G'day Michael,
This is my first big foray into B&O having only had telephony with them previously, and I certainly am enjoying it very much. There's a lot of the old chestnut of rediscovering music going on in my house. The BV11 also replaced a 46' Samsung Series 9 LCD from about 5 years ago which had micro-dimming full array LED and I thought still produced a great picture. Compared with the new 55' panel, it generally doesn't even come close, although the BV11 is weaker with some black background work which has been touched on in the forums before.
The BL9 are set up using the decoder in the BV11 to be used 3 ways, either off when watching general TV, on with the TV for movies with the BV11 speakers set to then act as a single centre speaker and the BL9 moving to dedicated front L & R channels, then for music via the Apple TV the BV speakers go off and the BL9s go by themselves. It works so very nicely I am trying hard not to buy a pair of BL3 for rear surround effects as well π
Initially I had planned to use a free Playmaker for my AirTunes setup, but was advised against trying to input the BV11 and a Playmaker into the BL9s. In the end I took this advice and swapped the Playmaker for an A3. Steve at Sounds Heavenly has a switch and cabling solution for my preferred solution, but at this time the novelty of driving the music via Apple TV to the 9's hasn't worn off, so I shall run with that. I would like to have the option to switch the TV screen off when using the 9's via the apple TV in the BV11, but I don't think that can be done. I am a big album listener, so I generally don't fiddle much with the music once it starts playing, and I don't need a 55' photo screen saver for domestic aesthetics.
I have to say that I do use the A3 quite a lot. The strange design to the back suits me well as I usually sit with a lean on the sofa and the shape then sits nicely in my lap. The BeoRemote works excellently I find, although they should make some of the icons bigger (B&O are you listening?). What I cannot fathom is why the A3 batteries are set up to keep the iPad charged in the first instance, and don't preserve the power purely for the A3 speakers as the A3 battery expires long before the iPad will, although 6 hours is achievable at a sensible volume level with the A3. I do like the A3 and now tend to take it to work in a velvet type shoe bag to listen to music rather than my JamBox which really cannot compete with the A3 sound. I find the bass kick is so full for a portable device, I am cautious as to what surface to put it on as tonally a cheap table top does the sound no favours.
Cheers