I believe I bought the last pair of pentas sold in the United States from San Diego in 1998 or 1999. It was a Mark III Penta built-in 1989. Still listen to them almost all the time. Pink Floyd songs so incredible it's like listening to them for the first time. When you hear it through the speakers connected through B&O cables into the receiver..
Really enjoyed this video. I’ve got a pair of pentas that need repair, and they have been sitting in the corners of my studio silently intimidating me, but after watching this I feel a bit more equipped to tackle the challenge of repair. Good tip on turning them into unpowered Pentas. That will be my backup plan if I can’t get the amp working again.
When I moved from San Diego with my pentas back to Connecticut then to Massachusetts I just stood them up and wrap them with blankets and made sure they were ratcheted to the body of the moving truck. The one trip from San Diego I had my own cargo cutaway van that I could easily stand these things up inside. Thankfully all the shocks from the roadway didn't do any damage to them on the long trip.. but with all the crap I was carrying it was pretty loaded down and was pretty soft of a ride.
Hi again. Congrats on the Pentas, they look wonderful despite the unfortunate damage during transit. I would love a pair myself to go with my BC9500 but have neither the room or finances at this time. Maybe you could post an update once the repairs are completed. Thanks. Enjoy the Pentas.
@@chrisbaker121924 he liked B&O but didn't own any... I managed to find him a nice set of Penta 2's for around £150 and he's smitten now. They are connected to his electric piano and they sound really nice :) Even better now the mids are refoamed!
Hi! I recently replaced the foams rings of the midrange on my mk2. The volume of the speaker elements is kinda low, mostly the top one. Do you know if they are supposed to sound like that? I also noticed that the display on one of the Penta flashes and turns quickly off when I turn my beosystem on. The pentas are parallel connected throughout my beomaster 6500.
Yes I have largely a similar experience to you, I can hardly tell they work… until I unplug them and then I can really tell they’re not plugged in. Since there are four of them I think individually they’re not doing a lot but combined they make an impact. To be honest the mid ranges on these are not the best speakers in the world. I think they were even used in some car door applications but since they’re not working that hard (the woofers and the tweeters are generally doing most the heavy lifting as far as I can tell). Then they get away with it. The signals can be a bit funny on mine sometimes too. For example if I turn my system on and turn the pentas on after the CD starts playing it won’t show the displays until some new data comes through. The signal is sent once and then it holds it until a new signal is sent.
The reason the mid's don't sound like they are doing much is because the inner two drivers and outer two drivers sound output are 180 degrees out of phase with each other. This is achieved on the midrange cross over circuitry (Board 15). They appear to cancelled each other out but when you disconnect them you will hear the difference. Its also very important they are wired correctly after maintenance like a re-foam. Its also best to use replacement foam rings over rubber because the rubber is more heavy an makes the speaker possibly harder to drive. The originals were foam so why change the spec.
Great video! Do you like them more or less than the ms150? I have a set of ms150.2 driven with a bm6000, but am keen on a set of Pentas. I have never heard them though, cheers
I can’t lie. I love the MS150s. You might know but the M in M/MS range speakers stands for “Monitor” as their aimed to be that kind of quality. Paired with a Beomaster 6000 probably about as the sweet sounding set you can get from B&O. The MS150s as I’m sure you know are on the audiophile spectrum of speakers, they’re accurate across all the spectrum, very flat bass response. Genuine melodic sounding sub bass, sweet trebles. They’re almost so good that you stop listening to music for the song writing and get frustrated when you hear a song you like with a mix that isn’t as good as it could be… sometimes spoiling some of your favourite songs and forcing you to find songs based on their mix and tonality. Pentas are kinda the opposite, they don’t have much below say 40/50Hz, they’re relaxing to listen to and are very good at making fairly meh mixes sound full and rich. They sound awesome for rock music, better than the MS150s and sound better at low volumes than MS150s. But pentas don’t show ever show off the potential of really well mixed/mastered music as well as MS150s. Pentas are also better party speakers as parts are available whereas you’ll never find a sub for an MS150. Pentas sound more forgiving across the room from weird angles, they just fill the room with sound and it doesn’t really matter where in the room you’re sitting. If you buy pentas you’ll not want to get rid of your MS150.2s I guarantee you. They’re both great speakers but in very different ways. I would never get rid of my MS150s as I know how difficult they are to locate. I’m looking forward to seeing if repair of the midranges improves its detail and treble response.
Thanks for the insights. I’ve actually thought there was something off on the system because of a bad mix, then put on one I liked and realised all was ok! The ms150s definitely come to life at around 25/30 volume too! They are rare as hens teeth in Australia - my set had the subs replaced but I was lucky enough to find the correct ones from a guy in the USA. All the best with the repairs!
Bonjour, j ai récupéré les Pentas de mon père dont une est sous tension ( témoin rouge ) mais le son ne sort pas. J ai l ensemble 6500 derrière avec le Master commande panel 6500. J ai regardé vos vidéos très intéressantes mais rien sur la panne que je rencontre, auriez vous un conseillé pour détecter la panne ? Merci d avance.
I would imagine the problem is within your crossover. It can definitely be fixed! I would check for any dry joints in the crossover or loose connections.
That’s an absolute steal! Great find! The door could be a couple of easy fixes… dirt on the tracks (build up of dust etc) they should be clean but not lubricated… or a slipping rubber belt. Careful taking the doors apart because refitting the strings takes about 16 hands. I made that mistake on a 9500 and it took me hours of fiddling with the help of my gf holding parts of it, a complete nightmare.
@@chrisbaker121924 I couldn't believe it once I actually handed the cash over and had the speakers in my car.... Oh boy were they heavy haha... I'll do my due diligence, but honestly I might just stick with just an aux cord
@@chrisbaker121924 They bought Penta 3's and want to connect it with a Marantz sa 15s1, and they're asking what cables are needed. That's as far as my crappy German goes! I'm guessing just regular speaker cable? QUICK EDIT: Seems like that amp has RCA speaker outputs? That's new for me... Are there RCA to single wire plugs? No wonder they're confused about it.
@@AAgunner that’s an amp so imo the best thing to do is connect it to the terminals inside the tower rather than into the amp, effectively using them as beovox pentas.
There's a huge difference in Penta sound and response using a speaker cable next to their data cable. And it must be connected to a bang & Olufsen receiver.
Yes if you want data to work it must be connected to a B&O receiver of similar era Not sure what you mean by the speaker cable being next to the data cable. They’re all sent down one 8 core cable.
@@chrisbaker121924 my Panthers have the 8:10 and then an option to do speakers which is a 3 or 4 pin the nice thing about the eight-pin cable is you can hook one speaker to the other. Opposed to having them both hooked up to the receiver. Absolutely love these speakers.. but I am having a little bit of an issue with the data. I have to turn the volume way up in order to get the speakers to come on and now it doesn't work at all. So I'm running the speaker cables positive negative from the back of the 6500 receiver to the speakers. I also have a 5500 receiver and CD player. And the remote that goes to that the volume wheel doesn't work. So I usually use remote for the 9000 CD changer. Something I dream of..
Yeah. You could in theory just connect them to a mobile phone on phono to minijack. Though these pentas work best with other 80s/90s B&O. So a beocenter 8500/9500, a Beomaster 5500/6500/7000 or beocenter 2300/3200 type stuff. Then you get the cool displays lighting up. Anything with a powerlink connector basically. Although penta 1s only have a speaker link and work with beocenter 9000 or Beomaster 5000 too.
I just picked these up on a steal, only problem is once i got home. I have this orange light come on the right speaker. I got it to work but then shortly it went to orange, any way to diagnose and fix this problem? I’m using the line input Would it just be worth to bypass the amps all together and just use a separate amplifier?
I had similar issues with mine turning on off etc… was a dry joint. It’s a bit risky so do this at your own risk. I took the amp apart and pressed on the boards with the power on with something wooden like the end of a wooden spoon etc and eventually you’ll find the thing that causes the fault to come on/off. To be honest tho the amps at the bottom of a penta aren’t my favourite things in the world and a decent amp will out perform the amps in pentas. (Anything will be compatible but 50-100watts is a good ish number to get them going. It’s easy to bypass them.. if you remove the amps from the bottom there are two tabs that you can just directly connect to. Of course you’d lose your display functions though unless you wired through the data connection from a compatible 80s-00s Beomaster/center. Then just stick the amps in a box in the loft and it’s all reversible.
These things get so loud you'll lose your mind.. standing too close to them the further you get away from them the better they sound. And they can even drown out a phone call on volume 2 its lowest volume and I think it tops off at 50 or 60. Anything around 50 is where you start losing your mind..
Are secondhand mk1 Penta's (6602) worth buying. They are to go with my beocenter 9300. I have noticed they aren't powerlink like mk2 or mk3 penta's. Are they still a good speaker?
They’re very similar speakers. Powerlink cables are fairly easy to get (you need fully wired ones so be careful buying them)…. Speaker link cables are tricky to buy. Still possible to connect to the terminals but you’ll have no display function that way if that concerns you.
I believe I bought the last pair of pentas sold in the United States from San Diego in 1998 or 1999. It was a Mark III Penta built-in 1989. Still listen to them almost all the time. Pink Floyd songs so incredible it's like listening to them for the first time. When you hear it through the speakers connected through B&O cables into the receiver..
Really enjoyed this video. I’ve got a pair of pentas that need repair, and they have been sitting in the corners of my studio silently intimidating me, but after watching this I feel a bit more equipped to tackle the challenge of repair. Good tip on turning them into unpowered Pentas. That will be my backup plan if I can’t get the amp working again.
Thankyou :)!
Good luck and get them pentas back up and running :)
When I moved from San Diego with my pentas back to Connecticut then to Massachusetts I just stood them up and wrap them with blankets and made sure they were ratcheted to the body of the moving truck. The one trip from San Diego I had my own cargo cutaway van that I could easily stand these things up inside. Thankfully all the shocks from the roadway didn't do any damage to them on the long trip.. but with all the crap I was carrying it was pretty loaded down and was pretty soft of a ride.
Hi again. Congrats on the Pentas, they look wonderful despite the unfortunate damage during transit. I would love a pair myself to go with my BC9500 but have neither the room or finances at this time. Maybe you could post an update once the repairs are completed. Thanks. Enjoy the Pentas.
Got some glue on the way :) ! I wonder if it will improve the treble response.
Nice video Chris! Looking forward to seeing you tackle those mid range drivers :)
Working my way up to the repetitiveness of doing 8 of them without going totally insane. 🤣🤔
@@chrisbaker121924 It is an arduous job for sure!! I did a set for Carla's dad a couple of weeks ago.... Zzzzzz!
@@Auto_Funk did you get him into these things or was he already an addict 🤣?
@@chrisbaker121924 he liked B&O but didn't own any... I managed to find him a nice set of Penta 2's for around £150 and he's smitten now. They are connected to his electric piano and they sound really nice :) Even better now the mids are refoamed!
i have 4 Beovox Penta and use em for front and back :D
@@svinsted4438 wow you must be hard of hearing now 😅 cool setup!
Good evening, my amplifier was damaged... What other amplifier can I adapt or connect to it?
Hi!
I recently replaced the foams rings of the midrange on my mk2. The volume of the speaker elements is kinda low, mostly the top one. Do you know if they are supposed to sound like that?
I also noticed that the display on one of the Penta flashes and turns quickly off when I turn my beosystem on. The pentas are parallel connected throughout my beomaster 6500.
Yes I have largely a similar experience to you, I can hardly tell they work… until I unplug them and then I can really tell they’re not plugged in. Since there are four of them I think individually they’re not doing a lot but combined they make an impact. To be honest the mid ranges on these are not the best speakers in the world. I think they were even used in some car door applications but since they’re not working that hard (the woofers and the tweeters are generally doing most the heavy lifting as far as I can tell). Then they get away with it.
The signals can be a bit funny on mine sometimes too. For example if I turn my system on and turn the pentas on after the CD starts playing it won’t show the displays until some new data comes through. The signal is sent once and then it holds it until a new signal is sent.
The reason the mid's don't sound like they are doing much is because the inner two drivers and outer two drivers sound output are 180 degrees out of phase with each other. This is achieved on the midrange cross over circuitry (Board 15). They appear to cancelled each other out but when you disconnect them you will hear the difference. Its also very important they are wired correctly after maintenance like a re-foam. Its also best to use replacement foam rings over rubber because the rubber is more heavy an makes the speaker possibly harder to drive. The originals were foam so why change the spec.
Thank you so much
Great video! Do you like them more or less than the ms150? I have a set of ms150.2 driven with a bm6000, but am keen on a set of Pentas. I have never heard them though, cheers
I can’t lie. I love the MS150s. You might know but the M in M/MS range speakers stands for “Monitor” as their aimed to be that kind of quality. Paired with a Beomaster 6000 probably about as the sweet sounding set you can get from B&O. The MS150s as I’m sure you know are on the audiophile spectrum of speakers, they’re accurate across all the spectrum, very flat bass response. Genuine melodic sounding sub bass, sweet trebles.
They’re almost so good that you stop listening to music for the song writing and get frustrated when you hear a song you like with a mix that isn’t as good as it could be… sometimes spoiling some of your favourite songs and forcing you to find songs based on their mix and tonality.
Pentas are kinda the opposite, they don’t have much below say 40/50Hz, they’re relaxing to listen to and are very good at making fairly meh mixes sound full and rich. They sound awesome for rock music, better than the MS150s and sound better at low volumes than MS150s. But pentas don’t show ever show off the potential of really well mixed/mastered music as well as MS150s.
Pentas are also better party speakers as parts are available whereas you’ll never find a sub for an MS150.
Pentas sound more forgiving across the room from weird angles, they just fill the room with sound and it doesn’t really matter where in the room you’re sitting.
If you buy pentas you’ll not want to get rid of your MS150.2s I guarantee you. They’re both great speakers but in very different ways. I would never get rid of my MS150s as I know how difficult they are to locate.
I’m looking forward to seeing if repair of the midranges improves its detail and treble response.
Thanks for the insights. I’ve actually thought there was something off on the system because of a bad mix, then put on one I liked and realised all was ok! The ms150s definitely come to life at around 25/30 volume too! They are rare as hens teeth in Australia - my set had the subs replaced but I was lucky enough to find the correct ones from a guy in the USA.
All the best with the repairs!
Bonjour, j ai récupéré les Pentas de mon père dont une est sous tension ( témoin rouge ) mais le son ne sort pas. J ai l ensemble 6500 derrière avec le Master commande panel 6500. J ai regardé vos vidéos très intéressantes mais rien sur la panne que je rencontre, auriez vous un conseillé pour détecter la panne ? Merci d avance.
désolé je ne parle pas français et ça ne me laisse pas copier le texte sur mon téléphone
@@chrisbaker121924 I found the problem thank you for answering
@@overblood6813 jai le meme problem ..pas de son emis....veuiller me guider stp
bonjour comment tu as repare ton penta...jai un pair avec pas de son
Hi mate I have lost all base on my left side Penta can it be fixed please? They are the passive speakers
I would imagine the problem is within your crossover. It can definitely be fixed! I would check for any dry joints in the crossover or loose connections.
I bought a whole penta + beocenter 9000 for $100, only problem is the cd door doesn’t close. Maybe it’s just a motor that needs a repair.
That’s an absolute steal! Great find! The door could be a couple of easy fixes… dirt on the tracks (build up of dust etc) they should be clean but not lubricated… or a slipping rubber belt. Careful taking the doors apart because refitting the strings takes about 16 hands. I made that mistake on a 9500 and it took me hours of fiddling with the help of my gf holding parts of it, a complete nightmare.
@@chrisbaker121924 I couldn't believe it once I actually handed the cash over and had the speakers in my car.... Oh boy were they heavy haha... I'll do my due diligence, but honestly I might just stick with just an aux cord
hallo, ich habe penta3 gekauft und möchte es mit marantz sa 15s1 verbinden, bitte sagen sie mir welches kabel benötigt wird
Hey, sorry, I cannot seem to copy the text to translate. :(.
@@chrisbaker121924 They bought Penta 3's and want to connect it with a Marantz sa 15s1, and they're asking what cables are needed. That's as far as my crappy German goes! I'm guessing just regular speaker cable? QUICK EDIT: Seems like that amp has RCA speaker outputs? That's new for me... Are there RCA to single wire plugs? No wonder they're confused about it.
@@AAgunner that’s an amp so imo the best thing to do is connect it to the terminals inside the tower rather than into the amp, effectively using them as beovox pentas.
There's a huge difference in Penta sound and response using a speaker cable next to their data cable. And it must be connected to a bang & Olufsen receiver.
Yes if you want data to work it must be connected to a B&O receiver of similar era
Not sure what you mean by the speaker cable being next to the data cable. They’re all sent down one 8 core cable.
@@chrisbaker121924 my Panthers have the 8:10 and then an option to do speakers which is a 3 or 4 pin the nice thing about the eight-pin cable is you can hook one speaker to the other. Opposed to having them both hooked up to the receiver. Absolutely love these speakers.. but I am having a little bit of an issue with the data. I have to turn the volume way up in order to get the speakers to come on and now it doesn't work at all. So I'm running the speaker cables positive negative from the back of the 6500 receiver to the speakers. I also have a 5500 receiver and CD player. And the remote that goes to that the volume wheel doesn't work. So I usually use remote for the 9000 CD changer. Something I dream of..
My penta speakers are 150 watts and the amplifier it comes with is 300 watts... how is that possible??...
At the bottom, only a player is connected by cable, without the need for an amplifier ??..
Yeah. You could in theory just connect them to a mobile phone on phono to minijack.
Though these pentas work best with other 80s/90s B&O. So a beocenter 8500/9500, a Beomaster 5500/6500/7000 or beocenter 2300/3200 type stuff. Then you get the cool displays lighting up. Anything with a powerlink connector basically.
Although penta 1s only have a speaker link and work with beocenter 9000 or Beomaster 5000 too.
The amplifiers are the grey box that’s about 6 inches tall right at the bottom.
I made a new video for you… which should help :)
I just picked these up on a steal, only problem is once i got home. I have this orange light come on the right speaker.
I got it to work but then shortly it went to orange, any way to diagnose and fix this problem? I’m using the line input
Would it just be worth to bypass the amps all together and just use a separate amplifier?
I had similar issues with mine turning on off etc… was a dry joint. It’s a bit risky so do this at your own risk. I took the amp apart and pressed on the boards with the power on with something wooden like the end of a wooden spoon etc and eventually you’ll find the thing that causes the fault to come on/off.
To be honest tho the amps at the bottom of a penta aren’t my favourite things in the world and a decent amp will out perform the amps in pentas. (Anything will be compatible but 50-100watts is a good ish number to get them going.
It’s easy to bypass them.. if you remove the amps from the bottom there are two tabs that you can just directly connect to. Of course you’d lose your display functions though unless you wired through the data connection from a compatible 80s-00s Beomaster/center. Then just stick the amps in a box in the loft and it’s all reversible.
Now I plan to eliminate the amplifier that it comes with and connect directly to a Sansui amplifier that has 4 100 watt outputs.
Back in 1994 i bought the penta.
They sound ok, but it's possible to buy much better sounding speakers for less money.
Yes at new prices they were expensive. I think for what you pay for them now however they’re a v.good price.
You dont pay JUST for the speakers !
You also pay for design , a thing you can not buy , from a series of brands.
These things get so loud you'll lose your mind.. standing too close to them the further you get away from them the better they sound. And they can even drown out a phone call on volume 2 its lowest volume and I think it tops off at 50 or 60. Anything around 50 is where you start losing your mind..
Are secondhand mk1 Penta's (6602) worth buying. They are to go with my beocenter 9300. I have noticed they aren't powerlink like mk2 or mk3 penta's. Are they still a good speaker?
They’re very similar speakers. Powerlink cables are fairly easy to get (you need fully wired ones so be careful buying them)…. Speaker link cables are tricky to buy. Still possible to connect to the terminals but you’ll have no display function that way if that concerns you.
Use them with a BnO 4 pin Din speaker cable. They sound good...