General Forum

Re: New House, New System........????????????

elephant — Tue, 10 May 2011 06:38:42 GMT

That's a great view you have !

And the inside of the home looks good too

Thanks for the pictures - I will respond to your PM/email a bit later

Re: New House, New System........????????????

Rubicon — Tue, 10 May 2011 00:25:32 GMT

My my, how time marches on!

We've been in for about 18 months now, and loving it especially the hard-wired B&O! Haven't finished off the complete media management system, so still got CD's in boxes and playing them individually. Have used the SD card too but find the quality a bit "thin".

Now the ipad is here I think I'll incorporate that so if anyone has some clever ideas I'd be glad to hear them! We're still working with analogue on the Samsung Series 6 LED which gets a few raised eyebrows when we have visitors - I'll sure miss those "Rabbit ears" when they go! The system is hard wired through the house with I assume Masterlink as the B&O guys did it - seems that is now outdated which is a bit disappointing really.

Here are a few pics of the system. I have to say that the LAB 3500 are perfectly adequate, and it really is great having good sound all over the house!

Cheers

Re: New House, New System........????????????

Rubicon — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:53:17 GMT

Thanks very much for that Ralf!

If I use the aux for the mac-mini input is anyone prepared to tell me if the speaker set up I have in mind will run as a "series" set up with powerlink cables alone???????

Cheers

Re: New House, New System........????????????

kallasr — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:14:28 GMT

Peter,

that is why I changed my Beosound 2500 to an Ouverture, to make use of the AUX input using a mac mini.

The aux in the Beosound 2500 was blocked for the ML converter (type 1614 or type 1611).

So, if you want the Beosound as an audio master in your setup and make use of the aux input (aux is in and output!), you need to change to an Ouverture (or BS4/9000).

When I finish the mac mini setup (using a 10" touch screen LCD with it as a front row/cover flow input device) I will post pictures.

Ralf

Re: New House, New System........????????????

Rubicon — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:09:40 GMT

Hi all, back again after many architect and engineers meetings! We're just about to start digging holes in the ground and filling them back in again!

I have decide on the mac-mini route for now and will link it to other screens in the house, but unfortunately it's VERY limited down here on this tiny Isle! I can't stream video content from the net and use the apple tv set up as it can be used elsewhere in the world, so I'll ignore that I think and just use the mini as a music and stored video content server. Haven't decided on the external hard drive set up yet so am interested in others' thoughts.

On a technical level I have been quoted around $3000 by the B&O guy in Auckland to wire the house up using the existing Beosound 2300 and Lab 3500 link speakers plus another pair. HOWEVER, he claims there might be some signal strength issues as the 2300 does not have ML - does anyone have any ideas on this? My 2300 has one aux and two powerlink outputs. My main question is this - what cabling is required to link in the other speakers and will there be any signal issues? Do the 3500 link room units need ML connection in order for them to receive signals from the B&O remote? Can I place an interface from aux to convert to ML and then distribute accordingly? If I need aux to accept the signal from the mac-mini (which I do) how can I sort out the need for ML if it's necessary? Can powerlink distribute sound to other speaker pairs or link room speakers - I guess I mean can speakers be linked is "series"?

Should I just listen to the B&O guy and let them get on with it or can I source the required cabling on the net and do it myself with the sparky? Are there screening issues that the B&O guy will by default eliminate, whereas I may have problems with? Do I need to solder connections myself and if so is it fiddly or straightforward?

Sorry for all the questions but I really regard you lot as a splendid bunch of mentors and and much needed support group! And don't get me started on what sort of lights/switches/windows/steel/................................................................

Joking apart we are very excited to be starting soon!

Cheers for now , and I've tried to add an artists impression/CAD drawing of proposed house just for interest!

Peter

Re: New House, New System........????????????

Klas — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 19:55:32 GMT

Peter - just as an additonal note to Soundproof - depending if you get a BV7 or a BS1,2,3 you can then connect the mac-mini into your BS1,2,3 with a Toslink>S/PDIF converter and you get excellent sound......can high recommend a X-Raid set-up; Infrant are very capable, small and silent and not to expensive.....

Re: New House, New System........????????????

Rubicon — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 14:50:34 GMT

Thanks very much soundproof - I'm slowly getting my head around this technology. The IR 2.0 sounds like it will be worth waiting for, in the meantime I'll get on with designing the wiring system, incorporating the CAT6 recommendations and the Co-ax cabling suggestions too.

Cheers

Peter

Re: New House, New System........????????????

soundproof — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 03:27:55 GMT

The Mac mini has a disc reader/player, and reads all formats of standard DVD/CD/CDR etc. It doesn't read the HD standard discs, nor does it read SACD.

I don't think you'd hear a difference between a BeoSound 4 and a BeoSound 2300 player -- both would convey the musical signal to your active speakers through Powerlink, and it's the quality of the speakers that is decisive as far as the quality of playback is concerned. You may want to consider getting a good Digital-to-Analog converter and connecting that between your Mac mini and the BeoSound. The DAC inside the mini is not of audiophile quality.

How many CDs/DVDs you can fit on the server depends upon how you store them. You can use a RAID configuration, which means that if one of the harddisks in the server (mine has four) fails, all the information you have stored is still on the remaining three -- in other words, you have reserved capacity to ensure this kind of fail-safe in order to prevent loss of data. You can also just store your data raw and chance it. I'm using X-RAID on an Infrant NAS Server. Each DVD takes up to 7GB space; the CDs depends upon the bitrate at which you store them, I'd counsel 320 kbps as a minimum.

The Touch is a universal unit, it communicates via wireless (you'll need an Airport Extreme Base Station) and you only need one Touch. You'll find that the other members of your family will want to use it, though. The server I'm using is capable of sending several movies and different tracks of music out to various outlets in my apartment at the same time (Tvs, computers, stereos), and my daughter has demanded her own Touch.

You only need one, though, to get the whole thing working, and then you can just bring it along with you to whatever room you'll be using it in. It will communicate with your Mac mini via wireless.

I'm personally waiting for iRed 2.0 which will make it possible for my Touch to also transmit Beo4 commands to the hardware. At present I'm using Beo4 to switch units off and on.

Re: New House, New System........????????????

Rubicon — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:54:32 GMT

Hi Peter,

Just read that link:

http://forum.beoworld.org/forums/thread/66994.aspx

Found it very interesting, and will probably go for this type of arrangement as it seems very cost effective. minimal in appearance and easy to use via the ipod touch. Just a few questions regarding playback etc, firstly I'll describe a system which I'm thinking might do the trick:

Mac-mini in study upstairs hard-wired to aux on 2300 which is in main listening room downstairs, external HDD with around 1Tb next to mac-mini. Lab 5000's with 2300 (would prefer Lab 9's but probably blown $$$ on house!) Some sort of widescreen here also, can't decide between LCD or Plasma, but will wait for this decision. I guess this will be hard wired to mac-mini also via one of those HDMI cables. Lab 6000's in bedroom near study upstairs. Newly won Lab 4's in a link room downstairs - will this need a beolink or will the touch work these ok? What I'm hoping will happen is that the HDD will have music and DVD's stored for playback as and when in each of the listening rooms. My questions are these:

1 Does the mac-mini act as a DVD player?

2 Does the 2300 act as the music player, and if so would a Beosound 4 playback at a better standard?

3 If all this is correct, how many CD's and DVD's roughly could I expect to get on this size HDD? (going to use lossless I think but maybe 320kbps as you suggested elsewhere)

4 Can the Beo4 be used in conjunction with the touch, and if so how easy is it to use with regard to finding music. In simple terms can this be in the bedroom for example and the touch in the main room downstairs? I have two Beo4's so maybe the other one could be in the link room? Or maybe I need 2/3 touches to make it all one standard and easier to use?

5 How does the touch downstairs communicate with the mac, is it wireless or does it need an interface in the room? Are these units ugly and large or well designed and discrete?

Hope all this isn't too much to ask, and if you remember your "aim low" comment to Soundproof, please be gentle on me too!

Cheers for now

Peter

Re: New House, New System........????????????

Stars — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:33:13 GMT

I do something similar. I try out different B&O in different rooms. I have used BV7, BV8, BS3000, BL6000, BL3, and BL2500 in my bedroom. The dangerous bit is moving them around the place!

Re: New House, New System........????????????

kallasr — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:59:51 GMT

By the way: thanks for your kind comments!

Still trying to improve though...

Now playing with the home office room (BM 4500, BD CD 4500 and Wharfedale speakers - not linked yet, but...).

Once addicted to B&O, there's no cure, I am always looking at new stuff, new setups, even though I cannot afford the latest series of products I have even more fun in buying (and selling) some of the older things and playing with different configurations... It is just a hobby, don't you think so....?

Ralf

Re: New House, New System........????????????

Stars — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:19:07 GMT

Nice setup Ralf

Re: New House, New System........????????????

Dave — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:04:09 GMT

Lovely placement of your Beovision, BL3500 and Ouverture. Beautiful!

Re: New House, New System........????????????

kallasr — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 05:21:08 GMT

Strange - the second bunch of photos post had to be approved by a moderator - and as time stamp there is the time of the creation - not of the approval. So if you don't want to miss the photos... here's a little "push" of this thread...

Ralf

Re: New House, New System........????????????

Rubicon — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:09:09 GMT

Really great stuff here - thanks everyone for all the posting, hopefully others will also benefit from all these little gems!