Very interesting observations - I too find the SD card music stunning.

I too came from the BM5000 and CD50 route to the BS4 and BL6000; even having RL 6000s at one stage ... I do not recall having the same sense of disappointment you have.

Just a suggestion, move the BL 6000s to where thet can be driven directly by the BS4 through a pure Powerlink cable connection and see what a difference that makes - just to see if there is anything in the hypothesis that the old cable arrangement is incorrect.

Remember to flick the switch on the BL 6000s from LINE to L and R respectively.

elephant wrote:

Remember to flick the switch on the BL 6000s from LINE to L and R respectively.

Just gas a thought (I am no electronics/electical engineer), but perhaps that switch needs to be simple reset from your original set-up ?

Take a look at the subtle differenes between an AUX connection and a PL connection as shown here 

Thanks for the really useful comments about the sound quality from SD cards.  I have tested this, and it does seem to make a difference.  Which in turn starts to point the finger at the CD player in the Beosound 4 as being the weak link, particularly because I think I get better sound quality from DAB radio.

All a bit subjective, and, as one of the earlier respondents said, I am probably going to get used to the different sound over time.

I now need to run some tests on the optimum bitrate to use for rips to SD card.  Lossless is the gold standard, but a CD can need 0.5GB to 0.75GB.  Useful thread at the moment on SD card capacity, and I am glad I have a new Beosoound 4 as that gives me the 8GB limit.  Fortunately my music collection is on CDs rather than downloads so I can choose the bitrate and format.

Powerlink cabling - I'll keep an eye out for some cabling and will try this at some stage.

On the same note, I also use my BeoCenter 2 with Pentas, and quickly found out that the same music sounded much better through the Mac Mini, sending the signal to a DAC Magic & going through the AUX in on BC2, rather than the direct feed from the CD.😉

This goes against the "hi-fi logic" that says: the shorter the route, the better the sound. And my case, I'm sure the DAC Magic plays a great part in the sound enhancement (after all, that's why I bought it!).

Maybe I should play a CD from the Mac Mini & compare it to the BC2's CD player sound, to be completely objective. 💡

Chrisreunion wrote:

On the same note, I also use my BeoCenter 2 with Pentas, and quickly found out that the same music sounded much better through the Mac Mini, sending the signal to a DAC Magic & going through the AUX in on BC2, rather than the direct feed from the CD.😉

I think we just get used to the dynamic equalisation, then when you go back to modern CDs they sound very flat in comparison! I'm not too impressed with the production of some modern CDs - tracks are often designed to sound best on headphones, so the range is limited and they sound poor on top quality speakers.

It's now better to buy the CD, rip as high quality as possible and then stream as a digital track.