Hello!

This is what I have always dreamed off for the Beo 5! Thank you for your effort.

The design and the mechanics of the unit are ,imho, the peak of the B&O craftsmanship.

Is the alteration affected by the motherboard i.e. the type, year of the MB?

Does the master link option still work with the new setup?

Does the CD player/ripper still work? ripper not essential.

Can I add other URL, like personalised, paid for , stations?

Best regards Ruedi

from Switzerland

 

 

Hi Ruedi,

Thank you. The alteration works with all version of the BS/BM5, apart from the Encore. B&O built in the ”master” into the BeoSound 5 Encore, and hence it is significantly more difficult to replace only the ”master”-part of the system.

Funny you should ask :-) I do have a version that supports the ripper also, but it isn’t released yet. I’m intending this more to be able to play CDs lossless in a nice way, rather than ripping them in on a drive though.

MasterLink is probably quite possible to make work, only in software, but I haven’t gotten to that yet as I don’t have a need to connect any of my BS5c to ML. However, I may add a section to over the network control NL. I have a BeoSound 9000 that could be cool to control that way, and maybe of interest to somebody else as well.

Yes, it’s quite possible to customize with what you like, e.g., a new section ”Radio” where you can select your streaming channels. Having said so, in it’s current form there is no user friendly configuration do so something like that. Instead, it would require a bit of software development.

Can you describe more about your setup, and how you ideally would want it to work and I can maybe help you further?

Hi Markus

thank you for the reply! After I have studied your approach closer, it is different to my wishfull thinking.

My setup is: BS5+ BM5 ( 1TB, latest MB), 2 Beolab 9 and 4 ML BS 3500. The BM is updated with a SSD and contents the music library. I use MOT often. CD playback I do use, but not the ripping function. Spoify is not a solution for my as opera and classical music enthusiast.  I dont have any cameras or light modes.

 

The system works well at the moment, but it is slow in changing radio stations and sometimes it needs several attemps to restart.

My dream is to have all the functions retained, but with a modern software and less issues.

An other benefit would be not to be fixed to the radio stations that B&O provides, but free URL setting.

Hopoe this answers your question about the setup.

Regards Ruedi

 

 

 

 

Ruedi,

I have added experimental support for the SSD / HD and so also for CD. Both of those features are bit buggy to say the least and the former is primarily as a proof of concept, but I'm planning to add support for this. I'm not really using master link myself, so uncertain on the amount of work to support that. I'm a bit curious to test it and may hook my BeoSound 9000 to one of the BS5c and have a look, but it's for a later day. So, in essence it's multiroom only with Sonos and Bluesound at the moment and quite tailored to my setup (BS5 - Sonos, primarily Spotify as source, and BeoLab 5s). I'll keep you posted.

Quick update here. I have added support for PowerLink now for some sources, so it works standalone without Sonos or Bluesound. I have also added more mature support for the SSD / HD in the BeoMaster 5, so plugging that it will connect to the database and show and play your songs. In my testing that has worked quite well. I'll wrap up this and the CD implementation and will publish a bit more in the README on this. Notably, Spotify on local playback with PowerLink speakers is not implemented yet, and the project is still in an experimental stage with a few technical users successfully set it up. I hope to be able further accessible and feature complete over time.

Hi Markus

Thank you for the update.

It is amazing what you are able to. Bringing new life into the oldfashion Beosound 5! Fantastic👍

I look forward to hear more news, also from other BS5 enthusiasts.

Best regards Ruedi

 

 

Just published v 0.6.0 for those of you interested with support for local playback on your PowerLink speakers from Spotify. Also pops up like a Spotify Connect speakers. So, fingers crossed for your setup, if you play from Spotify the BeoSound 5 will come up as a speaker. Audio will come out through your connected speakers, and the artwork display on the screen. I've tested a bit around on one of mine and works well for me, but it's still at a stage where this is probably not a plug-and-play solution for most just yet. Radio stations are also added.

I'll try to gather up some bugs from users to improve the experience of setting this up and running it in various configurations. Ping me through email or GitHub if I can help anybody get up and running.

I recently managed to purchase a Beomaster 5 and Beosound 5 for a project to convert them into a Beocenter 5C.
I already have a working Beosound 5 Encore connected to a Beogram 4500 CD player and a Beogram 4500 turntable. I stream directly to the Beolabs 8000 via an old Almando Stereo and an old Apple Airport Express. Initially.

I managed to get it working without the conversion. First, I reset it to factory settings after searching for an old PS2 keyboard and mouse in the box, along with a USB-to-USB adapter. The LAN connection wasn't working, and the top USB port wasn't functioning properly. With the help of a USB hub, I was able to connect a USB-to-LAN adapter. I found the drivers and got them working via a USB stick through the Service menu. Only then could I update it. After that, I connected a USB CD player (costs €15.00) to rip CDs. It didn't work at first, because I had to go back to the service menu to configure Windows Media Player. Ripping works, but it doesn't add tags to the tracks. So all CDs are unknown, and so are the tracks. So unfortunately, CD ripping doesn't add much value.

Via my Macbook, I was able to access the Beomaster share to upload ripped CDs via Music on the Macbook and add an image of the cover to the ripped CD folder under the name folder.jpg.
So far it works, except of course that Spotify doesn't work anymore.
I am going to do the following things as well. Open the case of the Beomaster 5 to clean it and see why the LAN and top USB ports are no longer fully functional. I also found a USB expansion that I believe can be connected directly to the motherboard for 2 extra USB ports. I also have a Behringer UAC202 to see if it still works for connecting a Beogram turntable.

In short, a fun project to be working on. If it doesn't work out, I can always convert it to a Beomaster 5C.
Groet, Jan

After some searching and looking at an old forum /forum/general-discussion-and-questions/airplay-and-beosound-5-beomaster-5-or-beomedia#post-2005632, I was able to add AirPlay to the Beomaster 5, and to my surprise. It works when I set the Beosound 5 to A-aux and connect via my iPhone to play music via Spotify using AirPlay on the Beomaster 5.

After installing the program shairport4w.exe (specifically the version in the last post) and then separately installing Bonjour (https://support.apple.com/nl-nl/106380) via a USB stick, it works.
Now I just need to see if I can replace Windows Media Player with vlc player download windows xp 32 bit.

I enjoy getting started with this.

Congratulations for this awesome work! Masterlink capabilities would be a game changer for me!