Yesterday, I placed my order with B&O for my new system, which will include a BS3.

I'd love to hear some experiences and advice from some other BS3 owners.

1. Wire management: I understand how all the wires plug in the front and run to the back on either side of the unit.  I've not seen a BS3 that wasn't already in a cabinet, so I'm curious how the wires exit the device.  Are they all channeled to come out the rear center, on either the left of right sides?  For example, if the BS3 was on the top of a cabinet, would one see the jumble of wires one sees from the "typical" receiver?

2.  How much heat does the BS3 generate? Will it be OK to place it in an a/v cabinet with limited air flow, or does it need to be more "in the open" to vent off heat?

How are you integrating the BS3 in your systems?  Wall mounted? Inside a cabinet? On a shelf? Other? Any pics of your set-up?

Thanks, as always, for your input and insights.

 

 Very interesting questions. I allways had the same doubts about the heat, about the plugs, and about the location because in a cabinet there aren´t a lot of problems to hide the wires, but what about in a wall mounting set?

Hi Beobres,

I have mounted my bs3 on the back of my AV cabinet, not sure about the heat as it wasn't realy a concern to me. The wires exit out the back, each side of the unit (out the bottom for wall mount) I have intergrated all my av gear into the BS3, Pioneer Plasma, Sony digital STB, Playstation3, Beocenter2.

The control is all through my Beo4, thanks to Lintronic and all is working well. I could post some pictures if you like later on.

Having viewed both a Beosystem 3 (in it's cabinet),and attached to a Beovision 9,the spacing between the various sockets appeared to me to be rather cramped.

How much of a potential problem is this,especially if one is using high grade cables which tend to be quite thick?

Terry.

I bought the cabinet with my BS3 which is in principle a closed in box with some ventilation to the rear (I couldn't get the back on mine with the amount of cabling and power I needed - hopefully solved if I can find sources with coaxial optical not needing the converters or move the HDMI) and have never noticed any real heat from the unit itself. The majority of the heat in my cabinet comes from my PVR and DVD. Thinking about it there are no vents or fans at the back of the BS3 so it must ventilate naturally via the sides where the cable management channels slot in.

The cabling exits the guides at either side at the back of the unit and there is no specific provision for running the cables along the back - I also thought it would be interesting to see the wall mounted unit and solutions found for the cable management. Given a simple configuration with just powerlink and a few thin HDMI/DVI cables (now I know where I need to be!) it should be reasonably easy to make the unit presentable - but with a few chunky SCART cables and coaxial cables it would be a challenge to make it look as elegant as the rest of the design - hence the specifically designed cabinet being available (how many functional wall mounted BS3s have you seen in the dealers?)

MaxG:

coaxial optical

Sorry read coaxial digital.

Also the socket density question has come up, and I found the front SCARTs a bit too close together and two QED connectors would not fit in slot1 and slot2 without the red locking tags bending too much. It's now dawning on me that this unit was designed with HD sources in mind and a lot of cabling (and sockets) will be redundant with HDMI providing Video and Audio.

I've got mine stacked in a cupboard. I suggest putting it at the bottom of the stack as it is heavy and a bit wider than most kit. It doesn’t give out much heat so the bottom works well for that too. I've found that having the sockets on the front of the device makes it very easy to connect up, I have the following connected, Sky HD, DVD1, PS3, Beomedia1.

The only cable problem I have come across is in connecting the beomedia 1 via the VGA socket, the VGA socket is on the temporary connection panel not the main socket panel. The vga socket can only be mapped to AV5 or 6, so although it is possible to get a low profile vga socket so the panel door can still be shut, the associated sound and composite video cables necessary all protrude out too far to allow the panel door to be shut.

Cheers

Peter

Thank you all for the advice and input-- this is really a big help in figuring out how to configure the system.

Peter's set-up sounds most like what I think I'll plan to do.  There is a large closet directly behind the wall on which I will hang the BV4-50 and BL7-2.  I'll wire those thru the wall to the BS3, PVR/Cable Box and AppleTV, all on a stand in the closet.  Then in the a/v cabinet below the TV in the main room, I can just put the DVD player and PlayStation for easy access, also wired thru the wall to the BS3.  Hopefully simple and clean, and minimum wire exposure in the main room.  (I hate seeing wires-- a big problem with my current system.  It looks like a rat's nest...)  I'll certainly post some pics later in June when the system is installed.

Glad to hear also that heat is not an issue with the BS3, although with this set-up, I'll have plenty of air circ for the components in the closet.

Corvin-- I'd love to see pictures of your set-up, especially how you have the BS3 mounted on the back of your av cabinet.  I can't quite picture how this works, but sounds like a great solution.
 

All the best~~

Todd