I have visited my dealer yesterday to see the new BeoSound 5. The price is very high 4.710,-€ for a MP3/Net.Radio streamer with a wheel and display. My dealer told me that for the price it will be hard to sell it as there is no CD mechanism in the new sound system. What do you think? I had also troubles to play with the new sound machine at it seemed a little bit complicated.

I found it quite simple to use, but I too think it is very expensive for what it is. I would still buy a BeoCenter 2 instead at the moment. If and / or when video files can be played via BeoSound 5 I might be interested.

avus17:

I have visited my dealer yesterday to see the new BeoSound 5. The price is very high 4.710,-€ for a MP3/Net.Radio streamer with a wheel and display. My dealer told me that for the price it will be hard to sell it as there is no CD mechanism in the new sound system. What do you think? I had also troubles to play with the new sound machine at it seemed a little bit complicated.

I think that in the next 5 years the cd comes to is end!

This is the rightway for B&O.

The price compared to sooloos - linn - naim makes B&O cheap.

As my dealer told me BS5 will never be able to play video files. It is only a sound system.

I am not worried tat much about price. I am worried about managing content. I have Itunes and an ipod and it needs to somehow integrate with that without a big wahoo.

 

I have the seen the BS at a dealer in Germany, but how music is loaded is a somewhat big question mark. To expect one to use Beoplayer is a no go for me.

Also, nobody really knows if it can do gapless playing, for classic and DJ mixes a must. Once I have these points clarified, I think I start thinking about it, price is not such an issue inmy opinion if functionality is really there to replace a CD.

Cheers

JK 

The Beosound 5 is undoubtedly the way forward for those of the iTunes generation, those used to CDs alone are not so convinced. I think that the existing B&O product line pre Beosound 5 will shortly be viewed as almost prehistoric. I think B&O have made a logical move with the Beosound 5 although some will argue about the exact details.

Hello,

Im not sure i agree that CD will be a dead format in a few years, particularly given the often poor quality of  digital files. It is often hard to find mp 3 at higher than 256 and most are still are 128. So I'll still be buying CD's for years to come.

People said vinyl would be dead 20 years ago and it is still available and growing in popularity again. Just bought  a nice beogram 7000 myself!

While I love the look of the new beosound 5 I'm struggling to understand why I would buy it? I have beoport connected to my mac computer and beocentre 2 and i can access all my itunes library and net radio now. Would be nice to see the album cover pictures on display in my living room..but that seems the only advantage of beosound. If of course I didnt have a system at all i might go for beosound 5, but presently it offers me nothing I  dont have with my system.

Have I missed the point?? 

David Coyne

Sydney, Australia 

Just when everyone thought HDR2 would be the most expensive hard disk ever, B&O comes out with BeoSound 5...

I have a BeoPort that I use everyday, and I sold my BeoSound ever since I got BeoPort, and stopped buying CDs on the same day, now you can have lossless copies with BeoPort so sound quality is not an excuse anymore.

What bothers me when I read the BS5 user guide, is that it does less than BeoPort, for 10 times the price, so why should I buy it? I can have a separate screen to show all NMUSIC or NRADIO info, and navigate much better through my 5,000 albums with a wireless mouse and keyboard than with a wheel that for the moment only showed us CDcovers..how will you navigate through artists, or playslits, when they scroll?Covers are easy to spot at high speed when you turn the wheel, not names..anyway, going back to the price "issue", indeed it doesn"t do enough for me compared to BeoPort. I won't use the MOTS feature, since I always play tracks in album order..that's how it was recorded.

Had BeoMaster 5 integrated a BeoLink wireless transmitter for link rooms, wi-fi as standard between BeoSound and BeoMaster, and wi-fi as well for the Internet connection, and HDMI output for a single connection to my BeoVision 7, maybe I would have considered the purchase..

The other brands are 2 times expencive,and the only thing they offer is......Music

Digital music sound's better dan cd.

I'm not talking about mp3!!!!  lossless is the way to go!

koning:

The other brands are 2 times expencive,and the only thing they offer is......Music

Digital music sound's better dan cd.

I'm not talking about mp3!!!!  lossless is the way to go!

Surely CD is digital music! 

Digital music sound's better than a cd is not exacly what I mean,

What I mean is that when they use a good Dac, the sound good be better than most cd players.

avus17:

As my dealer told me BS5 will never be able to play video files. It is only a sound system.

Seems bored, but i can't play DVDs on my BS4, because, as the BS5 is a BeoSOUND

Anyway, today, who wants to play video on a 10,4" screen??

I think he means that you can store video on the device and playback via your TV. ie as a 'centre' not a 'sound'. I don't think anyone wants to watch video via the controller!

Maybe with the "Final" software

moxxey:

... I don't think anyone wants to watch video via the controller!

Well, i've seen & heard things that you can't believe

There will be no software updates for videos, but a new beoconcept for digital video; maybe in 2 or 3 years...

We want more

xegoon:

moxxey:

... I don't think anyone wants to watch video via the controller!

Well, i've seen & heard things that you can't believe

There will be no software updates for videos, but a new beoconcept for digital video; maybe in 2 or 3 years...

 

In 2 or 3 years ?

If it's true, I will recommend then to immediatly downsize the company and just keep their Beolab business.  Forget  beosound and beovision it it takes 3 or 5 years to make a new product.

 

I think the advantage of the Beosound 5 over say the 4 or 9000 is the fact that it offers an iTunes like experience without an external computer having to be linked in. Whilst this can be done in other ways the Beosound gives the neatest solution (although not necessarily in every way). Not everyone wants to have a PC in their living room. CDs have some life in them as yet, but with dowloading music increasing in popularity and the prospect of higher quality downloads I think the BS5 makes long term sense. With any luck B&O will have designed their system to be very durable in comparison to your average home PC - which is not.

I will be shocked if it takes more than a few months to get video from the BeoMaster 5 onto a B&O TV screen.  

2 thoughts on this line of inquiry:

1)  Difficult as it may be at this early stage, we must keep in mind that the BeoSound 5 and BeoMaster 5 are intertwined products, but not inextricably so.  They will ultimately be 2 different items. The capapbilities of the BeoMaster 5 are not yet fully known, I think.  I must admit that I often rise to the bait when some here misuse, or willfully ignore B&O naming conventions, but it is precisely this sort of confusion, and consternation which arises.

2)  While some sort of internet/digital video solution is almost certain to show up soon, lets not confuse a solution with a concept.  As discussed at some length in other threads, the CMM-10 and CMM-5 were solutions, the BeoSound 9000 was a concept.  I would not really be too surprised if we are a couple of years away from a real digital 'concept'; but we shall have to wait to see what fruit the new 'Pole Position' strategy may bear. 

propaganda:

I think the advantage of the Beosound 5 over say the 4 or 9000 is the fact that it offers an iTunes like experience without an external computer having to be linked in. Whilst this can be done in other ways the Beosound gives the neatest solution (although not necessarily in every way). Not everyone wants to have a PC in their living room. CDs have some life in them as yet, but with dowloading music increasing in popularity and the prospect of higher quality downloads I think the BS5 makes long term sense. With any luck B&O will have designed their system to be very durable in comparison to your average home PC - which is not.

Propaganda you're false and this is the big problem : with the BS5 you need AT LEAST  2 COMPUTERS,

 - The Beomaster 5 (a Windows XP box ...) linked to the BS5 with 3 beautiful cables (...)

 - A PC or a MAC with a CDROM drive to numerize your cds or to buy music on line.

 

After that,  you just have to put at least 3 000 Euros to buy your BL6000 loudspeakers.

 

And all you've got, is a GIANT IPod with less functionnalities...

 

 

 

plagente:

Propaganda you're false and this is the big problem : with the BS5 you need AT LEAST  2 COMPUTERS,

 - The Beomaster 5 (a Windows XP box ...) linked to the BS5 with 3 beautiful cables (...)

 - A PC or a MAC with a CDROM drive to numerize your cds or to buy music on line. 

After that,  you just have to put at least 3 000 Euros to buy your BL6000 loudspeakers. 

And all you've got, is a GIANT IPod with less functionnalities...  

 I never said the Beosound5 was perfect. You do need two computers, but only one is used all the time (the BeoMaster5), the other computer could be used relatively infrequently to load songs. I agree the cabling of the Beosound head to beomaster leaves a lot to be desired - 3 cables! why not one. I also think they could have improved the appearance of the Beomaster (could have used the HDR2 enclosure?) so that it could be visible instead of hhaving to be hidden away because it is so bland. In terms of functionality the whole B&O beosound range has less functionality than an iPod (other than radio). My point is that there is a whole generation coming through that are now used to iTunes and want similar functionality from a B&O product. At least B&O are trying. What are the objections here cost? functionality? What would the ideal solution be?

Propaganda, I think you open the real can of worms here with that last question....

The debates which rage in the BS-5, and BV-7/8 threads have demonstrated to me that any one person's ideal solution will prove ridiculously inadequate, or woefully overburdened to another.  

I have a few ideas, and have yet to see a BeoSound 5 in person...but it seems very close to the well-focused, audio-only device I expected.

Unlike Trip, Wonderful, and others, my pre-conceived prejudice against the thing stems from my being left-handed.

 

I think if BS5 could stream viedos (avi format for ecample) to the TV this would be very good. Load movies in avi format (dvd rips or so), put them from computer to BM5 and then watch them on BV, that would be something 4 me.

The problem I have is that I can already do everything the BS5 can do with by 5 year old PowerMac with a Beoport and an iPod Touch. To be frank, it seems better built - nice aluminium body and staggeringly neat layout inside - PC users would be shocked! - it is regularly upgraded on line and the help desk via Apple Care kept it running under an unassailable warranty for 3 years. Although not under warranty now, there is still a forum which offers regular help and parts are easily available. It also cost a fraction of a BS5 and of course does a lot more. Even has a Mermaid screen so matches my B&O nicely! And it has 29512 tracks on at present and a number of films as well as 10,000 photos, all of which are backed up hourly automatically onto mirrored 1Tb drives. I don't stream video to my TV though I could as I rather use DVDs on the odd occasion that I want to watch a film but the audio side is fantastic. I cannot see anything the BS5 can offer that I don't have except the inconvenience of extra wires and a controller in only one room. The sound can be no better as the audio is through wired ML and I can control the music is all my link rooms. Genius may not be as clever as MOTS but I am willing to bet that an algorithm based system like MOTS will be available to Mac pretty soon if not available now.

avus17:

I think if BS5 could stream viedos (avi format for ecample) to the TV this would be very good. Load movies in avi format (dvd rips or so), put them from computer to BM5 and then watch them on BV, that would be something 4 me.

Precisely to my point Avus....

Everything indicates that the BeoMaster 5 may well be able to do exactly that...but the BeoSound 5 won't play a role in video playback.