Hi Moxey - well it went back and the BS3200 reconnected to the Lab 9's
There is a difference but not what i expected. Both myself and my wife agree that the vocals sound crisper on the BS5, especially at lower volumes. We could hear the BS5 quite clearly when sitting in the garden with the patio doors open, but when playing the BS3200 at the same volume, we could not hear it as clearly.
But........I found at higher volumes the BS3200 sounded richer and the instruments seemed more defined and overall just sounded less clinical (if that makes sense)
So decision made, I'm not going to buy it ...YET. Great system but probably not for me at the moment. I found that the system looked out of proportion on the floor stand and having wooden floors throughout the house, hiding cables etc to the master box and pc etc would be a major issue. MOTS is a great feature but i would have liked to have had a pure random feature also for times when you really don't want ''more of the same''
Some friends commented over the weekend that they preferred the look of the BS3200 (despite it's oudated music selection capabilities) especially as the stand matches the BV7 and somehow the BS5 just needs to be a bit bigger....
I just wish they'd make a BS9000 with a hard drive!
I will revisit it in 9 months to see what software changes have been made and other placement options.
In summary good system but I personally can't justify spending £4k on something which gives me marginally better sound and on something which I think looks silly on a floor stand in my house!
cheers
David