Puncher:

Mind you don't trip over all the wires

Yep, that's the big problem with my apartment. The number of wires behind my BV7-40 is incredible. Problem with rented accomodation in the UK is that we're not allowed to put cables in to the walls etc.

Surely this BS5 should be able to connect to the BM5 wirelessly? It's only 'controlling' audio. Why does it need three cables?

bayerische:

OK, what I also find strange is that the BL5 is often pictured in a corner and/or very tightly fit to a wall in Beo's own pictures in their brochures for example. I find it a bit strange, since putting them that close to a wall, even if the calibration does wonders can't exactly enhance the sound. 

You'll get acceptable sound with that kind of tight placement, but you won't get exceptional sound, which is what the BL5s deliver when they get working space and air to breathe. The bass in particular becomes better defined and more precise when you move the speakers away from the walls -- you will also experience better holography in the top of the midrange and top frequencies, if you give the acoustic lenses some distance to the walls they are supposed to reflect from. The whole point of the lenses is to use lateral room reflections, which are supposed to be delayed slightly - when the speakers are close to walls, you don't get this delay effect.

Since B&O for some reason chose the marketing angle of "place them where you want," they never spent much time really explaining how to move these speakers from cheapo fiddle to Stradivarius level.

 "place them where you want," is a bad bad very bad advertising!!

B&O is the only company who claims this.

if you have a "hard" livingroom you get the same problems like any other loudspeaker.

koning:

 "place them where you want," is a bad bad very bad advertising!!

Have you seen the picture where there's one BL5 on a walkway in a house on the first floor while the other one is on the ground floor?

It's in 2008 of Beo's brochures. 

They call that firstfloor and groundfloor surround!!!

koning:

They call that firstfloor and groundfloor surround!!!

And from only two speakers! A world first. 

moxxey:

TripEnglish:

I think that pejoratively remarking that an audio playback device "only" plays back audio is a bit silly

With all due respect Trip, only a few weeks ago you were having a go at the BS5. You blow hot and cold. Want me to find the post?

For me, and for the price, it needs to do a lot more than store my audio tracks and enable me to manually find and play those tracks. At the moment, if offers very little over and above my current setup.

You might notice in the post you quote I specifically mentioned my reservations. My reservations just didn't relate to its abilities as an audio system, but rather the overall concept as a stationary audio system versus a roving controller. As I also mentioned, though, this was really never possible given the current MasterLink constraints. It would have meant an audio system largely outside the compatibility standard that Bang & Olufsen has carefully developed.

From everything we've heard from our new Fearless Leader, we should see new digital ML (I'm sure there will be a new name like ThunderLink) products rolling out in 12-18 months. This will likely underpin a system that allows a future version of the BeoSound 5 to be a more flexible concept. Time will tell, but I am still buying a BeoSound 5!