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I have a Beogram 8002 with a Soundsmith SMMC1 cartridge and the MMP3 phono preamp and it sounds absolutely wonderful. I’ve read that the Soundsmith preamps are designed for their cartridges. There are a lot of opinions regarding vinyl that it is nowhere as near as good as the digital version, but that is not my experience at all. I guess a lot of it would depend on the quality of the record, cartridge, and preamp. I could listen to vinyl all day and never tire of the sound, but it some work prepping the album for play.
I think the choice of phone preamp depends on how much enjoyment you want to get from your vinyl, and how revealing your system is to be able to hear small differences. As Mark-sf says, pretty much any moving magnet phono preamp should be able to do the job, and there are budget phono preamps that are very good. I’ve had several budget preamps (not the ones listed above) but I don’t remember saying “oh wow!” when I listened to albums with them. The Soundsmith MMP4 is about $800 US, that’s quite an investment, but if you are after the best sound, have a good system, and think you may someday upgrade to one of the other Soundsmith cartridges, that could be a serious contender.
Good luck in your quest!
My first look at this model I was expecting it to be a little cheaper than the base model. I was surprised to see it quite a bit more!
Gold tone with light oak is just a bit too bling bling.
I guess that would depend on the surroundings. My walls are a gold-toned color so the gold and light oak speakers just sort of blend in and doesn’t stick out or look showy at all. If I paint my walls a different color who knows if I would like it as much.
28 September 2023 at 01:38 in reply to: Avant 55 & Beolab 14 – shutdown of Beolab 14 after 30-60 minutes #49357I had the same problem on my Beolab 14. I think my problem was the thermal protection circuit because once I would restart it I would get less time before shutdown until I only got 10 minutes of play time. A long rest would start the cycle over again. I took my u it to a B&O repair shop but he was unable to get the boards to replace. Too bad this isn’t my area of expertise to have a go at it myself!
If it is becoming a standard then maybe I will be able to find a good rca to usb c interconnect cable so I don’t need that dongle.
I love them, but why on earth would you provide an analogue line-in using a USB socket? What next? Mains in via an 8 pin DIN socket?!
Is there an advantage to this that I don’t see? Does USB C need less space than a 3.5mm jack and space is the issue? In order to connect my turntable to the Theatre I need that USB dongle which has caused issues in the past. I need to occasionally “re-seat” the connections in order for it to work properly. I wish I could just plug my phono cable’s 3.5mm jack directly into the Theatre.
Toward the bottom when it compares the Beolab 8 with the 18 and 28, it shows Apple Airplay 2 along with Chromecast built-in.
Personally I would not need the multiroom/included sources etc functionallity. But making two versions (just a speaker and the multiroom version) probably would not be possible saleswise.
For use with just the Theatre I agree, but as long as Mozart doesn’t introduce problems over a speaker only version I will be ok with it.
My initial viewing of the speaker was a little jarring, but it is really growing on me since it can match up quite nicely with the Theatre and Beolab 18’s. It will also be easier to place over the Beolab 17’s. I didn’t think I would be needing it but maybe I do…
My comment earlier was perhaps not clear
I have a tendency to skip over things or they don’t register in my mind completely at first, but thank you for the clarification.
Having Mozart Beolabs looks like it would offer more flexibility in a BV setup, but if they act like regular Beolabs I would be fine with that too.
This feature only applies for 2.0 music, not when they are part of a surround (e.g Theatre) setup. From what i read.
Does this apply to the Beolab 28 also?
I wonder what other Mozart features are not available when used with the Theatre? I think it would be nice to be able to Airplay to my rear Beolab 8 speakers without having to Airplay it to the Theatre and have a speaker group set up and selected for the Beolab 8’s.
Toward the bottom when it compares the Beolab 8 with the 18 and 28, it shows Apple Airplay 2 along with Chromecast built-in.
Interesting, the mention of Airplay and Chromecast has been removed from the speaker comparison chart for Beolab 8.
Although I would probably use the Beolab 8 on table stands, I really like the look of them wall mounted. To me it has an art-deco feel to it.
The Beolab 17’s that I bought in 2015 did not have a stable WiSA connection in my environment. I don’t know if a firmware update would fix it, but I can’t do it myself. I wonder if the Beolab 8 would be more stable for me. I also wonder how the Beolab 8 compares to the 17 sound-wise.
In that case, it would be serious competition for Beosound 2 as a standalone “Beosound-like” speaker.
An advantage of the Beosound 2 over a single (mono) Beolab 8 (if they can be sold separately) is the Beosound 2 has two midranges in a stereo configuration. That can make a difference is some songs.
Price is per pair.
If you look at the price as reported on some of these press release sites and compare them to the B&O site, the price on B&O is doubled.
It appears that some of the press release sites are reporting the price not for the pair but individually.
T3
The Beolab 8 can be yours from £2199/€2499/$2749,
Forbes
The Bang & Olufsen Beolab 8 is available in Silver/Natural Aluminium, Gold Tone or Black Anthracite, combined with speaker covers in oak, light oak, dark oak, or fabric. Prices start from £2,199 / $2,749 / €2,499.
Sorry for the multiple posts, but this topic got me to do some thinking!
What if the somewhat affordable Theatre was a problem for B&O. Like many people who already have B&O speakers and wanted an update to the Beosystem 4, the Theatre was a dream come true, albeit we had to stretch our budget for it quite a bit. While the Theatre is a stand-alone product you really benefit from additional speakers. The current offerings by B&O are expensive probably causing much moaning from people in this budget class. B&O sees a need for smaller satellites but do they want to put out multiple versions to satisfy all budgets? That could be a logistical nightmare.
Maybe the initial price of the Theatre were for the B&O fans that were willing to stretch their budget for it, and 10-11 months later they figured we got ours. Now priced $2000 more they are only attracting people who can easily buy the other speakers in their catalog. I have a 5.1 system, could I upgrade to a 7.1 or 9.1 system??? No!
My “fear” is that the new Beolab speaker will be on the Mozart platform just like the Beolab 28. I purchased the Beolab 18 and 19 with the Theatre over the Beolab 28 because in my mind there is much less to go wrong with them over time. They are just speakers and much less dependent on software and moving parts. The Theatre has Mozart, do the rest of the speakers need it?
Which puts the new satellite’s in a similar category to the Beolab 17’s. I found my old Beolab 17 receipt from November 2015 where I bought them from Abt Electronics because they were a bit cheaper and the total was $5443.91. I very much love my Beolab 17’s and I don’t find any reason to replace them. Would 6-8K be outrageous?
Does the European price include taxes? The US prices don’t include state taxes, and they vary depending on the state.
Edit: Looking at the German website, the price of the gold Beolab 18’s are 8.750 €, which works out to under $9,500 which is lower than the $11.250 US price.
Sorry I initially read it as the European prices were 30% higher, which is not was you wrote. How much of an increase did the 18’s get in Europe?
I may have missed something checking out the new prices but it looks to me that most of the price increases were pretty modest except for their top three products, Beolab 90, Beolab 50, and Beosound Theatre. It looks like the wood elements of many of their products went up by $100 US. In general, I wouldn’t say that B&O are targeting the super wealthy across the board, but they realize which target group is most likely to buy their top 3 products no matter the price and adjusted them accordingly. I probably would pass on the Theatre at today’s price, but I am glad I purchased when I did. There may be other supply chain issues or something else that cause them to want to make less of those.
I very much expect when they do release their new satellite speaker for the Theatre it will be at an accessible price, seeing the Beolab 18’s only went up $250 US, which can be attributed to inflation.
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