Introduction; Features - Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 90 Technical Sound Manual

Introduction

The BeoLab 90 is a loudspeaker
concept from Bang & Olufsen that
gives the customer an unprecedented
level of control of its acoustic
behaviour and performance. Unlike
almost all other conventional
loudspeakers, the BeoLab 90 can be
altered by the user to behave as if it
were completely di erent loudspeakers
for di erent listening situations.
Imagine that you have a pair of BeoLab
90 loudspeakers, perfectly positioned
in your listening room, with a single
chair in the correct location, as is
shown in Figure 1.1. You sit in this chair
to listen to a recording – to hear
sparkling high frequencies and a tight,
punchy bass that extends to the lowest
audible frequency bands along with
the accurate and precise placement of
the instruments within the space in
front of you (better known as "stereo
imaging").
Figure 1.1: The sound stage presented
by BeoLab 90's for active listening when
sitting in the sweet spot with properly
placed loudspeakers.
Now, imagine that you have the same
loudspeakers in the same positions in
the same room, but you've moved to
the sofa as in Figure 1.2 (or perhaps
you're still in the same chair as before
as in Figure 1.3) and you prefer to hear
music in the background while you
read a book. In this case, the bass
precision and the imaging of the
recording is not important – you just
want a cloud of sound that does not
distract you while you read. Using your
controller you simply switch the
Perceived location of
left loudspeaker
behaviour of the BeoLab 90's to deliver
this experience instead.
Speaker Distance
Compensation
Figure 1.2: The sound stage presented
by BeoLab 90's for passive listening
when not sitting in the sweet spot.
Figure 1.3: The sound stage presented
by BeoLab 90's for passive listening
when sitting in the sweet spot.
Finally, imagine that you invite your
friends for a party or you're just
walking around the room. Imaging is of
no interest to anyone – you want a
loudspeaker that can deliver the same
experience to the entire room at the
same time by sending sound in all
directions simultaneously. Again, with
your controller, you change the BeoLab
90's acoustical behaviour to suit the
occasion.
Speaker Distance
Compensation
Figure 1.4: The sound stage presented
by BeoLab 90's for background music
when the listeners are moving around
the room.
Speaker Distance
Compensation
Perceived location of
left loudspeaker
Perceived location of
left loudspeaker
Perceived location of
left loudspeaker
7
These three scenarios illustrate the
primary listening modes that the
BeoLab 90 can deliver. We'll call the
first one active listening – since your
primary activity is to listen to the
recording. We'll call the second one
passive listening, since, in this case,
listening to music is secondary to
another activity (in our example,
reading) in a stationary listening
position or area. We'll call the third
case background music, which is
similar to passive listening, however,
there is no determined listening
position (either because there are
many listeners, or listeners are moving
around the listening area, or both). In
order to be able to do this, there are
di erent parameters inside the BeoLab
90 that are adjustable. You can choose
to alter each of these parameters
individually according to your
preferences and listening positions –
and then save the settings to a preset
for future use.

1.1 Features

BeoLab 90 gives you the power to
make these changes using a large
number of "handles" – controllers that
let you change the acoustical
behaviour of the loudspeaker. Among
these features, there are three that
stand out:
Beam Width Control
Beam Direction Control
Active Room Compensation
In addition to these, the BeoLab 90 has
a many other parameters that give you
a wide range of customisation
possibilities such as:
Speaker Distance (for
time-alignment at the listening
position)
Speaker Level
Basic Tone Controls
(Bass, Treble, Frequency Tilt,
Sound Enhance)