I have 2 big reasons to be really interested in the Encore :

1. MOTS. It seems very simple, but it is not. Nowadays, everyone has thousands of digital tracks, and there are a lot of things to play them. I'm really happy with my Sonos+B&O system, but I do like everyone do : I don't listen to my entire collection, just the "albums of the moment". With MOTS, I could rediscover my collection everyday. I can't count the number of tracks that are not recognised by Apple Genius, MOTS will not forget them!

2. Support of HD tracks. I'm switching from lossy to lossless, and maybe I will upgrade my Beolabs one day, so I want to be able to enjoy this kind of tracks.

What I would like to do that isn't implemented yet :

I would also like to have integrated support of Airplay, because I would like to be able to listen to the sound of a video or an app (not my music library, of course, it is better to listen to it via the Encore directly) of my iPad through my Beolabs. Connecting an Airport Express is not a good solution as it uses the only Aux connection available, and is poor sound with the integrated DAC.

I also would like to be able to play Deezer/Spotify directly on the system, as I do today with my Sonos. But Spotify+MOTS seems complicated, so maybe MOTS will make me less Spotify-dependant!

What I can live without :
Support of Apple Lossless files. I was asking for that 2 years ago with the BS5, but now I have understood that Apple doesn't want to share this algorithm, and FLAC is at least equivalent (I believe better, as it's totally open source, it is played by a lot of things). I must confess that I hae to music library : the "qualitative one" on my NAS, used for home listening, and the "light one" (mainly aac 256) on my Mac, used to feed my iPhone. Flash memory is still too expensive to have enough lossless music on an iPhone. And for those who have already converted all their music ibrary to Apple Lossless, just put everything in XLD (free Mac software), and it will be converted in FLAC incredibly fast!

Puncher wrote:

Carolpa wrote:

moxxey wrote:

It won't support the Apple encoded formats.

 

 

Here we go again!

BS5 can play M4a, M4b, etc. But no Apple Lossless. Presumably the same for the BS5 encore

Further, almost all bought files on iTunes are Apple LOSSY. So if you have lots of Apple Lossless files you ripped them probably yourself or you did get them another way. Eighter way you could made it easily in to a BS5 known format!

 

 

On top: with the BS5 one can play also HD music (up to 192kHz, 24bit). Presumably the same for the BS5 encore.

 

 

Moxxey's point is that with Airplay proper they could be streamed direct without having to worry about formats or having to convert between whatever - i.e a seamless and hassle-free experience from any audio source to your B&O speakers is what he wants. It would also mean that the lossless files would take advantage of the BS5 DAC rather than having to connect via an analogue connection from Airport Express and having to use the DAC of the Express which will severely dent the quality of the lossless source being played.

Or am I mistaken?😮

I understand your point made. But why not complain at Apple to improve their Airport Express' DAC. The scope of a BS5 (encore) is completely different then just to stream music from an other device!

Carolpa wrote:

It would also mean that the lossless files would take advantage of the BS5 DAC rather than having to connect via an analogue connection from Airport Express and having to use the DAC of the Express which will severely dent the quality of the lossless source being played.

Just for info, the Airport express also has a digital output, so you can use another DAC if necessary. The format used by Apple is also the format used in broadcasting, so the quality is considered as good as CD even by pros it seems.

p.

oops

your right Phil I didn't think about this; an additional point made. But the quote is directed to the wrong person 

Puncher wrote:

Moxxey's point is that with Airplay proper they could be streamed direct without having to worry about formats or having to convert between whatever - i.e a seamless and hassle-free experience from any audio source to your B&O speakers is what he wants. 

Correct. It would be good for the Encore to be an all-in-one device which could do it all, without having to connect an Airport Express and/or other devices to enable it to spool the audio. I want it to be able to find my Mac's iTunes library, audio on my iPad or elsewhere, then offer to play this through the Encore and also be remotely controlled via the Apple Remote device.

I'm not against the Encore - I've been one of those waiting patiently for the release - it just would have been good to have it all, from the start. Perhaps we'll see the inclusion at a later date. However, much like the Beosound 8 MKI, I'd rather have had this from the beginning.

deleted!

<p>The thing is, what are you going to buy the Encore for, exactly? 

1/ I would buy the Encore primarily as a tangible interface of my centralised digital music library. A product which my wife could easily use. The music would be stored on a NAS and I would control it using a smart programme installed eg on my Ipad and my laptop. Next to that I would connect a blue ray player (which serves the projector) via the Aux-in to the Encore.

2/ Is it only aimed at users who have used CDs and now want a way of storing digital music and have never used iTunes or similar stores?</p>

Yes, I am afraid this may be well the case. But how much of B&O clientele would that be, 80, 85 or 90 per cent? This also holds true for myself having around 1400 cd's.

3/ <p>I want to buy an Encore and I want it to control every aspect of my music collection, whatever the format.<p>

If there is a good interface programme, acceptable formats are lossless, and there is good cover art available for the albums I am happy. (Maybe FLAC is possible for instance?)

Future is bright for me also! Since the encore has a digital out it will allow me to connect it directly to the BL5 when I will buy these in a near future. What a system...

IMO video streaming is not an issue here as there is eg AppleTV for this purpose and that's another product which I rather would connect to a TV. Why then such a fuss about AE.

Ehlerz wrote:

moxxey wrote:

Couldn't they have built AirPlay support in to the Encore? If B&W can do it for the far cheaper Zeppelin, surely B&O can include this in the Encore?

 

Exactly my point, i actually think it is a bit embarresing to advertise the encore this way. There is absolutly nothing new to this. They might aswell advertise ALL their other audioproducts this way because ALL of them can do this when you include an AE. But then again, knowing B&O develompemt cycles, when they started producing the encore, Airplay probably didnt even exist...Actually, WIFI probably didnt exist. So if you take that into consideration, this is actually pretty awsome :-)

So if you allready have a Masterlinked B&O audioproduct, do yourself a favour and buy a macmini and an AE instead. This way you will save a lots of money and have the exact same features, just better.

/Ehlerz

Agreed! Advertising Airplay on the BeoSound 5 like this reminds me of companies that advertise that their software is Mac-compatible -- via Bootcamp or Parallels running Windows ontop of the Mac OS.

So, I played with the Encore last evening.

Use is, of course, similar to a Beosound 5 wich I'm absolutely not found of.

For me, those wheels are too complicated to use : choose albums, tracks, styles, singers...all that standing in front of the system.

With my BS9000 at least, I can see the cd's far away :-)

Beo6 (not available) will be a must then.

You have access to 13.000 internet radios and the music from the Encore was on a tiny USB stick. No ML of course.

Sound was very good with Lab3's.

Price is 3.165 € including Beo4 (240 €) and table stand.

Cheers,

Gregory

Unfortunately I think the whole concept of Beosound 5 and Encore is flawed.

You shouldn't have to stand up and use close-up operation to choose your music. B&O was the first to introduce music systems with remote controls or, even better, control panels.

The navigation should be on the remote.

BeoMaster 5 + Beo6 should be the combo. However B&O have appearantly disabled Beo6 2 way navigation on the BM5 if you do not connect the BS5 to it. Silly.