Alternative to BeoVision 7-40

monkey_boy · 4 Feb 2011 at 19:39

Hi All,

My father in law has just had a new BeoVision 7-40 installed and is massively underwhelmed. He has 'upgraded' from a BeoVision Avant, so it's not like he's expecting more than he should from the brand. The only reason he upgraded was because his Avant wasn't HD.

What TV should he be looking at as a replacement? No larger than 42" and no more expensive than £5500.

Any help appreciated.

Beansprout · 4 Feb 2011 at 20:16

No more than £5500 :eek:

I struggle at anyone who buys B&O for anything other than looks, because surely by now we all know Philips make them...

Get him down a proper hifi shop. Just don't tell them he has a £5.5k budget for a TV...

monkey_boy · 4 Feb 2011 at 20:46

I'm going to go with him to a HiFi shop over the weekend hopefully, just wondered what is considered to be the best TV for the budget. Is Loewe stuff any good or is he better off sticking with something Pioneer? Just after a nudge in the right direction really.

9designs2 · 4 Feb 2011 at 22:25

What was he expecting to see improved ?.... What viewing distance ? and what source is used, any HD sources ?

PardonTheWait · 4 Feb 2011 at 22:28

I've always felt Bang & Olufsen and Loewe TVs were for people who are just intent on spending a lot of money.. am I right, or am I missing something?

Not a troll question, I'm being serious - why the enormous price tags? Are they that good?

9designs2 · 4 Feb 2011 at 22:34

In the days of CRT the Loewe TV's I saw were stunning. Though I would think that may not be true so much now. Can't go far wrong with a Panasonic.

monkey_boy · 5 Feb 2011 at 09:24

9designs2 said:
What was he expecting to see improved ?.... What viewing distance ? and what source is used, any HD sources ?

Well he was expecting that the image quality of a standard SD image through his Sky HD box would at least equal the CRT but it just doesn't. It seems dull and dark. B&O have said it's a 'feature' of the BV 7, which seems like a cop out tbh. HD images have the extra depth and sharpness you'd expect with the higher res but still no punch in the image at all.

TBH, you 'can't go far wrong' with lots of TVs. You go anywhere and get a 42" TV for a grand and it won't be far wrong I expect, but he's after something a bit more special I think.

Looking at opinions and reviews on the net, the Pioneer plasmas seem to be the best for image quality on a 'normal' tv, but I do think he's after a bit of design with it too. The B&O stuff integrates nicely with everything, it has a DivX capable BluRay player built in that has a light so that you can load discs in the dark. It will pipe the sky image to the other TVs in the house. The remote will control everything from the pan and tilt of the tv to the sky hd box to the lights if you want it to.

9designs2 · 5 Feb 2011 at 11:01

Ahhhhh Sorry so the old TV was a CRT, errrr well sad to say they are better than LCD, certainly on SD material. And as he had top end one I don't see a LCD being it's equal least likely to beat it. On HD yeah maybe.....
For me Plasma has and still is better on the eye than LCD, so I would have gone that route.

Chris1712 · 5 Feb 2011 at 13:06

I'd be hunting down a KRP600 tbh. 42" Is a lot smaller than you think, you'll regret it soon enough. Or how about a Panasonic TH-85VX200E

. Personally I'd spend a grand or so on 50" panny, then the rest on a JVC 350 and black velvet!

mattyg · 5 Feb 2011 at 13:12

I have a KRP500 and a kRP600. The problem is getting hold of them. They are both fantastic. But even the 50 seems small now. Watching TV on the 60 means Blurays dont feel special anymore. But the wife wont go for a projector.

monkey_boy · 5 Feb 2011 at 21:36

Chris1712 said:
I'd be hunting down a KRP600 tbh. 42" Is a lot smaller than you think, you'll regret it soon enough. Or how about a Panasonic TH-85VX200E . Personally I'd spend a grand or so on 50" panny, then the rest on a JVC 350 and black velvet!

The thing is that it's just a living room that he wants a good tv in. Preferably something with a bit of flair in the design so it looks good as furniture as well as wanting exceptional picture quality. I don't think he's after a home cinema experience, just high end quality if that makes sense?

keloulou · 2 Mar 2011 at 21:44

hey monkey boy,

I was about to advise the Loewe compose 55 individual, design wise its a beautifull screen in my opinion maybe the nicest to look at especially considering the tuning options in terms of facia colours and materials. also price would have been in your budget starting at £4,600 for the 55inch and around 3,300 for the 40 inch (keep in mind this is screen only if you want speakers and different buildmaterials you can easily add another £2K )

but as I said I was about to.... I am in the market for a high end TV myself and went to check out the Loewe today. yes the tv looks as good as on the loewe website but the image quality is poor. I also checked out the B&O sets and as well AND am not convinced of the picture quality either.

the problem with manufacturer's such as B&O or Loewe is that the display unit actually comes from a different manufacturer (in Loewe case Sharp) so often you are paying for a tuned up cheaper set. Don't get me wrong build quality, materials and components are of the highest quality but if you start with a poor display this will still give you an average picture.

so my trouble and it may be yours is do I go for a great high end set but accept that picture quality will be weak or do I go for a more traditional with a great picture quality.

I agree with mattyg and Chris 1712 the Kuro's plasma are even today the best sets in the market in terms of image quality as no manufacture has ever matched their performance the trouble is to get a hold of them.

Pioneer stopped doing flat screens about 3 years ago as they were losing a hell of a lot of money. Today it is panasonic who have taken over the old Pioneer team and for the moment the new sets from Panasonic are although not as good as the old Kuros, rated best compared to all competition (including B&O)

Panasonic have last week announced their 2011 sets and the rumor is that they are as good as or even better then the Kuros so I will mostprobbly go for one of these even if they do not have the looks of a B&O or a Loewe.

it might be worth you having a look at the panasonic TX-P50VT30B it is a 3D set but the best from panasonic in terms of image quality excluding the 85 inch at £45K. I am like you and far from being convinced of 3D but it isn't because I have a set capable of displaying 3D that I need to watch 3D. all I am saying is that it is rumored to give the best 2D image quality on the market and that is what I am after. the fact that it is 3d means that if 3D picks up in a big way and I change my mind I don't need to go and change my set.

hope you find what you are looking for

Irish_Tom · 2 Mar 2011 at 22:14

PardonTheWait said:
I've always felt Bang & Olufsen and Loewe TVs were for people who are just intent on spending a lot of money.. am I right, or am I missing something?

Not a troll question, I'm being serious - why the enormous price tags? Are they that good?

It's the design, materials, build quality, user experience and exclusivity that commands the high price tag rather than the best image/sound quality or tech-spec.

It's a bit like buying an Apple computer over a self-build or an Alienware or something. The spec of the Apple computer is going to be lower but as an over-all package it's going to be a 'nicer' experience to interact with.

B&O are just the same; yes we all know it's a Phillips in a fancy frock but it's a cat-walk designer frock! The B&O remote is a dream to use and it can control everything (including your living room lights) which beats having a separate, nasty, plastic, remote for each of your devices with a million buttons you'll never use. B&O's menu interface is well thought out and easy to navigate because they spent more than two seconds thinking about how the user might engage with it and all of their products are well put together with quality materials that won't fall apart after a few years.

It's always going to be a hard sell on a forum such as this because the majority of users on here are audiophiles or videophiles or hardcore overclockers. These people only care about the perfect sound quality or the perfect picture quality or the highest possible spec for their computer. They don't care how they get the perfect sound/picture/clock speed and to suggest that one might sacrifice some of this 'performance' for design or usability is an anathema to them.

You can draw comparisons all day long – A £5,000 Rolex tells the time just as well as a £10 Casio (actually most of my friends with Rolexes have found that they are terrible at keeping time) but it's exclusive, it's made from premium materials and it will last much longer than the Casio.

lucid · 2 Mar 2011 at 22:27

The problem with all TVs is that whatever you buy you're only getting a fraction of the performance. They all benefit massively from professional calibration.

-Ad- · 3 Mar 2011 at 12:05

Panzerbjorn said:
! The B&O remote is a dream to use and it can control everything (including your living room lights) which beats having a separate, nasty, plastic, remote for each of your devices with a million buttons you'll never use. B&O's menu interface is well thought out and easy to navigate because they spent more than two seconds thinking about how the user might engage with it and all of their products are well put together with quality materials that won't fall apart after a few years.

The remote is a pain in the *** to use and damn fiddly for us with decent sized hands. It feels well made but the screen has already chipped on my mates one and there are plenty of scuff marks on it. This is after about 9months of use.

It's always going to be a hard sell on a forum such as this because the majority of users on here are audiophiles or videophiles or hardcore overclockers. These people only care about the perfect sound quality or the perfect picture quality or the highest possible spec for their computer. They don't care how they get the perfect sound/picture/clock speed and to suggest that one might sacrifice some of this 'performance' for design or usability is an anathema to them.

We arn't all blinded by PQ being the only thing, what we don't agree with is spend 5X or more on a set in a fancy frock.

You can draw comparisons all day long – A £5,000 Rolex tells the time just as well as a £10 Casio (actually most of my friends with Rolexes have found that they are terrible at keeping time) but it's exclusive, it's made from premium materials and it will last much longer than the Casio.

Not the greatest comparison as you would say that the casio tells better time and will probably last longer if not maintained (I mean parts replaced etc). ANd we are talking tell the time here with simple electronics in the casio and some fancy mechanics in the rolex, not tvs. But I do see what you meant

Meh just realised the last post is over a month old.

Irish_Tom · 4 Mar 2011 at 08:53

-Ad- said:
The remote is a pain in the *** to use and damn fiddly for us with decent sized hands. It feels well made but the screen has already chipped on my mates one and there are plenty of scuff marks on it. This is after about 9months of use.

I wasn't necessarily blindly defending B&O, I don't think that they have made the transition from CRTs & CDs to flat screens and mp3s particularly well, as seen in both the OP and your comment above.

All of my experience with their products is the older generation: Beolink 1000 remote, BeoCentre 2300, Beolab 6000s and BeoVision 6000. Some of these products were bought in my childhood and they are still going strong to this day.

-Ad- said:
We arn't all blinded by PQ being the only thing, what we don't agree with is spend 5X or more on a set in a fancy frock.

What I was trying to get at is the target market is different. As with my comments about Apple and Rolex, there are people out there who are prepared to spend 5 times as much on an *inferior* product because of things other than Picture quality or sounds quality.

-Ad- said:
Not the greatest comparison as you would say that the casio tells better time and will probably last longer if not maintained (I mean parts replaced etc). And we are talking tell the time here with simple electronics in the casio and some fancy mechanics in the rolex, not tvs. But I do see what you meant

That's sort of why I chose Rolex. Technically it's an inferior product because it's rubbish at keeping time but you pay many times more for it. The design, materials, build quality and exclusivity make it more desirable than the Casio.

Tonker · 29 May 2011 at 22:45

The Rolex comparison is fair but only in as much as they are retailing modified technology that's well over a hundred years old. I have just ordered for £4,000 a 2 year old 7-40 mk 3 that comes with a remote stand, and the Beolab 7.2(800 watt speaker). It also comes with Beosystem 3 built in ie a top of the range AV receiver, and I think amplifier?

Ok it's second hand but if I took all the component parts and tried doing it separately, and I get peoples logic about that, it wouldn't be far off £4,000 anyway! Plus it would look like Joddrel bank. Not a good result when I buy a nice house, get a pretty wife to put nice things in it, to then put some hideous pile of plastic in the corner with nasty wires everywhere.

There are quite a few bits of B&O especially from the 80's which were expensive dressed up tat. But the later 7-40,s and 55 are good "systems" which can now be had for a relative bargain. The plasmas are sourced from Panasonic and the LCDs from Samsung. Phillips used to make the CRT for the Avant. I personally don't have a problem with that. Rolls Royce use a BMW engine in it's cars now. Not everyone's cup of tea, but still a Rolls nonetheless.

What people forget is that B&O are a small company(3 industrial buildings and 2 design centres) in a fishing port called Struer. Sony has a workforce the size if Reading!

csmager · 30 May 2011 at 09:07

Tonker said:
The Rolex comparison is fair but only in as much as they are retailing modified technology that's well over a hundred years old. I have just ordered for £4,000 a 2 year old 7-40 mk 3 that comes with a remote stand, and the Beolab 7.2(800 watt speaker). It also comes with Beosystem 3 built in ie a top of the range AV receiver, and I think amplifier?

How did you get it for £4k? None of the second hand merchants charge much less than 6!

There's no amplifier in the BS3 - all B&O speakers are active.

Tonker · 5 Jun 2011 at 09:30

There is a dealer who has no interest in selling his trade in's at a profit! I bought a Mk3 with Beolab 7.4 at £3950, and got a pair of Beolab 6000's whilst i was at it for £450! I shall go back and get a Beolab 2 for £1050(almost new!)

Ironically he also had a used Beovison 8 for £3500!. There is one for sale at the Islington branch for £2650, and they also have a 2010 Beovision 10-40 for £5500! Its amazing what you can get if you look really hard and are willing to travel 500 miles.