Hi everyone,

I have just received my Beolab 5 speakers.  With the Powerlink cables came some cables. I cannot figure out if those cables are in fact Digital cables? ( it looks to be B&O cables considering the quality).

I tried to connect my speakers with my Beocenter 2 via digital and it does not working!( of course I removed the Powerlink connections). Any idea what should I do in order to connect the speakers via Digital  to the Beocenter 2?

Thanks in advance…

Hi

Congrats with your new speakers :o) they are just awesome.

How did you connect it on the BL5 ? there are several ways to connect the BL5's I guees that you also got the manual together with the speakers?

You can still use the powerlink if you use it together with a surround set up also, but you still need both the Digital cable and the Powerlink cable.

Here is one way: Put the Power Link cable between the TV and BL5 and the Digital SP/DIF(remarks don't use analog LINE IN) between BL5 and your Audio center I know it works with a BS9000 and then masterlink between TV and audio setup. Remember to set the left/right switch correct on the back of BL5. And defalut the speakers are in Option 0 so look through the user guide how to set this up also.

Remember this.! the BL5's fools your brain to think that your not playing that loud at all - and you can easily take your self turn it up to loud, you will know if your have played it to loud, when your of to bed at night :o)

Hope this helped you

Regards

Anders

Hi,

You'll need to connect the Powerlink cables as well. Powerlink will give the speakers the signal to turn on/off. The speakers will sense when there is a digital signal and automatically switch to that - otherwise it will use analogue (Powerlink).

With my 5's I only received the Powerlink and link cables. There was nothing supplied for digital connection.

Awesome speakers.

Peter 

Make sure you set up the Daisy-Chain properly.

Digital OUT from BC2 - to Digital IN on one speaker - Digital OUT from that speaker - to Digital IN on the next.

Make sure you're not using the LINE IN connector on the speakers, that's for an analog signal.

The speakers should auto-detect the digital signal, regardless of what Option they are in. With BC2 I assume the correct option setting is Option 0.

The Powerlink connection supplies an analog signal and also provides you with control of the speakers - as stated above, you can have those and the Digital cables connected simultaneously.

Congratulations! They're wonderful speakers. 

PowerLink must be connected too!

Connect the Digital output to one of the digital connections on the BeoLab 5s, and then connect the other digital connection to the connection on the other speaker (so the two are daisy-chained). The same goes for the PowerLink.

FYI, there is no such thing as a 'digital' cable. Any cable will work fantastically well when it comes to digital signal transmission.

Alex:

.

FYI, there is no such thing as a 'digital' cable. Any cable will work fantastically well when it comes to digital signal transmission.

I have to correct you there. While you definitely do not need a Nordost "digital" cable that will set you back the price of your BL5s, you do want to be certain you're matching impedance - ordinarly suggested at 75ohms for digital s/pdif. The thin cables supplied by B&O do a perfect job of that, and you won't get better sound by replacing those with more expensive cables.

And if you don't give a damn, you can try any old rca-plug cable, though you'll have to worry about impedance mismatch reflections in the cable.(Does it matter - people live in yachts who have managed to convince others that it does.) I feel confident that using the cables supplied by B&O, identified by them as the digital s/pdif cable, is the right thing to do. 

In theory yes you should worry about impedance matching, but in reality I haven't found it to have any affect when transmitting digital signals. I've transmitted HDMI signals down a mixture of XLR leads over a 20m run and it showed no issues, even though it theoretically shouldn't work.

Fun.

I've seen "audiophiles" paying a thousand dollars for a 1,5m stretch of ethernet cable, and wondering whether maybe they should get a shorter one, to be certain the sound is good.

Yet there is measurable jitter with non-matching cables -- whether that jitter has any effect on sound or image is another issue. I'm of the school that it isn't a problem, as long as the components correspond to standards. Yet if the manufacturer has gone to the bother of specifying a specific impedance, then it's neither expensive nor does it require effort to match that spec.

Jitter hasn't been a problem in digital audio for years with even very basic kit. The output from a £20 Alba DVD player is identical to that from any other CD player on the market, even the top-of-the-range NAIM player when it comes to the digital output. Therefore, while some have complained that B&O lacks a 'good enough player in their range for the BeoLab 5s', there is no need for a player better than the 9000 or BeoCenter 2 as they both have digital outputs.

Yes, Alex, you and I know that - but there are still CD-players costing USD 100.000 plus being sold, to "combat" jitter.

And there are, in fact, situations where the length of the digital cable, combined with an impedance mismatch, can cause disruptions in the transparent transmission of the bitstream - but for all practical reasons you would then consider the connection/components defective.

Read a fun article the other day which stated that maybe one should substitute the word "sucker" for "audiophile" -- I'm afraid there's quite a lot of nonsense going on.