I am 11 months late to the discussion.  I have to say recoding quality and taste varies by recording studios / artits / audio engineers / and genre.  I have noticed that some tracks still sound good at low bit rates, while others sound poor at 320.  In the end personal taste rules, and sometimes it becomes collective among groups of people, and this is why so many companies exist in the audio world, particularly the high end. 

I am about to buy the BS8 for portability and speed, and I am quite curious / anxious because I am coming from Vinyl and CD with classical and jazz as the primary genres.  My current setup includs VDH cables and cartridges.  To me, BS8 is the price of XLR interconnect.  So, if the sound is well controlled then it is worth every penny.

Wish me luck

Cheers 😐

Hi,

To me, the BS8 is an excellent product.

I use it in my 25m2 office at home, and it fills the whole space with pure and deep sound.

I wouldn't have put it in my living-room (60m2) but in a room up to 30m2, I think it does the job.

Cheers,

Abz wrote:

I am about to buy the BS8 for portability and speed, and I am quite curious / anxious because I am coming from Vinyl and CD with classical and jazz as the primary genres.  My current setup includs VDH cables and cartridges.  To me, BS8 is the price of XLR interconnect.  So, if the sound is well controlled then it is worth every penny.

The BS8 as an object is absolutely top-notch. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that B&O aren't selling this device as well as they could.

However, the audio quality is no way near the level of, say, my BL3s. They a good quality speakers, but not superb. I find my BS8 to be quite mid-range and can easily get boomy when positioned near a wall, a corner or near kitchen units. Even with "corner" selected, it's still a bit boomy.

ie. if you are coming from vinyl and really appreciate your audio, then you might be a tiny bit disappointed if you're expecting BL3 or higher level quality via a £900 Beosound 8.

Thanks Eduard

Just got the iPod and the BE8.  So, this is my first non-LP / non-CD experience.  So, I am joining my children now but not wiht the music type, haha.  I will need a few hours to rip music, and update the newly bought iPod to version iOS 5.  I will send my feedback but not in connection with silver balanced interconnects and high end hand-made cartridges from Van den Hul.  Cheers for the encouragement.

Thanks for the info Moxxey,

Yes, I agree that the iPod as a source has its limitations, so does the Chinese made BE8.  However, I would expect something better than the mini systems my children use in their study rooms / bedrooms from Technics, Sony, and Logitech.  I will need a few hours to get the setup of my new iPod BE8 going.  I am well aware of what to expect from the low end and the top notch (with pure class A amplification and tube hybrids).  So, I expect the slide bar to be closer to the top.  Everybody has gone portable and I feel quite backwardly already. 

Cheers

Good luck and please feel free to give us a writeup of what you think!

Abz wrote:

Yes, I agree that the iPod as a source has its limitations

No no. Not at all. The same source (I stream all my audio from my Mac Mini connected to a NAS) sounds fantastic on the BL3s. The source isn't the problem, it's the quality of the device and speakers. My digital audio is minimally compressed and I find CD audio very flat - prefer my digital audio. What I was saying is that it's the quality of the speakers rather than the source.

Step1 wrote:

Good luck and please feel free to give us a writeup of what you think!

Thank you Step1,

Audio and video systems are not living things, but we, the living, get used to living with them bearing in mind we have different ears, eyes, and tates.  Many systems have great specs, but do not get a lot of agreement.  Example: Japanese monoblocks are more popular in Germany than the rest of the EU.  When I was young, my late mother (passed away Dec 97) told me that an ugly woman married a blind man who got his eyesight by a miracle a few years after their marriage.  She moved with him to an outback area where he could not see other women.  A few years returned to town.  Thereafter, he saw her as the only pretty worman.

However, I am not gonna wait a few years to evaluate the BE8, but truely, I need a couple  of weeks to let the system burn-in, and the drivers to break-in (some people in this forum disagree).  First impressions:  Lord, what did I put the money on!  An hour later: with around 4W RMS per channel, the BE8 sounded very much like tube amplifiers, mellow and far from being clinical.  The music was there, but not the system.  I tried it with symphony, piano concertos, chamber, and smooth jazz.  It stuggled with big orchestral works, but chamber work and band stuff was very good which are what people listen to in the bedroom, kitchen, home office.  Coming from a minimalist system with no contols but volume on the pre-amp, I used the iPod with EQ set to Off.  I have just found out that people use the Equaliser with compressed audio.  So, I will start with iTunes, and select the settings, then put the EQ on the iPod to Flat. 

About placement:  I used the BE8 1 metre from the wall, 1 metre above the floor, and had to put the switch to the middle and this permitter the other instruments in the middle and upper zones to come forward and made the wound fatique free. 

I will write again around Xmas time, and I won't disappoint owners.

Cheers

moxxey wrote:

Abz wrote:

Yes, I agree that the iPod as a source has its limitations

No no. Not at all. The same source sounds fantastic on the BL3s.

I may have started with the small BS8.  I have my eyes on the BS5 Encore in case I decide to go 100% digital.  It will take me a while to appreciate new tech and learn how to enjoy it.