Short answer - you be mad and regrett the rest of your life, no further explanation, - Im Danish so I know.
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There has been a post about the best upgrade for old blokes with hearing loss being hearing aides…….
In my experience it’s precisely so.
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My 500 pieces sound wonderful through c. 1995 B&O gear.
Mix it up and enjoy.
Nick
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Yes, but then anyone who regularly frequents this forum and has a large stack of black boxes is somewhere on the spectrum of insanity…
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I may be mad but after 10 days with these speakers, I am pretty much decided on having these to replace the lot which will be sold. Less clutter and more simplicity… More importantly they sound very good…
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I wouldn’t argue about the design of B&O - as we can agree that the design is beautiful. However I am purely talking about the sound quality versus the amount of money you pay……, and I did audition B&O before I was into Naim. When I had to retire my Revox System, we believed that B&O would be our choice based on design and general reputation. But when the audition started it was relatively clear what the weaknesses are from a pure audio perspective. And not that it’s totally ugly, but in the dimension of natural sound and in certain frequency areas just so disappointing.
But if somebody wants it because of the design and hasn’t audio quality at the top of the list, that’s of course their choice.
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Not to throw a spanner in the works but… I’d rather have a Bose Lifestyle system over the B&O for musical enjoyment in a small size any day of the week.
The B&O is designed to be compact but beautiful to look at. The Bose designed to be near invisible. Sound quality-wise, while neither are strictly hifi, I think the Bose is more listenable. It’s always fashionable to knock Bose but they work very well.
I’ve had Bose systems simultaneous with both Linn and Naim/PMC systems. And they never embarrassed themselves. The low end grunt they give may bring back some enjoyment as higher frequency hearing degrades.
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I spent 3 years driving around the UK and listened from everything bargain basement audio to the likes of Naim 500 series, Rega, DCS, Goldmund, Nagra, Pass, CH Precision, D’Agostino……to studio equipment…to artisanal Japanese silver wired tubed stuff like Kondo (costing north of £400,000), that supposedly had magical powers as per the audiophile press, and came to the conclusion that the room and the speaker are the critical ingredients.
I now have a setup that delivers the best of all these worlds with fantastic pinpoint soundstage and imaging, rich tonal colours, phenomenal clarity and I can hear more from albums than ever before. I don’t think about the next piece of kit anymore and the 20 year upgrade itch has evaporated since 2017. Every time, I fire up my speakers, it puts a little smile on face and I am glued. My wife who has zero interest in hifi is smitten (even if she does insist on listening to All Saints form 1990s and Adele and other plink plonk female Jazzy-Pop artists). I have achieved audio nirvana under the Bodhi tree.
Naim are very special, in there ability to service anything ever made (except for some CD players) at reasonable service costs and repair times. Rega are close in this regard and perhaps better VfM. Good sounding, well made, serviceable, good resale…I’ve heard the 500-series many times and it is seriously good but sadly often paired with speakers that don’t do them justice.
What I also learnt during my pilgrimages to various dealers was that we all have different acoustic tastes. For some it’s all about the midrange, some like a woolly muffled sound, some like glassy ear bleeding top-end, some like a clear and explosive but tight bass, some like colouration, some like mono, some like…etc…etc….etc….
There has been a lot of snobbish B&O bashing over the years. Not everything that B&O made was amazing but their recent products stand high and tall amongst the best that the audiophile community can summon.
B&O take both subjective listening and objective testing very seriously. They have one of the biggest anechoic speaker testing facilities in the world. Their lead engineers in the speaker division not only have PhDs in acoustic and electrical engineering but are trained musicians. Their audio car division was sold recently and thrives.
They now retails for £64,000 but I bought a nearly new demo pair for £34,000. I lot of money by any measure but not a lot by Naim standards. Beolab 90s, 50s and 28s are phenomenal room correcting active speakers. The Beolab 90 were a Concorde-like project and doubt that this will ever be repeated again at this expense by a company. They used the finest parts at every link of the audio chain. The clarity, soundstage, tonality and richness is blistering. I have never heard piano or acoustic instruments sound this good. Sorry, I’m getting carried away in my excitement…
I have the Beolab 90s and am beyond happy and content (an before anyone asks, I have never worked for B&O and have no affiliation with the hifi trade).
.
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A photo of your speakers beckons please 
ATB Peter
On YouTube Andrew Robinson recently made a very positive review of the new Beolab 28s. The slim design enables them to be great with imaging/staging but also enables them to disappear audibly. As I understand it this is a trait shared with most good quality slim column speakers - my Piegas do this too.
Like most B & Os they are active speakers but, unlike earlier iterations from years ago, B & O have employed class D technology to produce a lot of power (necessary to get smaller woofers to produce higher SPL) and DSP/Room correction to make the most of the hardware but to also enable the tailoring of the sound to the room and user preferences. I honestly wouldn’t know, if both placed in a perfect room, how the 28 would perform against a good Naim system but I dare say, given the design approach and ability to tailor the sound, it will be easier to get the most out of a 28 based system in comparison with a Naim system with passive speakers.
On a wider note I think most modern ‘HiFi’ audio equipment is good/capable, but user preferences, set-up, system synergy and the room itself play massive parts in the end result. The Beolab 28 system makes dealing with many of these issues easier than with many other alternatives out there.
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Well go and have fun with B&O. But there is reason why that brand is never included in lists of high end audio.
A bit of an aside but which Piegas are you using and with what?
I too suffer from tinnitus
I moved to smaller speakers wilson bensch arc
made me happy
Mike
The speakers are included in Stereophile list, class A . ( Beolab 90). But not the electronics or sources.
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/\ what Roundhead said.
Bedroom system - Piega TS3 in black - great little speakers.
Rear surrounds in AV system - T60 Micro AMTs in silver (silver grille). Lovely speakers - under-utilised in their current role but I swap them with my Tannoys in the main system when I want too. I also have a Piega S4C centre in the same system too.
How are you enjoying yours?
I love the Premium 701s to bits! The overall clarity is superb and the bass is so clear and articulate. There don’t appear to be many Piega users on this forum but that’s hardly surprising as they are hard to buy! I had to contact Piega directly to get some on demo and my order was shipped to my home via Germany!
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Yes, my experience of the Aries G1 is similar. Before purchase, I home demoed it against the ND5XS2 and the Innuos Zen Mini + Zen LPSU. For me, it was no contest - the Auralic winning out clearly for me.
It’s currently doing sterling duty streaming wirelessly (5GHz) over my network from Qobuz, and from my QNAP server holding ripped CDs, SACDs (.dsf files), and Hi-Res downloads. Then via USB to my Chord Qutest and RCA-DIN to my new SN3. Super (IMHO).
Also, the Auralic Lightning server software, and the excellent Lightning DS iOS front end make for a superb control solution. I trialed Roon, but came to the conclusion ‘why bother?’
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