall so that the reflected wave only cancels the very lowest frequencies. That is why placement away from walls, and distance from the wall, matters.
When you hang a speaker from the wall, you give up any distance advantage. Hanging a Magnepan from the wall would not be a good idea if you care about any bass at all.
But if the backwave is suppressed or slowed down enough by the enclosure, close proximity to the wall is a very good thing for bass, since the reflection off the wall from the frontwave (which will be more or less out of phase because of time delay) will have a very short delay, so at relatively high frequency. This is why moving a speaker closer to the wall increases low bass. Your B&Os have their bass improved by hanging on the wall, but Magnepans will suffer from the same treatment. This isn't because one way of doing it is better, but because different approaches require different placement.

 

[Ibemiked]

Any driver produces a frontwave and a backwave, and without some method of keeping the two waves apart, the backwave will cancel the frontwave as soon as the two meet. A very large panel which would keep the two apart for a long time will minimize the loss of bass, but large panels are pretty traumatic domestically so they are not commercially viable.
The B&Os are standard dynamic driver/enclosure speakers, just in a very thin box.
Magnepans are planar speakers, and a large part of what sounds right about planar speakers is related to the inevitable resonances of any enclosure, so very few, if any, planar speakers are meant to be in an enclosure. However, absent an enclosure, that backwave is meeting that frontwave, and there goes the bass. So situating the speaker far away from a wall so that the reflected wave only cancels the very lowest frequencies. That is why placement away from walls, and distance from the wall, matters.
When you hang a speaker from the wall, you give up any distance advantage. Hanging a Magnepan from the wall would not be a good idea if you care about any bass at all.
But if the backwave is suppressed or slowed down enough by the enclosure, close proximity to the wall is a very good thing for bass, since the reflection off the wall from the frontwave (which will be more or less out of phase because of time delay) will have a very short delay, so at relatively high frequency. This is why moving a speaker closer to the wall increases low bass. Your B&Os have their bass improved by hanging on the wall, but Magnepans will suffer from the same treatment. This isn't because one way of doing it is better, but because different approaches require different placement.

Thanks for the info, I wasn’t by any means knocking Magnepan speakers, I was just stating that they are flat panels but are not supposed to be hung on the wall. I was actually going to purchase a pair of newer Magnepans. They were new in the box MMG1.2s? Possibly.. I don’t remember the exact model. They were a fair price and i was ready to buy until
I did some research and realized I couldn’t hang them on the wall. Magnepan sells wall hanging mounts for this particular model that swivel out from
The wall. I looked up the price of the stands and it was actually the same price as the speakers. So In the end I passed on them. After researching I learned the magnepans needed ample room from the wall, so even though they are flat they take up a great deal of space. For me that was a deal breaker. They were actually almost exactly the same size as the B&O’s and they were the black model which would of looked great in the living room. In my case I have a growing family and unfortunately we are outgrowing are modest sized home. So I need to keep the footprint as small as possible, especially when it comes to my stereo setups. And yes I do have multiple setups. I’ve learned that most people have a hobby or a “thing” they collect, for me it’s stereo equipment. I have way to many speakers, receivers, amps blah blah blah... just can’t pass
Up a good deal. I keep telling my wife I’ll start selling this and that but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I can live with a basement full of stuff but my wife is losing her patience.. Especially with this “stay at home” order. I’m gonna need to start selling or find a place to store the stuff.. I would hate to pay to store things. I would rather use that money to buy new stuff.. lol. I luckily stumbled upon these B&O’s I didn’t know anything about them until I saw the listing. But I didn’t waste any time buying them. I got a great deal and couldn’t be happier with them, and like I said before my wife actually likes them! That’s a 1st and probably a last.

 

[NH-MAN]

Most older speakers were designed to be close to a wall