I agree with you regarding the fact that the 9000 is a superb product but I fail to hear the marked and significant sonic upgrade over a Beosound 3000. I think you are hearing with your eyes! To my ears, the B&O CD players from the 9500 onwards are all much of a muchness and sonic improvements are due to the attached speakers!

[quote user="Steve at Sounds Heavenly"] Then the next step will be finding some BIG passive speakers (RL7000/Beovox Penta?) to make best use of that 110 watts per channel power amp! [/quote] I'm afraid that 110 watts per channel is just a marketing man's wet dream!

What is wrong with your panels?

The MMC5 is the bottom of the range and it notices! It is also likely to be suffering the ravages of time. You can either 1) Live with it or 2) Buy a new Sound-smith SMMC4 to replace it ($149 plus shipping and taxes) or 3) Send your MMC5 to Axel at http://www.schallplattennadeln.de/ and have him rework it to the same or higher spec. 3) will be cheaper

You should have bought a MX4002 in the first place. There was one for sale about 20 miles up the A10 from you!! Now you need a Beolink Converter Type 1611, a masterlink cable and an audio aux link cable and you will hear Ouverture sound in the MX speakers.

[quote user="moxxey"] In my opinion, the BS5 is an unfinished product. Gawd knows who they have working on the sw for this product - my guess it's one bloke, working part-time. [/quote] The other part of the time he/she is working on BV7 software!!

[quote user="Medogsfat"] You really need the original B&O wall brackets which are quite difficult to find these days - and a very strong wall to hang them on! Chris. [/quote] Not so strong!! I hung mine on two houses and they both had studwork walls. As long as one screw is into a stud then they are fine. You do need the 140 wall brackets

If you put the Beomaster at the bottom, you can't easily get at the sockets. The others can go wherever you wish.

People seem to recommend Good Hi Fi in the Netherlands. They can be found at http://www.goodhifi.com/ or on ebay.nl as good-hifi

I have now had time to test the last batch of 4 *MMC4's that Axel has rebuilt for me and I am very impressed. They all sound the same to my ears! A most impressive service.