Considering upgrading to Beosound Core

27 replies

Hi all,

I have a pair of Beolab 18 speakers paired with a Beosound Essence Mk1. I am considering upgrading my setup to a Beosound Core to take advantage of:

  1. S/PDIF connection: With powerlink there is an audible "hiss" at lower volume, assume S/PDIF should help with this
  2. Airplay 2: Essence Mk1 won't support the upcoming Airplay 2

Questions:

  1. Is the S/PDIF out on the Beosound Core and DAC in the Beolab 18 any good?
  2. At times I Airplay at the same time to both my Beolab 18 and Beosound A6 from my Mac. In the current setup the audio sync in this is near perfect. I am concerned if I move my Beolab 18's to S/PDIF that there may be sync issues (I have experienced this with other S/PDIF products). Do you know is B&O have adjusted for S/PDIF "lag" in the Beosound Core to ensure audio sync?

 

Looking forward to your answers.

Best regards,
Thomas. 

ThomasBrorsen wrote:

Questions:

1.

Is the S/PDIF out on the Beosound Core and DAC in the Beolab 18 any good?

2.

At times I Airplay at the same time to both my Beolab 18 and Beosound A6 from my Mac. In the current setup the audio sync in this is near perfect. I am concerned if I move my Beolab 18's to S/PDIF that there may be sync issues (I have experienced this with other S/PDIF products). Do you know is B&O have adjusted for S/PDIF "lag" in the Beosound Core to ensure audio sync?

1. I have BL20s on optical from my Core and I am happy with the results

2. I had not heard of s/pdif sync issues; nor do I believe I have heard any on my system. How would you detect sync issues with one source & two speakers ? I can’t quite reproduce your A6 configuration ... are the 18s and the A6 collocated?

PS I daisy-chain the optical of the two speakers - I believe there is a clean pass through of the signal: no double handling.

Hi Elephant,

Happy to hear that the audio quality is good.

The 18s and A6 are in adjacent rooms, so any audio sync issues would be an annoyance. Anyone else have a setup like this?

Best, Thomas.

I don’t have the same setup, but I have a Core connected via optical out to a Sonance amp and outdoor speakers. I just checked the settings on the app and see you can adjust delays via a few different methods. Here is one of the screenshots.

Location: USA / Denmark

My B&O Icons:

Beovision-Avant.png Beovision-Avant.png
Beosound.png Beosound.png
Beosound-Theatre-.png Beosound-Theatre-.png
Beosound-Stage.png Beosound-Stage.png
Beosound-9000.png Beosound-9000.png
Beosound-2.png Beosound-2.png
Beoplay-M5.png Beoplay-M5.png
Beoplay-M3.png Beoplay-M3.png
Beoplay-H4.png Beoplay-H4.png
Beoplay-EX.png Beoplay-EX.png
Beoplay-A9.png Beoplay-A9.png
Beoplay-A8.png Beoplay-A8.png
Beoplay-A6.png Beoplay-A6.png
Beoplay-A1.png Beoplay-A1.png
Beolab-18.png Beolab-18.png
Beolab-8.png Beolab-8.png

Elephant,

 

See from other posts that you have a homepod. Could I convince you to set it up next to your BL 20s and airplay to the HomePod and BL 20s simultaniously? This should be able to test any potential lag stemming from the optical connection.

Best, Thomas.

ThomasBrorsen wrote:

Elephant,

See from other posts that you have a homepod. Could I convince you to set it up next to your BL 20s and airplay to the HomePod and BL 20s simultaniously? This should be able to test any potential lag stemming from the optical connection.

Best, Thomas.

Yes I will do that for you on Saturday.

Since my post and before today’s updates I did try a convoluted test:

1. Core - optical - BL20

2. Core - lan cable to LAN switch

3. Essence mk ll - plan cable to same LAW switch

4. Essence mk ll - powerlink - BL11 - BL6000 daisy chain

I played Deezer on the Core.

I used the B&O App to join the Essence to the Core.

I could discern NO delay.

But my ears / brain is not as accurate as many people on this forum.

Still given the screenshots of the ability to adjust perhaps this and HomePod test (tomorrow) will give you some confidence ?
Thomas I regret to report that I could hear a lag when I used my MacBook Pro running OSX 10.11.6 iTunes 12.7.3.46 ...

I was seated with the MacBook closer to the HomePod (1 metre) than the Core (3 metres) and with my head positioned about equidistant between the HomePod (left ear) and the left channel BeoLab 20.

🙁 there was a discernible but unmeasurable difference ... the BL20 was a fraction earlier than the HomePod.

That is, the lag appeared to be in the HomePod’s processing ....

elephant wrote:

That is, the lag appeared to be in the HomePod’s processing ....

Now, that is interesting....on a sidenote!

Looking forward to see tests with AirPlay 2 multiroom to different AirPlay devices.

How will they handle this delay due to heavy processing in the HoneyPod?

 

elephant - could you try airplaying (from the Mac) to the HPod and to an ordinary AirPlay receiver/device?

I wonder if there is a time difference there too?

 

MM

Location: Flensborg————Danmark

P.S. I suppose your first test included the BL20 connected via optical out to the BL20, which was the reason for expecting the 20’s to play later.

MM

Location: Flensborg————Danmark

’....the BL20’s connected to the Core....’.

it should have been ;-0

MM

Location: Flensborg————Danmark

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