I spent that first evening listening to the BeoLabs before any room equalization, but there's no reason to dwell on that. First, without EQ, the sound was more a product of my room than was intended. Second, there's no good reason to run a DSP-based system such as the BeoLab 90 without EQ. To do so would be equivalent to never using the top gears of a powerful car. EQ has been included in the speaker to provide the best quality of sound from it; you don't need to add an accessory—and you've paid for it!
Setup, Part 2
The next morning, having spent the previous evening listening to some lovely sounds from the BeoLab 90s, I was visited by B&O's Tonmeister, Geoff Martin, who confirmed that the setup was working properly. His task was then to calibrate the Active Room Compensation, or room EQ, using his PC connected to the Master BeoLab 90. You might think of it room EQ as mere icing on the cake, but sometimes it can make all the difference. I was prepared for a long process involving multiple frequency sweeps picked up at as many as a dozen microphone positions. Instead, Martin made only three measurements: one at the main listening position, one to the right of that, higher, and a bit farther back; and one to the left, lower, and a bit more forward. Martin told me that, with the BeoLab's already controlled Narrow mode of Beam Width Control, there are fewer problematic room interactions that need to be corrected. As was confirmed in graphs he later sent me and by my own before-and-after measurements, the EQ filters applied little or no correction above 1kHz.
Control was via a beautiful B&O remote handset with buttons so tiny that, if I wasn't very careful, I often hit multiple buttons at once. The alternative, the BeoLab 90 iPad app, was easier to work, but with a latency between command and result; ultimately, I preferred the handset.
Listening
Because the BeoLab 90 is a complete audio system requiring only an audio signal from a source component, this review can be considered an almost pure assessment of the product under test—as opposed to an assessment of its interactions with various amplifiers and other supporting components. I set up JRiver Media Center and HQPlayer to output 24/192 PCM via USB or S/PDIF, and paid some attention to the cables and connections. The operational differences among the three options were more significant than the sonic differences. The sounds of the Shunyata S/PDIF cable and the Corning-UpTone-Peachtree USB-S/PDIF linkup were equally satisfying in every way; neither sounded better than the other in terms of clarity or soundstage resolution. The Shunyata was a bit warmer, but I heard that difference only in direct A/B comparisons. Otherwise, my preference changed with my mood and/or the recording played. Both digital links were consistently more transparent in terms of detail and soundstage depth than was the analog input, burdened as the latter was by additional components and redundant conversions. In Wide mode, the BeoLab 90s sounded like very good conventional loudspeakers, with a two-channel sound that was on a par with the best I've heard in this room: well balanced, with powerful, extended bass and wide, deep soundstages. However, when I switched to Narrow mode, it became apparent that the standard stereo presentation of Wide mode—and, indeed, of most other pairs of speakers I've used—was flawed. Narrow mode simply erased a hash of spurious ambience that flanked the central soundstage. That hash exaggerated the width, and contributed to the impression of "audiophile air." Also, in Narrow mode, the stereo image snapped into a new level of precise stability.
In Narrow mode, the BeoLabs delivered what I heard as increased resolution, detail, and tonal honesty, unsullied by the interference of short-latency reflections. Users of dipole speakers, in which the interference of the outputs of the front and rear drivers causes cancellation of lateral dispersion, will have experienced something similar—but not to this degree. From that point on, I used Wide mode mostly to demonstrate to myself and to others just how remarkable the BeoLab 90s could sound in Narrow mode, in which I did all of my critical listening. (For its part, Omni mode is, well, party mode. I'll say no more about that—but I will note that the BeoLab 90's amplifiers are claimed to output 8200W, and that I very quickly gave up trying to test the speakers' dynamic limits.)
I listened to familiar recordings: mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland singing Finzi's "Come Away, Death," accompanied by pianist Sergei Osadchuk (24/192 PCM download from SACD/CD, 2L 2L-064-SACD); mezzo Lorraine Hunt Lieberson singing Handel arias, accompanied by Harry Bicket and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (SACD/CD, Avie AV0030); and Hans Theessink's Call Me (CD, Blue Groove BG-4020). In each case, the singer's voice had a disarming presence and intimacy that reminded me of the Grand Central Station Effect: A friend calls to me across that busy, resonant space, and continues to greet me as we approach each other. At first I can only just pick out his voice from the surrounding noise, but at some point we've drawn near enough to each other that his voice is now distinct from the ambience and is identified as its familiar self. The BeoLabs epitomized this by freeing the solo voices, as well as the supporting ensembles, from the ambience in which they are presented.
Symphonies by Mahler, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich did not faze the BeoLab 90. Right from the beginning of Prokofiev's Symphony 3—I listened to the recording by James Gaffigan and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (SACD/CD, Challenge Classics CC72584)—the composer throws at us massive, brass-led, bass-heavy blocks of sound. Even at staggeringly high SPLs, there was no smearing or loss of instrumental character. In the third movement, the shrieking, slithering strings never devolved into harshness, and the precision of image placement within the soundstage almost forced my eyes to track the invisible sounds as one instrument handed off to the next.
Dynamics seemed both subtle and unconstrained. B.B. King and Eric Clapton's Riding with the King (24/96 DVD-A, Duck/Reprise 47612-9) has real kick in the percussion, as well as from the stars. The BeoLabs seemed to unleash even more dynamic contrast and impact than I'd previously experienced with this disc, whether I played it at normal levels or let it rip. With "Ride Across the River," from Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms: 20th Anniversary Edition (SACD/CD, Vertigo 9 87149 8), there were clarity and delicacy in even the softest sounds.
At one point, John Atkinson brought over a pipe organ recording he'd made in 2014 in Portland, Oregon. The BeoLabs transmitted the physical energy of the biggest pipes via the building structure, despite the reinforced concrete construction. While we were being physically impacted by the bass, the midrange and treble remained unperturbed, and the spatial presentation was clear and stable.
Perhaps my favorite demonstration of all that the BeoLab 90s could do was with La Tarantella: Antidotum Tarantulae, with Christina Pluhar conducting the vocal and instrumental ensemble L'Arpeggiata (SACD/CD, Alpha SA503)—a collection of traditional Italian music intended to accompany the tarantella, the traditional antidote for the bite of a tarantula. The mood ranges from sadness to rage, and the dynamics range accordingly. The album begins gracefully but soon veers into dances of joyful hope and agonizing grief. The BeoLabs were up to it all, revealing the details of the instrumental sounds, the humanity of the voices, and the depths of the emotions.
I have a quibble. While it's impossible to discern at which frequencies the BeoLab 90's various drivers hand off to each other, and the speaker's harmonic integrity was continuous from lowest lows to highest highs, its sound was slightly warm, with rich but tight bass, a smooth midrange, and a mere suggestion of brightness in the very high treble. The BeoLab system is designed to permit the buyer or dealer to tune it to the buyer's room and taste, but at the time of this auditioning, the comprehensive control app was not yet available. As a result, that kind of tweaking was not possible. What I heard was the original factory tuning, and an undefined target curve for the EQ.
Conclusions
Bang & Olufsen's BeoLab 90 succeeds in its design premise, applying DSP and multiple drivers to create an idealized sound source with controlled and variable dispersion. Combining that with its integrated room equalization virtually frees the BeoLab's sound from room constraints. The BeoLab 90 is a tour de force of DSP and acoustical engineering, reaching goals that cannot be achieved by standard, passive designs. B&O has also succeeded in using all that technology to serve the music: the BeoLab 90's sound quality equaled the general performance of any other speaker I've heard, and exceeded them in the resolution and stability of the soundstages the pair of them presented.
On top of that, the gracefulness of its design makes the BeoLab 90 domestically acceptable, despite its size. Its price of $84,990/pair, however, will not be widely acceptable, even though it includes multiple high-quality DACs, power amplifiers, and controls. I look forward to the eventual adaptation of the BeoLab 90's design principles to smaller, more affordable models. For now, I exhort every caring music listener to listen to the BeoLab 90 and hear what is now possible. It's that good.
The next morning, having spent the previous evening listening to some lovely sounds from the BeoLab 90s, I was visited by B&O's Tonmeister, Geoff Martin, who confirmed that the setup was working properly. His task was then to calibrate the Active Room Compensation, or room EQ, using his PC connected to the Master BeoLab 90. You might think of it room EQ as mere icing on the cake, but sometimes it can make all the difference. I was prepared for a long process involving multiple frequency sweeps picked up at as many as a dozen microphone positions. Instead, Martin made only three measurements: one at the main listening position, one to the right of that, higher, and a bit farther back; and one to the left, lower, and a bit more forward. Martin told me that, with the BeoLab's already controlled Narrow mode of Beam Width Control, there are fewer problematic room interactions that need to be corrected. As was confirmed in graphs he later sent me and by my own before-and-after measurements, the EQ filters applied little or no correction above 1kHz.
ListeningBecause the BeoLab 90 is a complete audio system requiring only an audio signal from a source component, this review can be considered an almost pure assessment of the product under test—as opposed to an assessment of its interactions with various amplifiers and other supporting components. I set up JRiver Media Center and HQPlayer to output 24/192 PCM via USB or S/PDIF, and paid some attention to the cables and connections. The operational differences among the three options were more significant than the sonic differences. The sounds of the Shunyata S/PDIF cable and the Corning-UpTone-Peachtree USB-S/PDIF linkup were equally satisfying in every way; neither sounded better than the other in terms of clarity or soundstage resolution. The Shunyata was a bit warmer, but I heard that difference only in direct A/B comparisons. Otherwise, my preference changed with my mood and/or the recording played. Both digital links were consistently more transparent in terms of detail and soundstage depth than was the analog input, burdened as the latter was by additional components and redundant conversions. In Wide mode, the BeoLab 90s sounded like very good conventional loudspeakers, with a two-channel sound that was on a par with the best I've heard in this room: well balanced, with powerful, extended bass and wide, deep soundstages. However, when I switched to Narrow mode, it became apparent that the standard stereo presentation of Wide mode—and, indeed, of most other pairs of speakers I've used—was flawed. Narrow mode simply erased a hash of spurious ambience that flanked the central soundstage. That hash exaggerated the width, and contributed to the impression of "audiophile air." Also, in Narrow mode, the stereo image snapped into a new level of precise stability.
Bang & Olufsen's BeoLab 90 succeeds in its design premise, applying DSP and multiple drivers to create an idealized sound source with controlled and variable dispersion. Combining that with its integrated room equalization virtually frees the BeoLab's sound from room constraints. The BeoLab 90 is a tour de force of DSP and acoustical engineering, reaching goals that cannot be achieved by standard, passive designs. B&O has also succeeded in using all that technology to serve the music: the BeoLab 90's sound quality equaled the general performance of any other speaker I've heard, and exceeded them in the resolution and stability of the soundstages the pair of them presented.
