Beolab 8 from Bang & Olufsen - Long Term Review + 3 ESSENTIAL things to know before you hear them!

hi I'm Steve from sounds heavenly as you may have noticed here we've got bangan Olson's new bab 8 loudspeakers these have been my everyday music system for the past few weeks so in this video I'm going to give you the full Lowdown on what they are what they capable of the three essential things you need to know to hear them at their best and finally we're going to talk price please come and join [Music] me now firstly I've got to offer a huge thank you to bangan olison for kindly sending out these loan samples in advance of the release date so that I can give you a proper considered review and not only that as you may have noticed they have color match them to my existing bangad Olson system so this is a 1990 BOS system 3500 bang and Olson have conly sent out black aluminium speakers with the natural Grill to match my customade wood cabinet I hope that shows well on the video but in the flesh this is actually a really good color match and if you ever needed confirmation that new and classic bang and Olson blend in perfectly together then look no further over the past few weeks these speakers have been on duty in a variety of positions and situations around the home they've been used in my workshop in the kitchen in the bedroom in the living room they've been used via wired power link with this system they've been used with a bang and Olson television they've been used as rear surround speakers with my home Cinema system and as PC speakers so as a result of all the testing I've carried out I'm going to follow up in the next few weeks with a full Deep dive into connectivity to explain how to use these speakers with absolutely any audio or video product whether that be New or Old b olafson or any other brand of music or AV system in the meantime if you got any questions about using B8 with your audio or video setup please drop me a line at sounds heavenly.com and I'll be happy to help so what's all the fuss about well bab 8 follows on from bang and Olson's previous compact speakers bab 17 and before those bab 3 however they significantly ra the game in terms of Technology as with all of bno speakers over the past three years or so they use their new moart software platform which gives them native support for a huge range of streaming Technologies including Spotify connect dieser tidle AirPlay 2 chomecast Bluetooth 5.3 with Bluetooth low energy and also Ultra wideband technology which we'll come to in detail later in the video as well as that they have wiser which is being know Wireless power link wired power link via an RJ45 socket and a USBC audio input which can either give a stereo analog input or as I mentioned earlier be used directly with a PC and in that case the computer will autoc configure and accept these as the native speakers for the PC now VAR is just over 4 kilos per speaker these feel as if they're heun from solid aluminium despite that they are surprisingly compact they measure from frontal aspect about the same dimensions as an A4 sheet of paper roughly 19 by 29 CM shown here with the standard table Mount this has two positions as I'm using it here here it angles upwards at about 15° or it can be adjusted to mount horizontally there are also options of an adjustable floor stand and a wall bracket with a ceiling mount to follow soon apparently all of those mounting options fit via the same Wishbone adapter on the back of the speaker which simply pinches and unclips so this allows connection to any the stand options now it must be said the fit and finish are absolutely superb as you would expect with bang and olon but even so I think these significantly raise the game compared even to be know's existing compact speakers such as beer sound balance the glass top touch panel is a pleasure to use the finish of the wood grills and the aluminum are exemplary and as with the mounts the grill is easy to remove it simply unclips and it can be changed to a range of wood lamelas or cloth Frets and underneath you see a little more of what makes these speakers tick so bab 8 is a three-way speaker it has a 5 and 1/4 in base driver a 3-in mid-range and an 0.6 in treble driver or Tweeter each fed by own dedicated class D digital amplifier 200 WS for the base and 50 WS each for the mid and treble now this speaker interestingly has wide and narrow sound modes as you will see on the blab 28 it's bigger brother however blab 8 doesn't have any side or rear-facing speaker drivers like blab 28 so how does it give wide mode we'll come into that in detail later on but it's very interesting to see how bang and olivon are quite effectively given a wide dispersion pattern and a Wide Stereo effect using only front-facing speaker drivers if you're correctly positioned equally between the two speakers in a a traditional stereo setup the narrow mode is probably your best option it's a traditional stereo sound and gives you p Point accuracy for the Sound Stage so you can close your eyes and hear exactly where on the stage each musician is positioned however if you're sat with a group of friends along a couch and you want everyone to hear the music at its best the wide mode is really effective at spreading the sound so that everyone hears it at its best you still get stereo Imaging but just with a a little bit of precision lost compared to narrow mode also if you use these behind you as rear surrounds in a your movie setup then the wide mode is incredible and it gives a real sense of immersion at the time of filming bang and olivon had not confirmed the frequency response of the speakers however my own in room testing has given results with base down to round about 29 Hertz which is quite incredible for speakers they small that's a approaching infrasonic levels where you start to feel the air pressure in your chest cavity as well as hearing it directly through your ears so these are not far off the performance of The Big Brother beab 28 at low to medium listening levels basically if you've heard blab 17 their predecessor and you like the sound you I think you're going to love blab 8 they've got broadly similar sound output and performance but the addition of room compensation which if you've not heard it allows the speaker to emit very similar to a submarine sonar tone listen to The Echoes coming back from the room and then adapt their sound accordingly it absolutely transforms the way that the speakers perform and allows them to sound superb even in the most challenging of audio environments as an example I've used these on a kitchen counter underneath overhanging cabinets where normally the sound would become boomy and echoey run the room compensation it's Crystal Clear nice clean tight base again so it absolutely transforms the way that the speakers can be used and makes them far more flexible and usable I mentioned the ultra wideband technology that's a new tech that's enable abled on the latest iPhones um iPhone 11 and above and once that's activated I've not had a chance to test it yet but that will follow in a future video what it does is it allows each speaker to measure the distance apart and also to measure the distance from each speaker to your phone so once the speakers know where they are in the room they know where you are in the room they adjust the timing and the volume of the sound from each speaker so that you get perfect stereo Imaging even if you're sat off to one side of the speakers so that's something we'll cover in a later video so if you like the idea of blab 8 and you're interested in going to hear them for yourself which actually I'd strongly recommend I mentioned there are three things that you need to know to get the best from them that's what we'll cover now firstly nice and simple wherever you're hearing the speakers ask the person who's demonstrating them to let let you have access to the bang and olus app now what this will let you do is run the room compensation and whilst you might assume that's already been done you may find the speakers have just been moved to another position ready for you to hear them so I'd really encourage you to press the button to in the app to run the compensation again it's interesting to hear that tone and see how the speakers change their sound and once that's been done you you know that the speakers are then calibrated for the room and their environment and you can then enjoy the sound at its best now secondly I should mention what I think of as the Dual personality of B's moart speakers it's common to all of the speakers using this software platform but I think it's actually quite uh pronounced with blate and that is that for the first 60% or so of the volume scale they're in what I refer to as audio file mode they give a base depth which is absolutely stunning for their size they give a sweet mid-range Crystal Clear highs and they are a true Hi-Fi speaker go above about 60% on the volume dial and they go into what I think of as party mode now at this sort of high volume you can't expect a small speaker to give 30 HZ and below in base so the speaker backs off the deepest base to avoid damage you still get your regular base coming through the mid-range is is clear and the treble is nice and hard and Punchy so it's perfect for dancing too so it's worth knowing about this twin personality when you're listening to them because if your first thought when you go into a store to hear them is to turn the volume to 100% then you need to be aware that whilst they'll still give great sound they're not giving that really super deep base which is one of their greatest achievements when you bring the volume back down below about 60% then they're transformed that's when they're really at their best obviously there's nothing wrong with winding them up to 70 80 90 100% for a party once in a while safe in the knowledge that the thermal protection and audio changes in the speaker software will prevent them being damaged but if you need in my my suggestion to turn them above about 50 to 60% in everyday use that's where you need to consider that you're taking them out of their best use case that's where they're going into party mode so possibly if you're listening at say 65 70% in Everyday Use that's where you really need bigger speakers personally 40 to 45% is actually loud for me so I'm well within that Hi-Fi listening Zone and they sound incredible but once you're aware of how this works I think you're equipped to make the correct decision on whether these have got the volume that you need now if you want to hear this difference for yourself I'd recommend you have a listen I can't believe I'm saying this I don't recommend this song um but the song to it show this transformation is called Me Maybe by Carly Ray Jepson not my usual choice of music but as it goes from the verse into the first chorus if you're at say 50% volume in that high-fi zone then you'll hear the bass drop an octave and you get that depth that I've never heard in a speaker this small before before however listen to that same track at say 65 70% volume you'll still get the the depth of the the Bas drum kicking as it does from the start but then in the chorus the base won't drop to that subbase level that's where it's protecting the speaker and giving you that party mode at the higher volume so once you've heard that difference hopefully that will help you to understand whether it's the right speaker for you thirdly I mentioned the wide and narrow options which are available to be switched freely between in the BNL app it's really useful to understand what they are and what they do because that's critical really to getting the best from them for your use case as I mentioned narrow mode is the default it's what you would normally have with a regular high-fi stereo setup it gives you pinpoint accuracy for sound between this the stereo sound stage left to right you can hear this really well with a mono drum track in narrow mode it will appear as though the whole drum kit comes from a point exactly in the middle between the two speakers in wide mode it will actually sound as though you've got two drum kits one coming out the left speaker and one coming out the right speaker when you go to a stereo track the narrow mode gives you that exact accuracy the vocalist and the bass will come straight from The Middle all the rest of the instruments will be spread across left to right turn to wide mode now you'll still have the vocalist in the center but not with that same pinpoint accuracy and it will sound as though the rest of the the music is spread from a space that expands Beyond where the speakers are positioned in the room it makes them feel much bigger and much further apart within the room so this is great if you have to place the speakers close together as I mentioned earlier it's great if you could be listening off to one side or if you've got a group of friends with you and it's brilliant if the speakers are behind you because it makes surround sound effects really really immersive in a movie so how on Earth the B do this without any side facing or rear-facing speaker drivers was quite clever really the first thing that happens is they boost what sound Engineers refer to as the presence band which is about 2 and2 khz to 5 khz it's that the sibilance in the spoken voice and it's the the crash of a symbol on drum kit and what that does is that helps your ears locate sound so by boosting those pitches you very slightly change the tone of the sound but also it allows a bit of extra Sound Processing so that it feels as though each Speaker Cabinet is bigger and further apart than it really is if you're sitting off to one side of a traditional stereo speaker setup it tends to feel as though the sound collapses towards the nearest speaker and that's the case if you listen here in narrow mode but over to one side switch to wide mode now and the stereo sound is restored you get that feeling of a stereo spread of sound again so it really is clever and has to be heard to be really understood so on to the issue that I think will cause the most debate in the comments and that is the price now these are not cheap loudspeakers as I would expect from the quality they start at £ 4,398 per pair in the UK with cloth grills and the table stand that's shown here this version as tested would retail in the UK k at 5398 but let me give you a little bit of context that might change your view on that in everyday use up to in room sound pressure levels of about 80 DB which for me is way above regular listening levels these are almost indistinguishable from their 12,750 big brother bab 28 so I would suggest for the ma majority of people who are considering saving up for or aspire to Bab 28 this is probably all the speaker you will ever need at almost a third of the price when you consider the cloth Grill version now I mentioned that these are the successors to beab 17 and before that b Lab 3 so what would those speakers have cost in 2023 if you adjusted for inflation well blab 3 back in 2009 cost 2550 per pair bring that forward on the bank of England's inflation calculator in the UK and you'd be looking at £ 3,869 per pair today however to get anywhere near the capabilities of blab 8 you'd need to add another £849 for B sound core b a separate Music Streamer that gives you a price in 2023 terms for bab 3 of £ 4,718 to make them a match for bab 8 bab 17 costs 3,110 in 2017 so that equates to £ 3,952 today obviously that again doesn't include streaming options so add on the beer sound core and you're looking at 4,801 so both of those speakers in real terms today would be right in the middle middle between the cloth Grill blab 8 price and the Wood Grill price so hopefully that puts the cost in a different perspective but please let me know in the comments what you think so as I mentioned at the start there's a series of videos following up soon including a deep dive into the connectivity to let you use these with absolutely anything but please get in touch in the meantime if you've got any questions about these speakers what they can do and how you can use them with your existing setup you can reach me at sounds heavenly.com and please subscribe to the channel you'll be the first to hear when the next video is ready thank you for watching

Channel: Steve at Sounds Heavenly

Views: 30,411

Keywords: Bang, Olufsen, cables, Beolab, speakers, sounds heavenly, connections, bang & olufsen, Bang and Olufsen

Id: QpEcuBwUD3U

Length: 20min 44sec (1244 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 30 2023