BeoSound 5 Forum

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

Alex — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 13:23:04 GMT

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

Puncher — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 11:45:24 GMT

Alex:

....................B&O have made it appeal to those who already have a BeoVision 9.

Thus ensuring huge sales

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

Alex — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:33:55 GMT

I agree with you RE the two box issue, IMO it would be a good idea if B&O bought out a second version of the BeoMaster 5 which was prettier (think HDR2 casing) for those who don't want to or can't hide it out of the way.

The size of the unit is also partly so it will fit in the BeoVision 9 which was originally intended to have a BeoMedia in the back. By making the BeoMaster 5 the same size as the BeoMedia, B&O have made it appeal to those who already have a BeoVision 9.

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

kuliand — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:49:36 GMT

Well i will admit i was not aware the beosound 5 was the name given to the combination of the beomaster and control unti together.

But as for the combining the brian and control unit needing to be huge i disagree all you need is a hard disk and a small motherboard which yes might of been bigger than the control unit is now but it does not need to be the size of the 2 devices combined just look at the 3200 that has a hard disk and isn't that big.

I also feel this 2 box solution goes against the B&O design philosophy as i thought one of the reasons for active speakers was to reduce the amount components needed add that the digital age is supposed to reduce physical size but now we have more space taken up than with a cd player.

Yes the beosound 3200 with a bigger hard disk slapped in would not be easy to use i should of put more effort into to my idea really it was more a proof that you could get it all in one box. Maybe the beosound 4 would be a better product to put a 500GB hard disk in as you could put a bigger colour screen behind the glass where the current simple display already is.

I also think they need to work on a 2 way remote that can be used to control digital media without the need to keep getting out of your seat to change what you are listening to.

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

Alex — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 06:53:16 GMT

A lot of your views seem to be a little inaccurate, although that's understandable having only read about it on forums.

The BeoSound 5 is not the head unit you control, the BeoSound 5 is a combination of both the head unit and the socket unit (called the BeoMaster 5 when by itself). Very similar in a way to the BeoCenter 2, except the socket unit can exist by itself.

The BeoMaster 5 is a 'brain' to drive your system. You need some way of interacting with it, whether it's via a BeoVision, or as part of the BeoSound 5 (I would personally choose the latter).

If both were combined, the BeoSound 5 would be visually HUGE, and I don't know about you, but I feel the appearance and feel of the BeoSound 5 is just right - not too big and not too small.

As for the lack of format support, the only 'hurdle' I can see is ALAC (or as many call it, Apple Lossless). This is something I would like to see B&O support for, but at the moment, it's not a huge issue IMO despite being an Apple user. FLAC is well, used by a lot of people, but IMO both WMA and ALAC are better as they work with mainstream software such as Windows Media Player, iTunes and of course BeoPlayer.

As for increasing the disk space in the BeoSound 3200 - I couldn't disagree with you more! Imagine trying to browse 15,000 songs on a little screen like that. It's fine as it is IMO.

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

kuliand — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 05:55:07 GMT

Not that i can afford a beosound5 + beomaster 5 the more i read about the system the more it seems over complicated and lacking in features.

First i do not understand the thinking behind needing two boxes to the job that could be done in one stand alone product. When the beosound 5 was first announced i thought it was going to be a music player itself but it has turned out to just be a large controller with all the processing being done in the beomaster 5.

Secondly it seems the beomaster 5 can not be used to play music without the beosound 5 or TV screen? im not 100% sure on this so excuse my mistakes.

Thirdly the lack of formats supported i know there is no difference in sound quality in WMA and flac but the price of this system it should support a wider range of audio formats and i believe flac is the way to go for keeping a digital music library as i believe it offers the most future proof solution due to it's open nature.

Fourthly the lack of a disk drive in the beosound 5 means for a lot of people they will still want a separate cd player and it makes the process of getting music into the digital world more long winded where as if it had a built in cd player you could just copy your music as you wanted to listen to it. I also believe cd will be format people buy music on for atleast 5 years until there is real solution to buy high quality digital music online DRM free.

So i believe a better product would be to increase the hard disk in the beosound 3200 and add WMA and flac support and this would give a true one box solution to digital audio as it stands i think the only company that has got this right is naim with the HDX as this has built in cd drive and hard disk in one box.

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

koning — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:53:30 GMT

PhilLondon:

Maybe that answer this thread's question then.

The sound quality does not depend on the Beoport but on your PC's sound card and how you've compressed the songs.

With BM5, B&O know what sound card they are using... and they allow you to use Lossless encoding.

p.

Oke'

I have a good soundcard and all mij mp3's have been ript bij mij own at 320kb

Maybe a usb dac will give a better soundperformance.

If a signal goes through a "standard" computer that's imho not good for the soundQuality.

Mainpower-distortion rf interfention jitter etc etc.

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

avus17 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:21:05 GMT

forgot to write save costs

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

avus17 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:19:50 GMT

What I don't understand is, why does B&O not make a cheap solution to connect BeoSound 5 via ML to PC directly. This way we colud save at least a 1/2 of BeoSound/Master 5 combo as nowdays there is no need to rip music twice (1st from net to PC and then also from PC to BM5). What a waste of time. And BeoMaster is a big ugly box, hard to hide and there are also a lot of cables there.

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

PhilLondon — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:10:35 GMT

avus17:
What I would like to have is BeoSound 5 directly connected to my PC as there ia 1000 GB of storage place and therefore no need to copy files to BeoMaster 5, this way I would have a controler (display) and quick acces to my PC files and no extra blackbox. This was my question.

Your PC does not have a ML interface, so that would not be possible.

avus17:
Can perhaps BeoSound 5 be used with BeoPort to be connected to PC?

No. Until someone hack the BM5 software to make it work on every PC... that will not solve the ML problem.

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

avus17 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:06:56 GMT

What I would like to have is BeoSound 5 directly connected to my PC as there ia 1000 GB of storage place and therefore no need to copy files to BeoMaster 5, this way I would have a controler (display) and quick acces to my PC files and no extra blackbox. This was my question.

Can perhaps BeoSound 5 be used with BeoPort to be connected to PC?

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

PhilLondon — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:05:29 GMT

Maybe that answer this thread's question then.

The sound quality does not depend on the Beoport but on your PC's sound card and how you've compressed the songs.

With BM5, B&O know what sound card they are using... and they allow you to use Lossless encoding.

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

koning — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:59:07 GMT

I have beoport for a long time and I NOT sastified with the soundQuality

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

PhilLondon — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:55:00 GMT

avus17:
I don't understand why BeoSound 5 can only function together with BeoMaster 5. We now have PCs with big storage (1 tera or more) and therefore BeoMaster 5 with 500 GB of storage is no need. Is there a possibility to connect BeoSound 5 directly to a PC?

B&O has had solution for this for quite a while. It is called Beoport. It connects your PC to the ML network and you can stream song to any N.MUSIC compatible device.

BM5 or BM1 are more integrated solutions, where your PC does not have to be available all the time.

Re: BeoSound 5 - why only with BeoMaster 5 together?

bayerische — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:29:52 GMT

The Mini is connected directly to the Beolab5's. Toslink -> optical/coaxial adapter -> beolab5.