Beolab 50 and Roon Nucleus with Multiroom

[doubleola]

I just purchased a pair of Beolab 50’s that I am dedicating to music listening and a Roon Nucleus server. The speaker won’t be connected to my B&O TV directly but hoping to make them available to the rest of my Multi room system via Beosound core, essence remotes and halo remotes, A9, Level etc. Note my Beovision is connected to Beolab 18’s and 17’s for dedicated surrounds, so these speakers won’t be used for watching movies.

Curious what’s the best way to connect the Beolab 50’s to Roon Nucleus in a completely wired and networked setup to get best quality from Tidal, my Beogram 4002 record deck and Beosound 9000 CD player?

Thanks in advance for indulging my question and curiosity.

[doubleola]

Okay!Found answers in forum archives. Welcome any more recent advice based on more recent experience too. Thanks

[Ur25V]

I have more or less the same question. My point of view is that one of the attractive sides of B&O is that it is simple to use and only few devices and a minimum of cables is needed next to the absolutely beautiful design.

I am rather hooked up on Roon because of the ease of use to select tracks/albums as well as the extreme quality. Additionally, I like to have the option for MQA.

Having to fiddle around with a DIY Raspberry pi feels like taking away much of the high end luxury experience. Integration would be much more preferred.

Also, this would be rather complicated:

I am considering Beolab 28 or 50 speakers in a 4.0 or 4.1 configuration (so 4x the active).

I do not necessarily have a B&O TV: don’t have it yet.

Can someone confirm if it would even work for multichannel? When using a S/PDIF input on a master Beolab, there is only 1 digital power link output. I am not sure if the save can be daisy chained to a further set to have a fully digital audio distribution to each Beolab.

By the way, I found that Airplay is audibly less than having a HDMI connection between my Roon core (NUC) and streamer. (I can’t test this for Airplay 2). Similarly, playing the same albums/tracks from Qobuz in 44.1/16 bit or any higher res (for instance 44.1/24 or 96/24) is audibly different (this is when playing over the HDMI connection from the NUC). So, I very much want a solution that supports high res multichannel.

Is there any info on B&O coming with some kind of central device that can distribute the digital info per channel via Digital Power Link to a multichannel setup?

[Sandyb]

Hi there, I am a BL50 and Roon (Nucleus) owner and user.

While I understand some of your post and question, I dont quite see what you setup is or what you setup is going to be (my apologies).

Speaker wise, what do you have or what are you looking for setup wise?

What outputs do you have coming out from your NUC?

There is one forum user who uses a Nucleus direct into a pair of BL50s, using the USB audio out on the Nucleus and the USB audio in on the BL50s (not sure if the 28s have that same USB audio in).

My usage is Nucleus into Linn streamer/DAC, and then RCA out into a pair of 50s (mixture of Qobuz and my stored music)

Out of interest, why are you looking at a 4.0 speaker array?  I’m fine myself with using 2.0 for music, but thats just me,.

Big picture though, for all that the 50s (and 90s) are incredibly capable speakers, B&O dont in my view make an audio source / connection hub that serves those speakers well.

 

[NQVHNWI]

Hi All,

Quickly read the posts above. My view is that B&O dont make a source worthy of the BL90. Possibly the BL50 as well. Powerlink from Beo TV to BL90 (assuming we’re using the internal LG Media Player and not something worse – some Beosound connected through a MLNL converter) is not good. Wasting excellent loudspeakers on mediocre audio playback.

I am uncertain about the BS Core – which appears to be a good solution for integration but I dont see it much better than the BS Essence quality-wise and music interaction-wise.

The solution I went for was to place a Auralic Vega G2 DAC (it has a limited Roon End-Point Streamer built in) and transport the output via XLR cables. The Beo TV’s Powerlink remain connected but it needs a little consideration when swapping between the two systems as the Auralic is a third party and does not auto-shut-off like fully integrated Beo products. This is somewhat compensated by selecting signal priority, floor levels etc in the loudspeaker configuration.

 

There are many discussions all around on Roon. It is an excellent searcher of music but some consider it degrades music some. I cant say. Additionally, the same thing is said about MQA (that it is a scam and a means to control). Again I cant say. Certainly Auralic and Linn are totally against its implementation. You have to do your own homework on that Im afraid.

 

[Ur25V]

My setup will be multichannel, i.e. at least 4.0. This is for several reasons.

1 I have multichannel hires audio material for instance from 2L. It is simply beautiful.

2 I prefer to play even stereo material in multichannel. For me it simply opens up the room much more. Typical track to explore this is the track Zapateado by Pepe Romero from the cd This is K2 HD sound!

3 I want to play video (Amazon prime/Netflix, Blu-ray etc.) and use the Beolabs for the audiopart. Obviously, that needs to be in multichannel.

 

So the audio part of the hometheater needs to be able to handle input from a tv or setup box (preferably over HDMI eARC as Toslink is limited), from the Roon core (preferably over ethernet, I,.e. RJ-45) and from a Blu-Ray player (HDMI).

 

For a system in this price range, use should be simple both for me and the less nerdy people in my house. Also, it should support all the highres audio streams that a simple 200 Euro set-top box or 2000 Euro tv can output.

I will do a complete overhaul of the system, so replace all equipment and speakers. Important are flexibility for the future (a Beolab powered system is not exactly cheap 😉 and support for the above use cases. Absolutely stunning audio performance and looks don’t require mentioning ;).

So USB might work. Hopefully that is an asynchronous USB-solution then. Would this support multichannel high-res? Again the question on how to daisy-chain or input the audio to 2 sets of speakers is on the table.

The current NUC has HDMI, USB (including USB-C) and ethernet connections. Not sure if all those are active/supported by Roon Rock (which is what I run on the NUC: it is completely dedicated to Roon).

 

So much hoping that there is a good and simple solution because the Beolabs look stunning.

[doubleola]

@Sandyb – I also recently got a pair of BL 50’s with Roon Nucleus connected via USB for use with Tidal. I also currently have an alternate setup for Beolink Multiroom for streaming Apple Music to connected B&O Multiroom speakers via BS Core including the BL50’s. For focused listening in my lounge on BL50‘s, I use Tidal via Roon Nucleus over USB direct.

1. What Linn Streamer did you purchase. Seems the current offering are LINN Majik DSM & LINN Selekt DSM
2. What were the reasons you added the LINN streamer between vs USB direct to BL50‘s
3. I would like to connect my Beogram 4000 to the setup. How is the MM phonostage?

Thanks

Sandyb wrote:

Hi there, I am a BL50 and Roon (Nucleus) owner and user. While I understand some of your post and question, I dont quite see what you setup is or what you setup is going to be (my apologies). Speaker wise, what do you have or what are you looking for setup wise? What outputs do you have coming out from your NUC? There is one forum user who uses a Nucleus direct into a pair of BL50s, using the USB audio out on the Nucleus and the USB audio in on the BL50s (not sure if the 28s have that same USB audio in). My usage is Nucleus into Linn streamer/DAC, and then RCA out into a pair of 50s (mixture of Qobuz and my stored music) Out of interest, why are you looking at a 4.0 speaker array? I’m fine myself with using 2.0 for music, but thats just me,. Big picture though, for all that the 50s (and 90s) are incredibly capable speakers, B&O dont in my view make an audio source / connection hub that serves those speakers well.

 

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