Exactly!

Take a look at this thread, hopefully the start of something big!

erg4000 wrote:

I'm a long term B&O fan and a Mac user since 1984. After it's announcement the Beosound 5 was planned to become my latest B&O purchase. But the lack of iTunes compatibility and some problems with early versions of the Beomaster 5 software made me cautious about buying the Beosound 5 and I kept using Apple TV.

With the announcement of iPad the possibilities extended way beyond B&O's concept of digital media. iPad as a front end for Apple TV makes a perfect solution as a media hub for home entertainment, connected to my Beovision 4 setup.

Too bad, because I still like the design concept of the Beosound 5 hardware.

What do you think ?

The same is true for me. On the one hand I found the BeoMaster 5 interface very stylish, its functionalities on the other hand to limited for the price. iTunes offers far better handling for very large music libraries and is also essential if one has a couple of ipods / iPhones. B&O has to learn that Apple set the standard for digital music in the industry and will have no chance but to make better B&O integration possible.

Will the iPad be excellent? I suspect it will.

Will I pre-order one as soon as it's available? Absolutely.

Will it become my most used Apple device out of my MacBook Air, Macbook Pro, iMac, Mac Mini, & iPhone? Almost certainly. 

Will it offer a better experience than my BeoSound 5 for listening to music in my home? Absolutely not. 

The reason is not so much the iPad, but rather the inherent strength of the BeoSound 5 and the inherent weakness of the AppleTV. 

On-Board Storage: You can't appreciate this until you involve streaming into your home AV setup. At best it's mildly annoying. At worst it means consistent drop-outs in sound and intermittent freezing of software while connections are broken and re-established. It also means that your wireless network runs faster and your computer's processing resources aren't allocated to helping your home AV setup. And what if you don't want your computer turned on? So if you want a robust and trouble-free user experience, the AppleTV is not a serious choice.

Sound Quality: Even if you're willing to deal with streaming and its many problems, you'll never begin to approach the sound quality produced by the BeoSound 5. The sound-card hardware and decompression algorithms are stellar. If you're serious about sound quality (and presumably anyone spending B&O money is) you'd never consider AppleTV or other flimsy AV boxes.

Music Discovery: Apple genius is pretty clever, but it limitations are clear: if music has not been listened to or rated, it is not likely to figure into your playlists. It's great for mixing some of your familiar music, but not for discovering new music within your collection. Nor, in my direct experience, is the result nearly as enjoyable. So if you have a large collection and want to get the most out of your investment, the AppleTV will never be a serious consideration.

Interface: Unless you're thrilled with scrolling through lists, virtual keyboards, and distant video screens; you'll undoubtedly find the AppleTV a daunting chore to operate. The BeoSound 5's elegant interface is joyful and inviting and can navigate large collections better than any interface out there. If you have 300 CDs it will be remarkable. If you have, like me, over 1,100, it will be indispensable. So if you want to be able to access your large collection quickly and precisely, the BeoSound 5 is the very best choice.

All in all the AppleTV, iPad, iPod, etc. are novel media devices and most of us BeoSound 5 owners will undoubtedly have at least 2 of the 3 in our arsenal, but they will never be able to take the place of higher quality experiences like the BeoSound 5. 

No need to defend the BM5/BS5... and take the AppleTV out of the equation for the time being...

Add a DAC and an iPad for <~$1000.00 to your existing iTunes and the BM5/BS5 becomes the "novel media device."

burantek wrote:

Exactly!

Take a look at this thread, hopefully the start of something big!

That thread is interesting.  However what they are talking about is beyond the average user.  Almost everything they are talking about can be done but only a few would or could actually do it.  I have a Beosound 5 and use exactly as it was design.....a very good music system.

I have decided to maintain a Beosound library which is for casual listening and also have a iTunes library with almost all files in lossless format.  My iTunes is on a 27 inch iMac with a 2 tb drive.

My philosophy for B&O products is simple.  I want the dealer to do the installation and make it all work.  The iTunes is separate and I'll do that myself.  Music from iTunes can be better than Beosound 5 streaming to an AppleTV. (sorry Trip) You need to use a high quality DAC on the AppleTV and connect to the AUX port on your music system. 

Imagine if you could have Beomaster 5+ iPad

Will you can kind of. Load a free copy of logmein.com onto your Beomaster 5.

Purchase the Logmein App from App Store and this will bring up the screen of the Beomaster 5 on the iPad/iPhone/iTouch

🙂

The IPAD doesn't stream, the ATV can be connected direct to a stereo so no drop outs. I am guessing the remote that we have on ITouch and IPhone will be used on the IPAD as well. They probably do a better version down the line to make use of the larger screen.

Just realize that it doesn't multi task so no quick and easy changing of CDs without leaving the browser or ebook reader and reconnecting to the library. 16GB would be fine for a remote  - 64GB will not handle any serious music library - lets forget Video since for larger collections we are talking NAS not even single hard disk.

They are both not perfect. Sonos seems to be better but the design is ugly.

I realize where Apple is coming from, this is for the masses who download Top 40 in the Itunes store. That leaves a space for B&O and their BS5 as it does for Sonos. Who wants to listen to Itunes Plus quality Top 40 songs on 4000$ and up speaker systems?

It Doesn't stream but it could be the hand held two way remote it has Wifi

I agree in entirety with Trip. I have both a BS5-BL9-BC2 set-up and an ATV-Tivo-BV8-BL3 set-up. The first is in my primary residence and the second is in a second home. The interface (including MOTS) and the listening experience on the BS5-centric system is far superior to the ATV-centric system (with due consideration of the advantages of the BL9s). The ATV crashes about 1-2 times a day (my BS5 has never crashed), not to mention the number of dropouts and the general lower quality of reproduction on the ATV.

As Jobs said in his keynote "Apple is a mobile devices company".... Apple is not an audio systems company. B&O is.