They are very good speakers indeed - very very impressive given their size. However, compared to a pair of BeoLab 8000s or BeoLab 3s, you will see why they aren't the most loved speakers in the range. I know the other two models I compared them to are a step up in price as well, but the step up in price doesn't accurately reflect the step up in sound

I'm not sure I fully understand what you're asking. Do you mean, do the BL5s with a digital connection sound much better than BL9s with an analogue connection, or does the digital connection give an advantage over the analogue connection when just considering BeoLab 5s? I'd say the answer is yes...

I would also choose BL3s. I never fail to be impressed whenever I hear them...

How did you burn the CD? With iTunes? If you just stuck some audio files on a CD in OS X then it won't work at all... Sorry if it seems obvious, but it's worth mentioning I've never had any problems getting CD-Rs or CD-RWs to play on a BeoSound 9000.

I wasn't aware but I was drumming along to the second half yesterday afternoon...

If you want a laptop Simon, I would recommend you look at a MacBook Pro. The MacBook Air and MacBook don't really cut it as main computers, but the MBP does...

IMO just the difference in power between BL4s and BL3s reflects the difference in sound quality (even though the two aren't actually related). BL4s are 70 watts/speaker, whilst BL3s are 250 watts/speaker. The BeoLab 3 is without any doubt at all a massively superior speaker...

Bingo: You can by lots of AV-recievers with HDMI 1.3 for few hunderd euro's but the Beosystem 3 that almost cost 7000 euros has not got it and won 't come very very soon? How low can you sink as a premiumbrand if you do not offer that for your clients who want it. These are the things that does the name as a premiumbrand...... no good!!! Most

The MBA has the same screen space as the MacBook, which in my experience works fine for OS X. The issue with running Windows on the MBA is it's relatively limited hard drive capacity (80 gb, or 64 gb if you opt for the solid state drive). OS X needs a good 15 gb or so free to run smoothly (as does Windows) and once you add the space needed by both up

rfc1: yes but will a beolink 1000 command the beomaster to self seek radio stations or indeed allow me to manually tune the unit? sandy Yes, it will. As far as 'self seek', I'm not sure if this can be done. I can't receive any radio where I live so I don't actually understand how the Beomaster 6500's radio works as well as others.