Hi,

I'm posting this as a separate post as I hope this will be useful information to some.

 

I have been trying blindly for the last few days to link up my BeoCenter 6-23, Ouverture and Mac Mini with a Beo Link PC2 (latest firmware).

After much searching and posting the general consensus was that the Ouverture is too old a product to work with the PC2 which was why I have been having hell trying to get sound from the Beoport into my Ouverture controlled room. 

Please find below a list of my equipment.

Room 1 - Reception:

Ouverture with power linked Beolab 8000, Beogram 6500 connected on Aux - A.OPT 2

Room 2 - Kitchen:

BeoCenter 6-23 with power linked Beolab 4000 - V.OPT 2

Room 3 - Lounge:

Beolink PC 2, Mac Mini with BMLink software NO IR port - OPT 0 (possibly OPT 6, please see later note)

 

I managed to get the N.Music to play on the Beocenter in the kitchen by simply using the N.MUSIC button, however the Ouverture in the kitchen would not respond to N.MUSIC and switched into TAPE2 with no sound.  From what I understand the Ouverture is NOT a compatible audio master and will not pick up the N.MUSIC stream.

I did however find a little hack, my Ouverture will pick up the V.AUX from the TV, this is accessed via pressing the DVD button on the BEO4, however I found that the audio level was way to low to be listenable even with the Ouverture on 70 the volume was poor quality and the signal was very low.  Feeling around in the blind I did find away to get acceptable sound from the TV.

1. Play audio source on TV i.e N.MUSIC

2. Press DVD on Ouverture to switch to V.AUX mode, select the V.AUX2 command on the BEO4 (you will need to add this to the list)

3. Hey presto, lovely clear N.MUSIC from my mac.

I understand that this may not be an acceptable option if your TV and Ouverture are in different rooms as you need to play music on both but for me my kitchen is linked via an open arch to my reception room and I actually wanted to play music on both sources.

It's not the neatest of solutions but it does work for me.

 

Note Regarding Option for BeoPort:

I can not confirm which mode my BeoPort is running under, initially I got this setup working on a windows virtual machine with the Bang and Oulfsen official software when the option was set to 0.  However I am not sure if the BMLink software automatically changes the option to 6 or leaves the BeoPort in the previous option.  I will check later this week as using the excellent Linkplayer you can change the settings, I suspect it will work in both option 0 and 6.

 

Disadvantages:

If you use BMLink with ITunes 9 the automation for changing songs does not work with the Beo 4, It does work with Linkplayer but only on the TV or N.Music compatible appliance.  Personally I think controlling a large music library with the Beo4 is Fugly and I much prefer the Apple Remote App for iPhone and iPod Touch.

I apologise but the disadvantage to this method is that your other half with enjoy having mac music all over the house they will want you to encode all their CD's onto your computer.  I will be spending most of next week encoding all my Wife's records and CD's onto the Mac :)

 

Nic

Have you tried the following. There is normally a way to get Beoport to work (kind of) in an old setup. Hifi in option 0. Beoport in option 0. TV in option 2, with all speakers connected to the TV. It should all work OK as long as you use the remote. p.

Thanks, unfortunately I can't connect all the speakers to the TV as the house has been wired by B&O and the distance between the Ouverture and the BeoCentre is about 10 metres.

So far so good, the sound quality is perfect, all I need to do now is to Masterlink my BeoVision 6-26 and Beolab 6000s / Beolab 4 surround sound setup.  This is in the same room as the BeoLink so I don't anticipate a problem I will set the BeoVision to V.OPT 6.

Eventually I will get the upgrade kit for the BeoVision to enable HD mode and then I can use a TosLink splitter to send digital audio to the PC input and an analog output to the Beovision.  I wired up my DVD player with a Coax cable  to the Digital Input and I cant believe the difference in Sound quality.  Eventually the aim is to replace the DVD player and only have the Mac Mini driving DVD and audio.

I have tested to wire a rca-stereocable into a powerlink-cable and connected it on the back of my beosound century´s aux-in and the other end (rca) to an airport express. The audio was as said above, barely heard at full volume. I saw the same kind of cable on ebay but if the beosound century should need some kind of option change to work I dont need another cable.

 

Initially I just want clear sound, I dont mind about beo4 controlling since I can take my macbook and control the beosound century "manually" with a >>screen<< :)

Hi,

Don't quote me on this but I believe that the power link sockets are very very low level output and are designed for B&O's Active Speakers so Power Link out to Aux in might not give you a high enough level signal.  I would try the line out on the Beo Port, I am using this to temporarily connect my Beo Vision 26 (non masterlink) which has my Beolab 6000's connected until i get round to master linking the TV.

For older equipment you can get a Beolink box which connects the Aux in on older equipment to a Master link cable, however I have no idea how you would set this up you might as well save cash and use the line out as I doubt the sound quality would be that much better.