Hi B&O aficionados, need your advice. I'm following B&O and Beoworld since a couple of years. In the meantime I bought a couple of stuff Beocom 4, Beosound 3 and Beotime recently.

First of all I would like congratulate again (I probably have done it in the past already when I joined and asked for advice then. But quite some stuff has changed since then.....) Beoworld and their members. Very useful information on this forum and very passionate people and posts. Really like it.

ML wiring is included in the new house we moved in 5 months ago. Since then I was near to order the BV8 (BV7 looks and souns fantastic but it didn't fit our requirements) but fortunately read on this forum about BV10! I pre-ordered straight the BV10 once as I saw the first picture. It looks great! And the design/functionality/price was what I was looking for since some time.

So here is the foreseen set-up

* living room BV10-40 with BS8000; I'll plan to connect a bluray player (maybe a PS3?) that works with Beo5; daily use for TV, DVD's for little daughter of 2 yrs and DVDs/BR for me and my wife, no need for 5.1 here

* office room BL3500 as linkroom for stored music, radio mainly

* parent sleeping room BL3500 or a TV with a decent sound as linkroom (but at a later stage) for stored music and radio mainly

* furbished attic of 60m2: I have currently a 52 inch Sony LCD with PS3 for my 11yr old sun (and me!!)

Here what I'm looking for:

* use the link functionalities for living room: mainly stored music, radio, pictures and personal videos

* office and sleeping room: mainly radio and stored music as mentioned above

* attic: use link functionalities similar to main room but with a decent sound as well; for the time I have KEF 5.1 compact loudspeakers (the eggs first series) from previous flat with a Marantz 6 channel amplifier but without HDMI. Theyre not hooked up to the Sony right now and the sound from the TV is sh...Cannot hear the voices clearly or otherwise it gets too loud when there's action. Kef's are ok so for the time I'll keep those. In a couple of years I plan to buy a second hand 50/55 inch from B&O and then go for B&O speakers as well.

I'm a Mac user, hence AppleTv is a cheap and decent solution. Though I would like everything to work with Beo5 respectively Beo4. Dealer told me that I need one B&O audio equipment for the link functionalities. That's where I've problem deciding. Because looking at the prices, I rather go straight for the BS5. I read through the BS5 forum and come to the conclusion that it's probably early to buy it as it needs to mature (or am I wrong here). Then there is talk about a new audio platform? Does this mean that the BS5 will turn to a media platform and if yes, will the current BS5 be upgradable by changing BM5 maybe (but at what cost)?

Any thoughts on what you would do at this stage please?

Thanks for your help

Patrizio

I would use Apple TV - I believe the Beo5 can be made to work this directly. There are a few developments coming in the next year which will probably suit you so I would go for a chheaper option and take stock next year.

petz:

Then there is talk about a new audio platform? Does this mean that the BS5 will turn to a media platform and if yes, will the current BS5 be upgradable by changing BM5 maybe (but at what cost)?

Any thoughts on what you would do at this stage please?

There is something to be said for procrastination with all the current rumours of change ... what is the time frame in which you need to make some decisions ?  

And if you need to move now, is eBay an answer to planting "one B&O audio equipment for the link functionalities" ?

I can wait a couple of months. In the meantime I can listen music in linkrooms with the BS3.

My fear is more about buying BS5 now and then having to spend again decent money next year. But maybe it's only me not getting the right picture by reading through the BS5 Forum. From my understanding B&O has started embracing the digital age with BS5, but yet not arrived where it should be compared to competition (design and build quality is not considered in this staement).

I absolutely love my BeoSound 5 and can't imagining being without it. It truly has re-acquainted me with some great music in my library that I haven't listened to in years. Besides the MOTS functionality, the interface really makes a large digital music library very accessible. 

I will say, however, that you could be pretty unsatisfied if your digital music has not been properly tagged and has high-resolution cover art. Neglect in these areas becomes very noticeable on the BeoSound 5. While you're waiting to decide, this is a good time to be cleaning up your iTunes library.

>>I absolutely love my BeoSound 5 and can't imagining being without it.<<

It's all about expectations I guess. In my opinion one does have to bite bite into the bullet of maintaining a 2nd digital library on top of what one is using for the Ipod. For me this is tough to swallow but unless a high capacity ipod touch comes out it will be like that. The "gaps" in-between tracks for concerts are a non issue in PC environments when the wav format is used. In mac environments, it ruins the experience and I would not want to go back to that. That was so annoying when I moved from mini disk to my 1st ipod.

Now I can see why B&O doesn't pick up on that, one does not find these things out in an actual store demo. 

My feeling about BS5 is, that it is what it is right now. There may be changes when additional products are released but I doubt that there is a team developing right now improving that thing.