Hey Forum

I’m a proud owner of 2 Beolab 5. Regarding the sound quality I’m very pleased with them, but I’m still struggling with the best setup.

For my ears the best was to feed them, is the digital input. And I like the idea of having an all-digital signal path straight to the loudspeakers, without any unnecessary D-A-D… conversions.

Since there is still no solution to use the digital input with original B&O equipment (without CD as source or the “having a CD in the Beosound running, while the beolabs get the digital signal from another digital source” - workaround), I’m using them in the Opt. 1 for the non B&O equipment use. So I control the volume with the beolab 5.

This works fine, as long as you don’t want to have surround setup.

My priority is definitely stereo listening, but I also want to enjoy my homecinema.

Therefore I use an av-preamp connected to the analog in of the bl5 (and via trigger cables to a beolab 10 center and 2 beolab 8000 as rears). In this case I control the volume with the av-preamp.

My problem is now, a total mismatch of the volume from the fixed digital signal, to the volume controlled analog signal. The analog is very quiet compared to the digital in (which is clear, since the bl’s are expecting a fixed line level). So I have to set the starting volume of the bl’s very high, to get the same volume as the other speakers in the system.

So when I want to listen to music digitally, and forget to turn the volume down before starting the music (or when some of the digital connected device starts playing for some reason during a video session), it’s always close to get an heart attack.

My wish would be:

Getting a software update for the beolab 5 with the following behavior when opt 1 is set:

Pressing “Radio” on the remote will turn the Beolab’s on and activate the analog input.

Pressing “CD” (for example) on the remote will turn the Beolab’s on and activates the digital input.

And an individually startup volume setting for each of this inputs (to which it always jumps, when I change the input).

So a direct source select with separate volume settings.

It would be possible then to listen to music digitally, control the volume with the beolab’s. and when I want to change to the surround setup, just pressing “Radio” and it would change the input to analog and the volume would be automatically the same as the other speakers.

Ahhhh, I dream of it J

This would not be a major change in the software, but make the handling, the flexibility and the future safety of the Beolab 5 a lot better.

What do you think about it? Anyone having the same issues? Or a solution (without workaround, I don’t want to have a workaround I a system in this class)?

Does someone thinks they will support the Beolab 5 with updates in the future?

Sorry for the long post, and best regards

Mike