I was with my dealer in Belfast today, and he know nothing about BeoSound 5 at all. Hadn't even heard about the Beolab 10 centre speaker that pictures surfaced of a while back.

Quite impressive, it's sooo thin! But, 1 USB, non user replaceable battery, and £2000 for the 1.8Ghz and 64Gb SSd.... I think I'll pass for the first generation and stick with my trusty MacBook for another while. On a side note, HD rentals from itunes store is pretty good! and Time Capsule seems ok.

Just noticed the itunes plug in is available for download: http://www.bang-olufsen.com/page.asp?id=388 However, "No support of transfer of covers"! That was pretty much the only reason I wanted a plug in. Sigh.

I have an Omega Speedmaster, which i quite like. Also have a Rolex Explorer 1. Both nice watches imo.

The Cinema Show - Genesis. Listening on my Serenata through Earset 3!

I don't mind the look when it's relatively straight-on, but once you go to a side it isn't as pleasant. They probably need some new designers, with fresh ideas, to get the ball rolling again. Not that I don't like some of Mr Lewis' recent outputs, I actually quite like our BV8 and my Serenata.

I actually think that once you spent time with it, you probably wouldn't miss a CD drive. After all, you're entire CD collection will be at your disposal, streamed wirelessly from the hard drive. Should be rather convenient, so long as controlling it is simplistic. And I'm sure most people who get a Beosound 5 will still have a CD player

Just trawled through the seven pages, first time I've been on beoworld in a few weeks just with exams. Quite shocked at the news, seems like a critical time for B&O in the next few months/years if they're to turn their fortunes around. Nice to see people are passionate about the company though and keen for a turnaround.

Will this be something similar to Linn's Klimax DS? In the sense that it streams from a hard drive. Wonder if the Beo5 will have much influence over the control, flicking between covers like on my Serenata, on Beo 5 would be a nice feature. I have to say I'm quite interested in how the Beosound 5 turns out.

As far as i know, the winner of the grand prize isn't drawn until 4th january 2008, and possibly not announced until 7th january. Robert