A question I have asked in the forum a few times, is can you have both in the same system.

They complement each other perfectly, one does Radio and CD, the other one N.RADIO and N.MUSIC.

At the moment the answers seems to be that is is not possible, but it would be a mistake if B&O had not thought of a way to integrate the 2 together as potetial buyers, could be tempted to buy a Beosound 5, but would not do it because they are still in love with their Beosound 9000 or other system.

I will probably buy a Beosound 5 sometime next year, but I'd still like the possibility to pop a CD in a player.

p.

I have not seen anything yet which leads me to believe that you could not have both in the system at once.  Depending on details of the BeoSound 1, and just where precisely the PowerLink outputs are, I should think they will play well together. 

Of more concern, at the moment, is wether you will want both.  I have had my 9000 since January of '97, and I love it.  But this past winter I bought an AppleTV, which is attached to my Avant...and I hardly use the 9000 at all anymore.  A bigger hard drive for my iMac, and some time ripping CD's and I'm pretty well done.  That, and iTunes Music Store, and Amazon, and a couple of other sources (in various resolutions),  have kept me from buying CD's for a while now. 

I will reserve judgement until I get to play with one myself,  and can judge the 'lust' factor for myself, but I would consider very carefully.

Firstly, the BeoSound/BeoMaster 5 can exist in the same room with the BeoSound 9000 just as the BeoCenter 2 has for the past few years. It would seem from sales in my own shop as well as commentary on this board, that this is a fairly popular combination. 

However, I would say that an interesting solution might be to put the BeoSound 9000 in one room and the BeoSound 5 in another. I've always thought that this is an under-used ML setup and one that I quite enjoy myself. I think this would be particularly beneficial for two reasons. One is that the BeoSound 5 is so future ready that it does not have an optical drive or terrestrial radio, so some of us may need a few years to completely cut the cord to our older media. This would be a nice transitional setup. Two would be that the BeoSound 9000 is an easy device (and the single disc BeoSounds even easier) to navigate blindly, rather than N.MUSIC or N.RADIO, which I think most of us agree are terribly inconvenient when navigating blindly.

I'm sure that a combination of genuine utility and sheer lust will place similar setups in many of our homes! 

BeoSound 9000 when released was way ahead of its time, now connected to airport express with ipod touch still just about cutting it for me.

Having played with the BeoSound 5, it seems (IMHO) 2 years out of date already!!  With B&O past record on software development I am not hopeful for its future, although I hope that i am wrong.

Kaleidescape coupled with B&O is my dream. Those Kaleidescape boys amd girls certainly know how to design a user interface and it just oozes quality when played through B&O kit. Better start saving!!

RussR:

I have not seen anything yet which leads me to believe that you could not have both in the system at once.  Depending on details of the BeoSound 1, and just where precisely the PowerLink outputs are, I should think they will play well together. 

Of more concern, at the moment, is wether you will want both.  I have had my 9000 since January of '97, and I love it.  But this past winter I bought an AppleTV, which is attached to my Avant...and I hardly use the 9000 at all anymore.  A bigger hard drive for my iMac, and some time ripping CD's and I'm pretty well done.  That, and iTunes Music Store, and Amazon, and a couple of other sources (in various resolutions),  have kept me from buying CD's for a while now. 

I will reserve judgement until I get to play with one myself,  and can judge the 'lust' factor for myself, but I would consider very carefully.

An interesting issue here, and one that has been mentioned in various forms in recent times. Firstly I still prefer the "security" of owning a physical CD, even though it's first "play" is invariably to rip it to computer. I am currently contemplating re-ripping my entire collection in a lossless format but will only do this in a RAID 1 array for reliability reasons (I only want to have to do it one last time), and that's my point - you've ripped your CD's, and bought music from iTMS and Amazon - what precautions have you taken against hard drive failure and having to do it all again??

The other thing is, as it currently stands, it is generally more expensive to download a (compressed quality) mp3 album than it is to buy a new CD which can then be played directly on your audio system, ripped losslessly or ripped into a lossy format for maximum use on your iPod/mp3 player.

Another question - how do you back up your BM5 hard drive or is this relegated to the "editing PC" too?? Having a s3xy front end isn't the only requirement, if you are committing your entire audio catalogue losslessly to hard disc (and your system costs £thousands) then it should be a doddle to administer, maintain and backup while being secure and reliable.

RussR:

2 words Puncher: "Time Machine"

Good enough - how do you do it with a BM5 - can it be done? (or do B&O offer a backup service along side their CD ripping service)??

Puncher:

RussR:

2 words Puncher: "Time Machine"

Good enough - how do you do it with a BM5 - can it be done? (or do B&O offer a backup service along side their CD ripping service)??

The original iTunes library can be backed up via Time Machine, meaning you have three libraries overall.

Alex:

Puncher:

RussR:

2 words Puncher: "Time Machine"

Good enough - how do you do it with a BM5 - can it be done? (or do B&O offer a backup service along side their CD ripping service)??

The original iTunes library can be backed up via Time Machine, meaning you have three libraries overall.

My point is really that we've started to hear about the wheel navigation, song navigation/suggestion software and the audio quality etc. - we haven't heard anything regarding the BM5 and how practical it is to use as your (sole) audio hub - we already know you need an "editing PC" to transfer content to it, do we infer from this that the BM5 harddrive will basically be a mirror of your "real", secure audio hub. If so it certainly doesn't sound like the centre of any future digital audio system I might own! 

The BM5 is loaded from your PC almost exactly like the BM1.

The BS5 will give it a fantastic interface, that is what makes the difference.

p.

I think B&O have had to bring something out like the BS5 to cater for the future.  This as a standalone product may not appeal to the immidiate hardcoremB&O consumer but in 10 years and a generation down the line imo will.  We all have to accept that everything comes to an end as will the CD but I have this feeling that B&O may have one last attempt at the CD player to compliment its move into the digital era.  Makes sense is you have what is being claimed to be the best interface and music reproduction aswell as a kick a55 cd player dont you think?

What interests me is wether or not the CD has comepletley been abandoned by B&O... I woudl hazard a guess and say no.. and if the BS5 is to be used in addition to an existing set up reinforces this.  

Beoport is limited in its nature whereas BS5 is a longterm product as was BS9000.  We will no doubt see improvements to BS5 in years to come with the next generation going again into unknown territory but I see life in the CD yet...

I don't know much about the features in BeoSound 5, but if you want the possibility to listen to N.RADIO and N.MUSIC and still want to pop a CD in a player and listen to FM, then a BeoSound 9000 with a BeoPort connected through MasterLink is the choice.

Regards,

No matter how good a hard drive in a given machine is, there is significant probability it will fail and all of your music will be lost.  Using Beomaster 5 as a mirror of your music library on your editing PC is a very smart idea.  I learned the lesson the hard way.  A couple of years ago, the hard drive on my pc failed.  I did have a backup of the system but I didn't have a very complete backup of my iTunes files.  I was able to retrieve some of the non DRM files from my Beomedia 1 but some of my DRM files were lost forever.

Today I no longer keep iTunes files on my PC.  Instead the files are stored on a 2 terabyte ethernet drive with RAID turned on.  The RAID function gives me additional file redundancy in the event of failure.  I know this sounds over the top but I am ripping all my CDs in a lossless format and only want to do it once.  If I were to buy a Beosound 5, I would convert the lossless files to 312 kps MP3 and then load to BM5. After loading the MP3 files to BM5, I would delete the extra MP3 files on my ethernet drive to conserve space. 

Of course all this is fully automatic when using Apple TV or iPods.

I am sure others have different ways of dealing with music files but having a mirror copy is always a good idea. 

If you contact Apple customer service, and explain what happened, they will allow you, as a favour to re-download all your songs. They will only let you do this once per itunes account, as a commercial gesture.

Of course, better safe than sorry, we should all backup our music. 

p. 

wtlc2zpx:

If you contact Apple customer service, and explain what happened, they will allow you, as a favour to re-download all your songs. They will only let you do this once per itunes account, as a commercial gesture.

Of course, better safe than sorry, we should all backup our music. 

p. 

Thanks for the information.  You are right about backing up.  There are lots of horror stories about what happens when you don't have a backup. 

RussR:

I have not seen anything yet which leads me to believe that you could not have both in the system at once.  Depending on details of the BeoSound 1, and just where precisely the PowerLink outputs are, I should think they will play well together. Of more concern, at the moment, is wether you will want both.  I have had my 9000 since January of '97, and I love it.  But this past winter I bought an AppleTV, which is attached to my Avant...and I hardly use the 9000 at all anymore.  A bigger hard drive for my iMac, and some time ripping CD's and I'm pretty well done.  That, and iTunes Music Store, and Amazon, and a couple of other sources (in various resolutions),  have kept me from buying CD's for a while now. I will reserve judgement until I get to play with one myself,  and can judge the 'lust' factor for myself, but I would consider very carefully.

paddy2042:

How did you connect Apple TV to your Avant? I have a 28" VCR Avant and would love to connect Apple TV to it but was told it could not be done. I would love your advice.

google for a "Hama Video Converter 2-3" ... it will give you scart-out for your avant ... with very good image and sound quality 

paddy2042:

RussR:

I have not seen anything yet which leads me to believe that you could not have both in the system at once.  Depending on details of the BeoSound 1, and just where precisely the PowerLink outputs are, I should think they will play well together. Of more concern, at the moment, is wether you will want both.  I have had my 9000 since January of '97, and I love it.  But this past winter I bought an AppleTV, which is attached to my Avant...and I hardly use the 9000 at all anymore.  A bigger hard drive for my iMac, and some time ripping CD's and I'm pretty well done.  That, and iTunes Music Store, and Amazon, and a couple of other sources (in various resolutions),  have kept me from buying CD's for a while now. I will reserve judgement until I get to play with one myself,  and can judge the 'lust' factor for myself, but I would consider very carefully.

soorry for the second reply - having trouble with navigation!!How did you connect Avant to Apple TV? I was told it could not be done. I have 28" VCR Avant and would love to connect Apple TV to it but don't know how. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Try it this way, works just fine:

 http://poocs.net/2007/4/21/apple-tv-and-crt-tvs 

 Edit: mor was faster! 

Sorry Paddy,

as most of you know , I'm in the US.  The Avant/US came with one Component/RGB input meant for a 480p signal, which is the minimum advertised for the ATV.  So, for me it was a straight-forward, if tedious, process.  Longest process was getting the ATV set to 480p without being able to actually see the menu screen.  But with a recent software update installed, the Avant is even managing the ATV for me.

Notcertain if the VCR Avants will handle 480p.  Others here will be better suited to answer that.  

RussR:

Sorry Paddy,as most of you know , I'm in the US.  The Avant/US came with one Component/RGB input meant for a 480p signal, which is the minimum advertised for the ATV.  So, for me it was a straight-forward, if tedious, process.  Longest process was getting the ATV set to 480p without being able to actually see the menu screen.  But with a recent software update installed, the Avant is even managing the ATV for me.Notcertain if the VCR Avants will handle 480p.  Others here will be better suited to answer that.  

RussR:

But with a recent software update installed, the Avant is even managing the ATV for me.

russ: was that a sw update to the atv or the avant?

oh, and regarding the op's topic: here is my response in another thread