mjmedlo: I agree that the lab 3s are great speakers and the ALT is second to nothing on the market IMO. They are much more expensive than a second hand set of lab4000s though. Agreed. I'm lucky enough to own the BL3s and the BL9s. The BL9s are overkill for most music, especially compressed music. Connect them to your TV and they are amazing with

355f: Well the notion that B&O holds its value over many years is now over! Have you attempted to see what a 1 year old BV4 is worth? On my previous BV4 - cost £11,500 px value £2K! For loudspeakers its is still true but for vision and audio products forget the B&O investment! Why do you think I flogged my BV7-32 in November, as

Also, bear in mind the price difference between a BV7-40 and BV4-50. Even wider if you go for the BV4-65. I believe a BS3 + BV4-50 + BL10 combination is around £13000.

355f, the BV7-40 handles SD perfectly well, apart from SD-based football (soccer). However, I'm talking SD through Freeview or via a Sky box. I have absolutely NO idea why anyone would want to pay £9000 or over to watch analogue TV on one of these TVs. Makes no sense. Although a plasma appears to have a rounder image, I think the BV7-40 has

TerryM: Well,I must be fortunate in that my local dealer does not charge for firmware updates. Terry, is your dealer situation like mine? My dealer currently employes their engineers so they do not need to 'pay' a fee just to update the sw - they are paid a daily wage whether they are busy or not. However, this is due to change. Our dealer's

I think that his point - most sw updates are done by an engineer, outside of the store. I'd always make sure you really need the sw update (most updates fix minor issues that we'll rarely notice) and perhaps save an update to once or twice a year. As Peter says, you may need to find a reason for requesting the update ;)

This doesn't answer your question directly, but I moved up from having a 'simple' 7.2 speaker underneath my BV7-40 to a 7.4 + BL9's. Although the sound is absolutely superb, it can be heard two floors below, even when listening to CDs. So, always bear this in mind if it's an issue. The BL5's are another step up again (2500w of

A problem with B&O is that their store engineers are freelancers, so the store has to pay for their time. Luckily for me, our local dealer employs their engineers, so they were/are always keen to send one out, update sw, fix issues etc. However, that's due to change now B&O UK own the store - they want the employed engineers to go freelance

Football in HD (SkySports, BBC HD) and Blu-ray's are the only key reasons to get HD. Mind you, if anyone seriouly is holding off on a BV7-40 for 'something better around the corner', you'll be forever waiting. The difference between the current MKIII and a forthcoming MKIV will be tiny, compared to the jump from the II to III, mainly

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