HAHA thanks for that. London was indeed fabulous!

Well, I had my demo in Selfridges and connected my iPod Nano to it and...

oh dear, guys, i'm so disappointed. Yes there was plenty of bass however, the whole thing sounded compressed and really lacking in treble. I do believe there are 3 tone settings for it on the iPod menu however, I didn't get the chance to try them. A member of the public commented also how compressed it sounded and my sales executive put his iPhone 4 on it - again very compressed. I have the Harmon Kardon system in my car so I know how clear the iPod can sound but there was something seriously lacking here.

I'm rather gutted especially considering the rather inflated price tag. Was I going to buy one? Yes but not now - quite frankly, i'm gutted!

I too was somewhat underwhelmed with the 8s sonic abilities.

Downloads sounded pretty terrible,but that's hardly surprising.

Overall it was quite a middle of the road sound signature.Certainly compared to my current stop gap.Overblown bass [don't get me started on the whole Loudness On thang to "impress" punters...as is the norm in dealer dems!] 

BUT...you can't expect any piece of audio electronica to even remotely show it's full potential in a typical retail environment.B&O showrooms are the worst for this.

Unit sat on thin glass shelf,itself attached to a freestanding wall.Reflective surfaces throughout the store.One always has to extrapolate to imagine the possibilities in a domestic surrounding that has more acoustically absorbant surfaces.Makes a huge difference.

Added to which,despite the naysayers,is the fact that these units will sound better after being run in for a good 100 hours or so.The drive units will free up and the sound will lose that tight sound and breath more freely...

symmes wrote:

I have listened to this dock for hours, from ipad, iPhone, nano, and touch. Have auditioned it probably 30 times, plus hosted a party for apple employees. The only time it has sounded like crap to me was when the source was crap. While several have not cared or it, nobody (including a couple of snobs) have criticized sound quality. I mean nobody.

Apart from not being able to reproduce the very deep bass of the organ (a bit of a tall ask the laws of physics being what they are, and given the size of the drivers and power behind them in the Beosound 8) the sound was truly excellent - best iPod dock I've ever heard, and certainly better than CD based 'mini' system for example.  I was very impressed with the naturalness and believability of the sound reproduction, which as a predominately classical listener is very important to me, and have already started thinking about where I could fit one in the house... 😁

Black and aluminium looks very cool.... I think one will be mine soon...

Best Regards

John.... 😐

In an ideal world we would all rip Lossless etc however, 90% of my music is now bought from Apple iTunes at 256kpbs. As a Marketing Manager of large radio stations, I can also confirm that most of radio playout is ripped to the harddrive at 320kpbs!!!

I like a real clear bright sound and this system just wasn't offering it. I think it needs something that we had 10, 20, 30 years ago as standard... separate BASS & TREBLE CONTROLS!!!

256 vs 320 kbps already makes a big difference. Depending on the compressor, the first is barely enough, but the latter is usually quite OK and close enough to lossless for most purposes. Not quite fair to expect some kit to create wonders of something that just isn't there.

Paul Winn wrote:

the whole thing sounded compressed and really lacking in treble.

If the BS8 is lacking in treble there are just 4 possible reasons:

• The BS8 was standing very low, while you stood in front of it (read: you forgot that it has very directional sound)
• The audiosource was of poor quality ( the BS89 will sound poor if the source is of poor quality)
• It was broken