Hi everyone, I am new here. Known the site for years, but just joined.

 

I am thinking of buying the Beosound 4. I actually need a new system for my bedroom. I was looking at the BS1, but am swaying towards the BS4, let me explain.

I am an avid fan and user of my BS2, however ever since I switched to mac, I hate having to use iTunes's botched mp3 codec. It sounds awful. You don't need to be a audiophile to tell that. It really is bad, and the BS2 cannot play AAC. Now my music collection was on my desktop Dell, but it was in WMA VBR, which when transferred to BS2, took up a disproportionate amount of space, I could only get about 5 songs on my 128mb card in those days. Also there would be randomly placed clicks in the sound, about 1.5 to 2 times per song, absolutely random, which also annoyed me. So I used to just record straight from CD to BS2 using Beoplayer. Which I was quite happy in doing. Until one day B&O decided that they should remove that feature. Why? I haven't a clue, it was an amazing feature that worked extremely well. I have sent them emails in regards to this, as it wasn't stated in the update, and isn't advertised anywhere. They have just pretended as if the feature never existed, and not even had the courtesy to reply. Now there isn't even a way to email them, the links are all broken. 

 

So I don't want to have double copies of songs. One in high quality and one in low. And I don't have the time to record all my music again on to the HDD. So I was hoping I could just use the BS4, but as I understand it uses MP3. My question is, how good is the recording on to SD card? Is it better than WMA at 128-192kbps? Can you adjust the quality or is it only set at 128kbps mp3? As much info as possible please in regards to this sd card recording, from CD. Also how does it seperate the album and songs. How long does it take per CD. Can I mix some podcasts in as well, from my iBook?

 For those concerned with the setup, I am thinking of using BL4000.

 

Thanks in advance 

Well, we are setup twins here! I use BS4 with BL4000 in the living room - GREAT sound, i use latest iMac. See, what I do is i put the SD in the computer and drag and drop the selected folders of songs onto the SD card, which have been put on the HDD via the built in DVD burner and i use 224kbps VBR and the sound is perfect to me. (just need to remember that any music deleted from the sd cards NEEDS to be cleared from the recycle bin while the card is still in the computer, other wise the data stays on the card for some reason.

The trick here is, do not use your BS2 or BS4 to format the card!! The BS4 is FAT32 and the BS2 is FAT16, gotta do the formatting on the imac (which i got my last partner to do, it was complicated i think).

The BS4 is brilliant, and i do love it most of the time and the sound it sends to the Beolabs is massively clearer and more detailed than what an Ouverture and Beovision 3 have sent to my BL4000, but BS4 is an atrocity to record from CD onto the cards, it just sounds grotesquely compressed (only 128kbps), it records real time which takes TOO long for me. The bit rate is not adjustable.

You could actually get a different B&O system such as a BC2 and get a beoport! This is what I would have done if i was rich. :)  

 

EDIT, convert all your itunes to mp3!! Thats what i did, do you know how to do it? If not, i'll tell ya 

Oh also, i use BeoSound 1 in my little bedroom, where it sounds great in a small room, the sleep timer is simple (just press stop and select the time it will take to turn off) and i have a 3.5mm lead that runs to my bedside where i plug in the BS2 and iPod for a.aux mode... to me i think you may be better off with BS1! The BS4 and BL4000 may possibly be over kill, when you could save your dosh for a decent system in your main room...

Try the LAME encoder for iTunes. Encodes MP3s at a much higher quality than iTunes' own encoder...

Dave:

Well, we are setup twins here! I use BS4 with BL4000 in the living room - GREAT sound, i use latest iMac. See, what I do is i put the SD in the computer and drag and drop the selected folders of songs onto the SD card, which have been put on the HDD via the built in DVD burner and i use 224kbps VBR and the sound is perfect to me. (just need to remember that any music deleted from the sd cards NEEDS to be cleared from the recycle bin while the card is still in the computer, other wise the data stays on the card for some reason.

The trick here is, do not use your BS2 or BS4 to format the card!! The BS4 is FAT32 and the BS2 is FAT16, gotta do the formatting on the imac (which i got my last partner to do, it was complicated i think).

The BS4 is brilliant, and i do love it most of the time and the sound it sends to the Beolabs is massively clearer and more detailed than what an Ouverture and Beovision 3 have sent to my BL4000, but BS4 is an atrocity to record from CD onto the cards, it just sounds grotesquely compressed (only 128kbps), it records real time which takes TOO long for me. The bit rate is not adjustable.

You could actually get a different B&O system such as a BC2 and get a beoport! This is what I would have done if i was rich. :)  

 

EDIT, convert all your itunes to mp3!! Thats what i did, do you know how to do it? If not, i'll tell ya 

 So drag and dropping files onto the BS2 is the same as when I used Beoplayer to put the songs on it?

I can't just convert my itunes to mp3, firstly only a few of my CDs are on my itunes, and they are already in mp3, secondly my point was the iTunes's mp3 encoder is really bad. Its a commonly known fact. It just is really bad. There have been many conspirers that say it was done on purpose by Apple, but that is a different story, for another day. And using iTunes's mp3 is what I am trying to avoid. That is what I currently am being forced to use, and I'm not happy with the outcome. My favourite set-up  was when the music was ripped in WMA using WMP then copied to BS2. Or when Beoplayer used to copy straight from CD to BS2. It sounded good even in 96kbps. Truth is I don't mind doing it like that. So if I want "CD-a" on my BS2, I take the CD to my PC, switch on Beoplayer, and copy it straight to BS2, but someone at B&O has decided to take this feature out ever since Beoplayer version 6 or so. I can't believe they did it so stealthily and slyly. And there hasn't been any mention of the loss of that feature by any other B&O fanatic other than myself. I voiced this concern on their own forums, nobody replied, their forum is dead, nobody is ever on it. I was hoping to meet some other people who also used this feature, and have at least noticed that it has gone. Why would they do that? I just don't understand it. Could it be something to do with music copying laws?

Also how can B&O allow such a bad compression, on the BS4? I don't believe you, I would have thought that there SD card recording would have been top quality. I thought they would have used a really good compression. Maybe I should just test it in store? 

 

Alex:

Try the LAME encoder for iTunes. Encodes MP3s at a much higher quality than iTunes' own encoder...

 

Would i still be able to listen to this on BS2? 

thethoroughbred:

Also how can B&O allow such a bad compression, on the BS4? I don't believe you, I would have thought that there SD card recording would have been top quality. I thought they would have used a really good compression. Maybe I should just test it in store? 

 

Would i still be able to listen to this on BS2? 

Yes, maybe you should go and see for yourself. I've provided you with the facts, do with them what you will

What Dave has written about the conversion rate of Beosound 4 is correct - it is indeed 128 mb and it can't be adjusted. However, tracks recorded on Beosound 4 sound OK on my BS2. A bigger trouble in my opinion is that you can't select individual tracks from CD on Beosound 4 and have to record the whole CD first on an SD card and then delete the tracks you don't need.

Regarding the problem that the last release of Beoplayer does not have the recording from CD feature - do you still have the installation CD which came with your BS2? You could then install the old version of Beoplayer, which has that feature.

I can, but its like the oldest one. Its on version 1 or something. I really love what they did with the radio. Its one of the best radio players I have come across, much better than WMP or iTunes. But its just that record from CD feature, and the fact its not on mac. I have even offered them to pay for it to be mac compatible, I sent them mail, saying I would pay £100, but that's hardly going to cover the development cost.

 

I will try out the recording quality in store, I don't mind whole CD's recorded, in fact that's the only way I listen to albums. In their entirety.