1. I can assure you there is a conventional analog gain stage ahead of the ADC.

2. Apart from a more accurate RIAA compensation, I fail to see the benefit in not using the analog gain stage for the compensation?

Show me some facts, i.e noise figures!

3. The BL 50 could do the RIAA compensation without breaking a sweat. 

That makes me feel allot better. I did suspect linn”s speakers were active with dsd but I find the products from linn esoteric in the sense they don’t explain allot on their website and they don’t have allot of dealers unlike B&O. 

@ Epsilon 20

What exactly do you mean by "not audiophile grade" ?  

I you want to the "purity" of vinyl you shouldn't even be considering the BL 50!

You should go for a classic analog amp and analog speakers instead.

BEOVOX141 wrote:

That is not even remotely what i wrote!

Don't get me wrong the way B&O have balanced the tweeters, power application and design are top notch. BUT the DAC and ADC are quite old and outdated.

The 50s Analogue inputs which also include the power link connector uses a Texas Instruments PCM4220 Analogue to Digital converter.

The Digital to analogue converter, which I now question what the purpose is since its a digital speaker is the the Burr-Brown 1798 DAC which is a 15 year old DAC. Texas Instruments bought Burr-Brown 

Hmmmm......are you hunting specs - or are you listening to music?

MM

Thats a fair question MM but I only went looking for specs to learn about the speakers that stand proudly in my living room. Normally when you buy non B&O speakers accompanied by amps its about the specs your getting for the money. The 50s are a premium speaker but they are sold on the basis of ease of use, musicality, the mechanics of the rising tweeters and design. I actually want to know whats under the hood after paying the asking price.

In my case I was going to start a new hobby collecting old jazz vinyls recorded in the 1950s and listening to them via the Beolab 50s. I could just stick to digital music which realistically is so easy to work as all the jazz albums I want are on my streaming platform in CD or Hi-rez,  but want the fanfare of Vinyl.

If the speakers digitise the sound ,then buying a turntable is an expense that makes no sense unless you already own allot of vinyl.

The word "Audiophile" seems to be an emotive word for some as it brings up thoughts of non B&O fans lambasting our tastes in loud speakers. Personally I I would never get a set of speakers that required a rack with amps, pre-amps, power conditioners, mono amp for each left/right speaker as honestly it would look a mess and want speakers that fit into my life not the other way round. And yes you would be continuously trying to balance the Hifi racks if I chose different components from different makers. I'm sure if you got  a pro to pick the components that system would rival the 50s in sound but not overall package.

I agree that CDs, SACDs and certainly uncompressed digital sound is superior to Vinyl. With Vinyl its a lottery of what you will get in terms of sound quality especially when buying older records.

If I bought a cheaper turntable, I probably wouldn't care so much abut the digitisation of the analogue signal but the linns cost an arm and a leg I obviously want to get the best out of it.

Lets not forget all the hi-rez streaming applications like Deezer Hi-fi, Tidal and Qobuz will take analogue sources for the older music and convert them to digital. It just wanted a chance to experience analogue sound , whether for the good or bad, at times when I want to chill out and listen to music in a ceremonial fashion  

Mikipidia wrote:

I still say to just get a turntable you like and try it out, you need to have it anyway, and maybe it surprises you and you’ll like it as is.

I’d second that - give it a try!

P.S. ever considered a Beogram turntable, one with the tangential tracking - maybe a Beogram 4000?

MM