Thanks for the post Stephan. A couple of  questions: 

1. The controller column looks like it's plastic as opposed to the aluminium of the original  Beound 5. Is it simply the lighting in your photos?

2. How does the Encore connect to an iTunes library on your PC/Mac? Does it pick it up over wi-fi or do you have to connect it physically?

Stephan wrote:

- Mac formatted drives don't work, the HDD needs to be Windows formatted ( FAT32 is working , NTFS not checked )

I'm not 100% sure what you mean? Do you mean you can't connect to a Mac formatted NAS drive or an iTunes library on any Mac hard drive, server or whatever?

ie. the Beosound 5 can only pull in audio from a Windows formatted drive?

Can you show us some photos of setting up the connection(s) to a remote drive/library via WiFi?

moxxey wrote:

I'm not 100% sure what you mean? Do you mean you can't connect to a Mac formatted NAS drive or an iTunes library on any Mac hard drive, server or whatever?

A NAS drive should work, as the file system used internally is not "seen" by the BS5. The only parameter is the network protocol (SMB, AFP, FTP, Upnp...) In fact, I'm even not sure that there are NAS which have MacOS formatting. It's almost always a Linux filesystem that your NAS operates (Ext4)

Stephan was speaking about direct connection of a hard drive to the BS5.

The good new for me : the Line In is at the front, but well hidden at the bottom of the front... Seems ok for permanent connection of something.

The "DIY" power supply is not very B&O at first sight, but I think that's for B&O technician to adapt cable length for each installation. What is the size of the power supply (a shame that it's not integrated... Still 2 boxes...)

And Stephan, another question : why did you convert to 320?? 

If you convert to FLAC, you keep the tracks lossless, and the conversion is really faster!

moxxey wrote:

ie. the Beosound 5 can only pull in audio from a Windows formatted drive?

That only applies to HD connected directly by USB. Also Macs can perfectly read and write FAT32 formated USB HD, so it shouldn't be an issue.

PhilLondon wrote:

That only applies to HD connected directly by USB. Also Macs can perfectly read and write FAT32 formated USB HD, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Yep, realised that after I posted it as I mentioned it in the other Beosound 5 discussion (direct USB drive connection). That's fine then, as I wouldn't need to connect a USB drive to the Beosound 5.

I have a couple of questions and comments about your new toy (woot!):

At first I thought it was a shame that the USB ports didn't provide enough power. However one might be able to get by with the use of a Y-cable sometimes used for powering external DVD/Bluray drives.  With that said, I don't think I'll use the direct approach much for external HDD. I do see it coming in handy for connecting my pocket recorder and play the recordings direct. Neat, neat, neat!

Secondly, that power supply, how big is it, and is that where you also connect the BL5s or do you do that directly to the Encore "main" unit?

Can you post a picture of it assembled, on shelf or whereever you put it?

How does it conect to the WIFI network? Through that ethernet plug and an adapter?

I was thinking about using a mac mini rather then a HDD and then connect that to my TV as well for video ...

Wow, lot of questions, I try to answer all:

@ Jonnyb:

The column is alu, not plastic. Forget iTunes I just put all my music collection on a HDD and connected it to the BS5encore. It takes a while to cache everything but it works like a breeze.

It doesn't have an option to connect to a iTunes library only physical attached HDDs are recognized, the Wifi connection is for upgrade of the firmware at the moment (future software upgrades could change this but I describe the the current status)

@ Moxxey:

If a HDD is HFS+ (Mac) formatted, the BS5 won't recognize the file system of the HDD, it must be FAT or NTFS with the current software version ( don't know if there will be an option to connect to Mac formatted drives in the future)

As I said before, there is no option in the settings I have found to connect to a drive wirelessly.

@ mbee:

DIY power supply is really for a B&O tech guy as this system is intended to be installed but I like to do it for myself and I simply couldn't wait :-)

320 was the best format for me and it really sounds superb, I will give FLAC a try but I want to keep the library small (currently 225 GB) as I want to store the music on a SSD drive (Intel 320 series with 300GB, currently not released). My library has 600 GB in ALAC, I guess FLAC will be around the same size ... 

I've compared the normal CD with the 320 files and believe me or not the digital files sounded better even at "low" 320 bitrate!

@ Electrified:

A Y-Cable could work but do you want to block all the available USB ports and have cables everywhere? It was disappointing at first but I rather have a HDD with a power on/off switch connected to the BS5encore to have full control of the disc rater than a drive spinning all the time...

The power supply is roughly the size of 2 packs of cigarettes and a little higher (5 cm) and it only provides power to the system. You connect the PowerLink cables to the base unit ( see picture " Base Connectors, just right to the RJ45 connector)

@jk1002

I will post some pics when I'm done

It connects to my Wifi Network via Wifi ( :-) ) as it has 802.11n inbuilt, forget that Mac Mini idea, as the Mac is HFS+ formatted and it will not "understand" that file format.

___

Best regards

Stephan