Dear B&O:

If you want to *support* your dealers, give them products/prices that drive clients into the showrooms.

This chronic lack of information on install and operation (think Beo 5 as well), is, IMHO, one of your *core* "incompetancies."

Offered  with respect, your humble servant and fan

Barry

I am sure we can help you - I have emailed you.

Dear Peter,

we have already had a direct dialogue through e-mail based on your generous offer to assist. I am very greatful for that. I just wanted to express my big disappointment with B&O after being a loyal customer for more than 40 years.

Even if the dealer, due to lack of training had a part in the problems, they are having a meeting with a regional representative of B&O shortly and will bring up the matter. From my point of view, B&O has to change attitude and provide proper installation and maintenance manual to their customers and not making them dependent on technicians.

Chhers,

Mats

...and procuce product that do not need a PHD to install...

I completely agree with you. We pay top price and expect a good product with the best and most convenient service.

I appreciate that for you guys wanting/willing/capable of self installation it must be a pain. In my case I could not have done the installtion myself as it involved drilling under a partion wall to place Beomaster in my study and Beosound in my lounge. All the cables are hidden and it looks fantastic. It did cost me £700 on top of the price of the system. Worth it? I guess so as even my wife can't find anything to complain about. Agree I am a bit dependent on the B&O guys though.

Gary

While I completely agree with the sentiments of this thread, I do have some sympathy for the dealer. 

The big question mark in every BS5 install is the network.  Aside from some issues that were eventually traced  to hardware or cable faults, most problems seen here (not complaints about functionality) seem to revolve around getting BeoPlayer or BeoConnect to work properly with the BS5 which eventually comes down to networking.

I doubt if there are any two home networks that are exactly alike.  Meanwhile, B&O has never sold a product that required a network to operate properly.  How are these poor service folks supposed to become networking experts over night?  They must deal with the Windows OS mess - one might run into Vista, XP, possibly 2003 (and, coming soon, Windows 7) which all work slightly differently with respect to network configuration and firewalls.  There are many different routers out there, and each one operates somewhat differently.  And, then there's also the Mac stuff.  This is a lot to learn...  and it would be difficult to hire somebody to handle this because competent networking people do not work on the cheap, and I don't see that there are enough BS5s being sold to support this salary.

With the resources found on this site, I had no problem installing my BS5 - I didn't want the dealer to install because I was pretty sure I would be able to do it with less fuss since I know my network and my computers (I have a mix of apple and windows and some wireless and hardwire).  I did struggle a bit with mating the BS5 with the table stand - a task probably better left to the dealer installation folks because now that I've done it a couple times (don't ask why), it's not that hard.

And don't go pointing to Apple - the biggest challenge I had in setting up my network was getting my airport extreme working correctly...  yeah, the initial setup was really simple, until it decided not to work (for no reason on the final step and lost all my settings).  Many reboots and retries later, it decided to work as it was supposed to.  This part really annoyed me because I spent the extra money (vs. linksys, etc.) on the apple because it was supposed to be easy to install (and I've had battles with other routers in the past).

Obviously, this problem is not unique to B&O.  Go to any site where devices that talk on home networks are discussed and you'll find many problems.  I *do* think B&O's attitude that "the dealer's going to install it so we don't need to create detailed documentation" is a cop-out.  If there were better documentation, then perhaps, those of us who understand networking would be in a better position to help those who do not (which, unfortunately, seems to include most dealers).

Stan

I agree Stan. In my case I just could not face all the drilling and routing of cables under walls etc having just paid to have the house decorated and I needed someone lese to blame etc so my plan was to get that bit done and I could resolve any network problems. As it happened the connection took seconds (I'm using a mac etc) and (touch wood) its been fine ever since. About time I was the one who was hassle free!!

Gary

 I already sent this directly to you Stan, but as there are other parties interested in the subject, I just share with everybody.

Dear Stan,

I fully agree with you although these potential issues were not raised at all at the selling point, which of course shouldn't be a surprise. I do have mixed feelings about the dealer as they didn't have the knowledge (in spite of technical support over the phone from B&O) but they sincerely did try their best and still do after me leaving the country. However, the technician (network specialist) they sent didn't even know how to "open up" the settings/maintenance menu on the BeoSound 5 display. That was something I found out from the dealer in the store one week later just before leaving the country.

Please, understand my frustrations just having three weeks enjoying my vacation (with some music) and then all this hassle and the dealer one hours drive away from our vacation house on the southeast coast of Sweden.

If I had been aware of this web site much earlier (before getting fuming mad), it surely would have helped a lot. I.e. I now got help which probably will solve all the issues once I get to see my stuff again.

Cheers,

Mats