bayerische:

The BS 2500 or BC 2300 and their successors are wonderful. What a design statement when launched, and still are today!

The BS 4 is in my opinion ugly. It doesn't belong in the B&O lineup. It looks like something of a B&O rip-off.

 The lab 3's are truly great. The lab 3's with the 3200 would be for me a nice second system. 

I actually think the opposite! When you look at BS4, you can see a pattern in similar design, with BV3, BV1, BL8000, so i'm not sure it actually can be classed as a product that doesn't belong in the range, in fact the design is one that is ahead of it's time...

Conclusion? A very typical b&o product

BS3200 is beautiful in it's own way, but the design has past it's time, we are now approaching 2009, and with BL3's the look is very messy imo

Dave, you might be right. It may well be the case that I need to get a bit warm to the idea of the BS4. 

But I remember as I first saw it in a magazine (somehow missed it completely) I thought it was a joke.

I admit, it's no joke, but still I haven't warmed up to it. The control buttons are that of a car, say BMW, they don't look as one off buttons, more like the sort that I may very well find on some other makes product.

Why not use the same wonderful rubber buttons that are found on the BL5000 and Beo4 and the BC/BS 2300, 2500, 3200 on all systems?

Guess the BS 4 offers a great value for the money. In B&O terms it's almost cheap. 

The BS4 is much better quality than the ouverture (i used to have one along side it but became fed up with it's poor quality compared to the BS4).  It's power supply hums, it has an unpleasant plastic creaky body and the rubber buttons are very old fashioned. The BS4 buttons have nice feedback, the entire body is soft to touch, the wheels are beautiful to use, it's a much more comfortable and natural product to use... BS4 is a top product to own, and most importantly, it sounds quite a bit better.

BS4 is in fact (ask B&O themselves) the highest quality CD player in the current range.

 

I'm sure if you tried one at home, you'd love it too 

Dave:

BS4 is in fact (ask B&O themselves) the highest quality CD player in the current range.

 And now you're telling me after I just bought a BS9000  

I actually (must admit) that I looked at the BS4 a little, but since it lacks digital out, I didn't find it reasonable to use it with the Lab5's.

But it's true, the BC 2300 indeed hums quite a bit. I had an earlier thread where I wondered why my Lab 5's hummed/whizzed a bit, and now it's completely gone with the bs9000.

Never really noticed the hum with the penta MK3 that the BC2300 is normally connected to.

 

I'm sure I would like it.  

bayerische:

Dave:

BS4 is in fact (ask B&O themselves) the highest quality CD player in the current range.

 And now you're telling me after I just bought a BS9000  

I actually (must admit) that I looked at the BS4 a little, but since it lacks digital out, I didn't find it reasonable to use it with the Lab5's.

But it's true, the BC 2300 indeed hums quite a bit. I had an earlier thread where I wondered why my Lab 5's hummed/whizzed a bit, and now it's completely gone with the bs9000.

Never really noticed the hum with the penta MK3 that the BC2300 is normally connected to.

 

I'm sure I would like it.  

Ummmm yeah - BS9000 is stunning, especially the moving glass door. Theres no question there, different league i think.... but i couldn't afford to buy an 8000 dollar CD player.

You know what? If i had BL5's i'd try them with the powerlink!! The delay when pressing volume up and down is irritating! I'm also skeptical that there's is even a noticable difference in sound quality between direct digital to the 5's and powerlink.

Anyone? 

The BS9000 is cheap compared to my old CD player,

Pathos Endorphin:

Now this is probably going to be the best CD player I ever owned. The price is 7000 euro. And I did think about saving it and using it with the Lab5's, but since It would have been used as a transport only, the price of it would have been a bit on the high side!

 The delay in sound is actually a bit irritating, but nothing I can't live with. 

Dave:

Ummmm yeah - BS9000 is stunning, especially the moving glass door. Theres no question there, different league i think.... but i couldn't afford to buy an 8000 dollar CD player.

You know what? If i had BL5's i'd try them with the powerlink!! The delay when pressing volume up and down is irritating! I'm also skeptical that there's is even a noticable difference in sound quality between direct digital to the 5's and powerlink.

Anyone? 

The difference is definitely there, and it's got very, very good (and simple) theory behind it.

The quality of the output of a CD player is essentially entirely dependent on the DAC and output stage inside the player. Bad players cannot handle high-impedance amplifier loads and the DACs often do little more than convert the original signal bit-for-bit (in some cases, lesser than bit-for-bit). The DAC built into the BeoSound 9000 is a very very good DAC indeed, but it's no match for what you find inside BeoLab 5s.

Connecting BeoLab 5s via PowerLink just introduces the BeoSound 9000's DAC, output stage and volume control into the equation, all of which can be done away with by connecting directly with the digital connection.

The BeoLab 5s are fully digital, so why go Digital > Analogue > Digital, when you can just do the whole thing in one step. Each time there's a conversion, there is a loss in quality and an increased level of distortion.

OMG!
That looks like an up-side-down Beosound 5!

Jandyt:

OMG!
That looks like an up-side-down Beosound 5!

 

It's cool, and I miss it a bit!

 

As Alex says, it's no idea going D-A-D when you can go D-D-A. It a more "natural" way. 

Closer to D-A-D-A vs. D-A.

In reality however, the last form of analogue conversion doesn't matter as the amplifiers are closely matched to the DSP output by the B&O engineers themselves.

Yeah and i understand how that all works, so on paper, it make utter sense... especially when DIG out is offerered on products like BC2 and BS9k. What i am curious to know, is, is there a discernible difference?? Somebody ought to try it.

When i acquire BL5's, i may want to keep using the Beosound 4 -  does anyone with BL5's also have a BS4 to experiment with this idea?

Even though, by the time i have 30k spare cash lying around products like BS5 will be the norm. 

Why would the lab 4000 MK II be worse sounding than mark I? Because of the ICE class D amp? But looking at the spec's I see that the praised lab % and lab 3 also have ICE class D amps so what is bad about that?

jc:

Why would the lab 4000 MK II be worse sounding than mark I? Because of the ICE class D amp? But looking at the spec's I see that the praised lab % and lab 3 also have ICE class D amps so what is bad about that?

Because there's the Beolab 4s that many here at the forum don't like. They found them cheap sounding and the fact that the Icepower that is used in the new Beolab 4000 seems similar to the Beolab 4s made them speculate that the resulting sound will be degraded that's all. 

Never heard a pair of mark 2 BL4000s for any time. Therefore cannot comment. Have heard BL4s which do nothing for me. If I have a problem with the BL4 and probably the BL4000 Mk2 it is the fact that the speaker coil is used as an inductor to damp the high frequency switching of the class D amplifier. I believe this is done for space reasons in the BL4 but for economy in thr BL4000. This at least theoretically will result in unwanted harmonics which will degrade the sound. Smacks of cost cutting which I don't like. The BL3,5 and 9 do not do this as far as I understand.