I'm a long term B&O fan and a Mac user since 1984. After it's announcement the Beosound 5 was planned to become my latest B&O purchase. But the lack of iTunes compatibility and some problems with early versions of the Beomaster 5 software made me cautious about buying the Beosound 5 and I kept using Apple TV.

With the announcement of iPad the possibilities extended way beyond B&O's concept of digital media. iPad as a front end for Apple TV makes a perfect solution as a media hub for home entertainment, connected to my Beovision 4 setup.

Too bad, because I still like the design concept of the Beosound 5 hardware.

What do you think ?

Exactly!

Take a look at this thread, hopefully the start of something big!

erg4000:

I'm a long term B&O fan and a Mac user since 1984. After it's announcement the Beosound 5 was planned to become my latest B&O purchase. But the lack of iTunes compatibility and some problems with early versions of the Beomaster 5 software made me cautious about buying the Beosound 5 and I kept using Apple TV.

With the announcement of iPad the possibilities extended way beyond B&O's concept of digital media. iPad as a front end for Apple TV makes a perfect solution as a media hub for home entertainment, connected to my Beovision 4 setup.

Too bad, because I still like the design concept of the Beosound 5 hardware.

What do you think ?

The same is true for me. On the one hand I found the BeoMaster 5 interface very stylish, its functionalities on the other hand to limited for the price. iTunes offers far better handling for very large music libraries and is also essential if one has a couple of ipods / iPhones. B&O has to learn that Apple set the standard for digital music in the industry and will have no chance but to make better B&O integration possible.

Will the iPad be excellent? I suspect it will.

Will I pre-order one as soon as it's available? Absolutely.

Will it become my most used Apple device out of my MacBook Air, Macbook Pro, iMac, Mac Mini, & iPhone? Almost certainly. 

Will it offer a better experience than my BeoSound 5 for listening to music in my home? Absolutely not. 

The reason is not so much the iPad, but rather the inherent strength of the BeoSound 5 and the inherent weakness of the AppleTV. 

On-Board Storage: You can't appreciate this until you involve streaming into your home AV setup. At best it's mildly annoying. At worst it means consistent drop-outs in sound and intermittent freezing of software while connections are broken and re-established. It also means that your wireless network runs faster and your computer's processing resources aren't allocated to helping your home AV setup. And what if you don't want your computer turned on? So if you want a robust and trouble-free user experience, the AppleTV is not a serious choice.

Sound Quality: Even if you're willing to deal with streaming and its many problems, you'll never begin to approach the sound quality produced by the BeoSound 5. The sound-card hardware and decompression algorithms are stellar. If you're serious about sound quality (and presumably anyone spending B&O money is) you'd never consider AppleTV or other flimsy AV boxes.

Music Discovery: Apple genius is pretty clever, but it limitations are clear: if music has not been listened to or rated, it is not likely to figure into your playlists. It's great for mixing some of your familiar music, but not for discovering new music within your collection. Nor, in my direct experience, is the result nearly as enjoyable. So if you have a large collection and want to get the most out of your investment, the AppleTV will never be a serious consideration.

Interface: Unless you're thrilled with scrolling through lists, virtual keyboards, and distant video screens; you'll undoubtedly find the AppleTV a daunting chore to operate. The BeoSound 5's elegant interface is joyful and inviting and can navigate large collections better than any interface out there. If you have 300 CDs it will be remarkable. If you have, like me, over 1,100, it will be indispensable. So if you want to be able to access your large collection quickly and precisely, the BeoSound 5 is the very best choice.

All in all the AppleTV, iPad, iPod, etc. are novel media devices and most of us BeoSound 5 owners will undoubtedly have at least 2 of the 3 in our arsenal, but they will never be able to take the place of higher quality experiences like the BeoSound 5. 

No need to defend the BM5/BS5... and take the AppleTV out of the equation for the time being...

Add a DAC and an iPad for <~$1000.00 to your existing iTunes and the BM5/BS5 becomes the "novel media device."

burantek:

Exactly!

Take a look at this thread, hopefully the start of something big!

That thread is interesting.  However what they are talking about is beyond the average user.  Almost everything they are talking about can be done but only a few would or could actually do it.  I have a Beosound 5 and use exactly as it was design.....a very good music system.

I have decided to maintain a Beosound library which is for casual listening and also have a iTunes library with almost all files in lossless format.  My iTunes is on a 27 inch iMac with a 2 tb drive.

My philosophy for B&O products is simple.  I want the dealer to do the installation and make it all work.  The iTunes is separate and I'll do that myself.  Music from iTunes can be better than Beosound 5 streaming to an AppleTV. (sorry Trip) You need to use a high quality DAC on the AppleTV and connect to the AUX port on your music system. 

Imagine if you could have Beomaster 5+ iPad

Will you can kind of. Load a free copy of logmein.com onto your Beomaster 5.

Purchase the Logmein App from App Store and this will bring up the screen of the Beomaster 5 on the iPad/iPhone/iTouch

The IPAD doesn't stream, the ATV can be connected direct to a stereo so no drop outs. I am guessing the remote that we have on ITouch and IPhone will be used on the IPAD as well. They probably do a better version down the line to make use of the larger screen.

Just realize that it doesn't multi task so no quick and easy changing of CDs without leaving the browser or ebook reader and reconnecting to the library. 16GB would be fine for a remote  - 64GB will not handle any serious music library - lets forget Video since for larger collections we are talking NAS not even single hard disk.

They are both not perfect. Sonos seems to be better but the design is ugly.

I realize where Apple is coming from, this is for the masses who download Top 40 in the Itunes store. That leaves a space for B&O and their BS5 as it does for Sonos. Who wants to listen to Itunes Plus quality Top 40 songs on 4000$ and up speaker systems?

It Doesn't stream but it could be the hand held two way remote it has Wifi

I agree in entirety with Trip. I have both a BS5-BL9-BC2 set-up and an ATV-Tivo-BV8-BL3 set-up. The first is in my primary residence and the second is in a second home. The interface (including MOTS) and the listening experience on the BS5-centric system is far superior to the ATV-centric system (with due consideration of the advantages of the BL9s). The ATV crashes about 1-2 times a day (my BS5 has never crashed), not to mention the number of dropouts and the general lower quality of reproduction on the ATV.

As Jobs said in his keynote "Apple is a mobile devices company".... Apple is not an audio systems company. B&O is.

AppleTV only has 160GB on-board storage and gives priority to video. My audio along is greater so there's streaming from a "switched-on" system no matter what.

Attached DACs improve a bad situation, but don't match up sonically.

I don't hate the AppleTV, but google "Apple TV problems" and you'll start to see what a cluster-cuss the thing is. 

M4SPM:

It Doesn't stream but it could be the hand held two way remote it has Wifi

I think the iPad will stream and more.  The app just hasn't been written yet.  This is a good idea for some aspiring developer to do.

Once again Affineur represents the opinion I see in the majority of my customer base. It's not that he and I specifically share a philosophy (though it sounds as though we do), but that his needs and demands align completely with the majority of B&O's core clientele. 

I totally agree with Trip and Affineur.

The Beosound5 is very enjoyable experience. I would be very interested in it if it offered me a more complete solution (better integration with both my audio and video libraries)

The Ipad with its present capacities cannot be more than a '2-way user interface' , just like the Beosound5 is just an interface for the beomaster.
It will need a backend (mac or pc), just like the beomaster, to do most of the work sending the requested content to your stereo or tv.
Does not take the fact away that the Ipad (if a proper B&O app would be developed) would be an interesting replacement (or extra) to the Beosound. 

The Ipad can never be a true stand-alone, stream your library, kind of product. It was never designed to be that.
Scrolling through a big library of CD covers is very taxing on both the serving and receiving side and can hardly be done well over wifi.
To be practical way and in order to secure fluid motion the cd covers should be stored on the IPad, with the audio or video files remaining on the server and be fed to your stereo or tv from there.

The apple TV's work very well as secondary stations ( extra bedroom tv, kitchen, bathroom, etc...) for audio and video.
However, if you live in a wifi-rich area (Like me living downtown Montreal) it's going to cause problems. Alot of my video library has been ripped full Dvd quality or higher making the heavy use of my wifi system and therefore more prone to hick-ups and  at the same time hogging the bandwidth for other users on my home network.
Hardwiring them with ethernet solved all problems. 

>>I think the iPad will stream and more.  The app just hasn't been written yet.  This is a good idea for some aspiring developer to do.<<

Apple restricts what a developer can do through the SDK (software development kit). It did not open up broadly for the Ipad, so non apple apps for video or audio playing or streaming is not really in the cards. Also, I don't think it makes much sense since you would end up with battery problems, it requires some power to do that.

I think a better remote app done by Apple is in the cards, so ATV and IPAD may be a better solution for some.

jk1002:

>>I think the iPad will stream and more.  The app just hasn't been written yet.  This is a good idea for some aspiring developer to do.<<

Apple restricts what a developer can do through the SDK (software development kit). It did not open up broadly for the Ipad, so non apple apps for video or audio playing or streaming is not really in the cards. Also, I don't think it makes much sense since you would end up with battery problems, it requires some power to do that.

I think a better remote app done by Apple is in the cards, so ATV and IPAD may be a better solution for some.

 

Sorry but I was actually talking about future possibilities.  You're right.  The SDK is very restrictive now.

cooldude:

The Ipad with its present capacities cannot be more than a '2-way user interface' , just like the Beosound5 is just an interface for the beomaster. It will need a backend (mac or pc), just like the beomaster, to do most of the work sending the requested content to your stereo or tv. Does not take the fact away that the Ipad (if a proper B&O app would be developed) would be an interesting replacement (or extra) to the Beosound.

This is my direction... again, not defending nor offending the BM5/BS5. I just see the iPad as a BS5 without the wires, and with a world of possibilites.

My ~2 year old Touch does have music on it. How often do I use it as an iPod? Once, for about a track or two. I do, however, use it all the time for the Remote.app!

My iPad will not be a glorified iPod nor a gelded Macbook. It will be my new Touch XL. It will be my primary hub for interacting with iTunes on my G5, and whatever else comes along for the ride via B&o's MCL Gateway, IRTrans, or something else coming in the future.

burantek:

cooldude:

The Ipad with its present capacities cannot be more than a '2-way user interface' , just like the Beosound5 is just an interface for the beomaster. It will need a backend (mac or pc), just like the beomaster, to do most of the work sending the requested content to your stereo or tv. Does not take the fact away that the Ipad (if a proper B&O app would be developed) would be an interesting replacement (or extra) to the Beosound.

This is my direction... again, not defending nor offending the BM5/BS5. I just see the iPad as a BS5 without the wires, and with a world of possibilites.
Exactly ..  :) The BS5 is a beautifull machine. The fact that it's not movable and audio only has stopped me buying one.

My ~2 year old Touch does have music on it. How often do I use it as an iPod? Once, for about a track or two. I do, however, use it all the time for the Remote.app!
Same here ! Though mine don't even have any music on it anyways. I do have a Nano for 'on the road' use. 

My iPad will not be a glorified iPod nor a gelded Macbook. It will be my new Touch XL. It will be my primary hub for interacting with iTunes on my G5, and whatever else comes along for the ride via B&o's MCL Gateway, IRTrans, or something else coming in the future.
LOL Touch XL indeed ... or  how about the regular touch would be renamed 'Ipad Nano' ???... LOL 

TripEnglish:

Sound Quality: - you'll never begin to approach the sound quality produced by the BeoSound 5. The sound-card hardware and decompression algorithms are stellar.

Really? Perhaps you can expand on how this is  - if most store their music in uncompressed format then the "stellar" decompression algorithms add nothing to the proceedings. The soundcard hardware is based around a $5 A/D converter from Analog Devices which gives a very reasonable to good performance but I've never heard it described before as "stellar".

I think that the right externally connected converter could in fact quite easily approach the sound quality of the BM5 and, I'm also reasonably certain, surpass it. 

I think we should be a little more considered in our claims.

TripEnglish:

AppleTV only has 160GB on-board storage and gives priority to video. My audio along is greater so there's streaming from a "switched-on" system no matter what.

Attached DACs improve a bad situation, but don't match up sonically.

I don't hate the AppleTV, but google "Apple TV problems" and you'll start to see what a cluster-cuss the thing is. 

 

Hello Trip,

I appreciate you enthusiasm for the Beosound 5. I wish syncing iTunes library and Beosound 5 would be easier. I want to use iTunes as my main music library.

When I proposed iPad and Apple TV as a Beosound 5 replacement, I wanted to point out that the iPad would be the remote user interface of Apple TV, which is connected to the Beosystem 3.

I'm sure you know the Remote App for iPhone. You can browse through the Apple TV content easily on your remote iPhone/iod touch/iPad.

Best, E.

good idea the ipad/mac mini combo instead of the beosound 5... it will be my first choice. ;-)

at the moment i use my iphone/macbook pro connected via airport express to my vintage beolab 5000 (1967) system. nice sound!!!

best regards

dario

Puncher:

TripEnglish:

 

Sound Quality: - you'll never begin to approach the sound quality produced by the BeoSound 5. The sound-card hardware and decompression algorithms are stellar.

 

Really? Perhaps you can expand on how this is  - if most store their music in uncompressed format then the "stellar" decompression algorithms add nothing to the proceedings. The soundcard hardware is based around a $5 A/D converter from Analog Devices which gives a very reasonable to good performance but I've never heard it described before as "stellar".

I think that the right externally connected converter could in fact quite easily approach the sound quality of the BM5 and, I'm also reasonably certain, surpass it. 

I think we should be a little more considered in our claims.

 

Excellent point, Puncher. You should, indeed, be a little more considered in your claims. While many here on these boards may store their music in a lossless format, the majority of users actually store a large portion of their music in compressed formats. Not everyone wants to devote the time and energy to grooming the perfect collection and so a device that can cope with a variety of formats is a real asset to our clients. Building a platform that required the use of lossless only would be foolish as it's a worthless format in any other device (generally large and incapable of embedding meta-data).

So I've had several side by sides with an AppleTV with an outboard DAC and I think the term "lipstick on a pig" about sums it up. There's certainly a benefit objectively, but when we're placing it directly against the BeoSound 5, it's not a real contest. 

I agree that I'd like to have a wireless tablet version of the BeoSound 5, so there's no argument there. My input on this thread is strictly in answer to the AppleTV & iPad being paired up as some sort of competitor. It's just too flimsy an experience and by the time you put the money and effort into every correcting every flaw in pair, you've bought a BeoSound 5. Especially if you place a value on your time, which I do. 

erg4000:

TripEnglish:

AppleTV only has 160GB on-board storage and gives priority to video. My audio along is greater so there's streaming from a "switched-on" system no matter what.

Attached DACs improve a bad situation, but don't match up sonically.

I don't hate the AppleTV, but google "Apple TV problems" and you'll start to see what a cluster-cuss the thing is. 

 

 

Hello Trip,

 

I appreciate you enthusiasm for the Beosound 5. I wish syncing iTunes library and Beosound 5 would be easier. I want to use iTunes as my main music library.

 

When I proposed iPad and Apple TV as a Beosound 5 replacement, I wanted to point out that the iPad would be the remote user interface of Apple TV, which is connected to the Beosystem 3.

I'm sure you know the Remote App for iPhone. You can browse through the Apple TV content easily on your remote iPhone/iod touch/iPad.

 

Best, E.

Hi Erg4000,

It's a novel approach indeed, but novelty is the majority of what it has to offer. The Remote app, for example, is flawed in that it's constantly dropping the connection with the attached library, pausing, halting, reloading, etc. Even though only the music's info is streaming, the experience is awful. I've never been able to really get it working reliably either at one of my houses or one of my clients'.

As I said, I'm probably as excited as anyone to acquire an iPad as anyone, but the key to happiness is setting realistic expectations. If I expect the iPad to replace devices and experiences that are well outside its scope of abilities, I'll hate it. If I take it on its own terms and use it as intended, I'll love it. 

It's like many of my friends hacking their iPhones to make them "better" or seeing people who are tuning their cars to make them "better." I'm going to use the thing to take notes, keep a calendar, mark up blueprints, and watch a movie on long plane rides. I don't expect to use it as a steering wheel, massage chair, and pressure cooker.

I can see the iPad being used with either the Apple TV or a Mac connected. My version would use the new software from Phil that many of have been testing. The iPad would be used to control it. Alternatively, the Beo 4 would be used to control the music with the iPad merely sitting as a display to show what is being played. I have noticed that when I use the Beo 4, if the iTouch is on it will change to match the song selected by the Beo 4.

Looking at a device like the Ipad, I also think this is what BeoSound 5 should have been : a revamped Master Control Panel like in the 80's, only to control the BeoPort application wirelessly. There's not even need for a BeoMaster 5, let people choose - or keep- their own computers, and simply offer a full display and control on the Ipad, the sound will come through the BeoLink network, that's all!

However I agree with Trip about the Apple TV, it is way too limited for me, both in storage and in the formats it can playback, and in the connections it has.The Linkplayer application can do much better I think, without the need to buy a new product.