link

If someone really wants to integrate the Beosound 5 to the setup (with ML and NL), the BS/S5 is the way to go. P.S. I have never heard a fan in the BM5 and the box can be hidden away. MM

These are good hints! For me it would be 'enCORE' :-), thanks for that thought: ideally I would like to use the same music library my Core uses, will read a bit about that as it is mostly ALAC now. No rush here, first need to find a nice BS5e reasonably priced and not too far.

I think for me the BS5e is also bit simpler to install nicely: I do have some ducts already that I can use for RJ45 termination (Ethernet and Powerlink).

Have a good evening! Johan

 

Found an Encore advertised, that turned out to be a BS5/BM5 500GB floorstand combo. I decided to take it :-). It works and I think controlling it with the pointer beam is charming.

Beauty however is in the eye of the beholder - I am facing fierce objection to add this work of art to our kitchen! It is called the dentist intake stand at the moment.

Keep you posted ;-)

Keeping you posted, I have now integrated the BS5/BM5 combo into the mix. What I did since I got it:

• rubbed the sticky soft touch coating from the BS5 with methylated spirit (under the coating is black gloss  paint, it is looking quite nice again, and is much nicer to touch)
• had the cover of the BM5 sandblasted and powder coated in black fine structure (only pity is that the BANG & OLUFSEN logo is lost now)
• vacuumed out the BM5 with a soft brush (lots of dust, I damaged the yellow soft foam pad of the fan, but could replace it with a pad I had left when I gutted an HDR2)
• cloned the 500G HDD onto a 1T SSD, then stretched the data partition so there is almost 1TB space for content (using the helpful threads in the Forum and with some help of my brother, the BM5 needed a couple of recovery startups but now works rock solid) Login to view image
• Login to view image
• put it in Option 0, connected it to NL using a 3rd BLC in A Slave setting, only pushing N.MUSIC onto NL (I tried it straight onto the main ML network first with AM NO setting, but the system behaved a bit weird then, possibly with the main BLC being an A MASTER)
• converted my ALAC based iMusic library (all ripped CDs) into FLAC files using XLD
• placed the set behind my home office desk so the BS5 sits next to my monitor (so not in the kitchen :-))

Now the system looks like this: Login to view image As I type this I am I in the kitchen listening to The Police playing on the BS5 in the attic. Login to view image I can also play my (ALAC) library through my Core and Twonky, but what I want to explore now is the MOTS functionality (currently 20% scanned), as well as the Favorites, using the four colored buttons on the Beo4. Also I think the screen is not perfectly horizontal, maybe there is a possibility to set the rotation stop of the bajonet style fixation for that. The interesting thing to know maybe is that when I did set the BS5 to connect to my Twonky/DLNA ALAC library, it played all the ALAC files fine, it only did not show the album art at all. I decided not to dig any deeper on that and convert the library into FLAC and place it on the (now) SSD of the BM5. All album art is shown perfectly after using the XLD converting. Enjoy your sunday! Regards, Johan  

Leaves me speechless. This is advanced beoinsanity ;))))

A little update of some of today's tinkering: I found a left alone Airport Express that I connected to the optical input of the Core. Its only role is Airplay. In the BLC driving the main Masterlink network I assigned the A.AUX command to Optical of the Core. It is a command that is also available on older remotes, which is the reason why it is easier for me to use than using Airplay of the Core. System looks like this now: Login to view image

I added the option settings of all the equipment too (for me to remember them ha).

Merry Christmas all!

Johan

Hi Johan, Hallo Johan,

I'm about to replace my 1 Tb HDD from my BM5 into a SATA 2.5 inch SSD (1 Tb from Crucial, type BX500). I do not have much experience in this and..... I have read several experiences that were not succesful. (causing to having replaced the motherboards).

For cloning I bought the Sabrent 3.0 SATA 2.5 & 3.5 Dual Bay Harddrive Docking Station.

I have first copied all my music files to my NAS.

Do you think these components could work? What do you mean by "then stretched the data partition so there is almost 1TB space for content (using the helpful threads in the Forum "

Which threads do you mean?

Hope that you are willing to give me some advice before I  make a start.......

groetend,

Joris

Hi Joris,

Don't expect too much technical expertise from me here! I was in the same situation as you are, hoping to improve the speed of the BM5 with a move to SSD. I followed Jens Renboell's hint for purchasing the specific Western Digital SSD, and the info from this thread /forum/imported-unmapped/late-2021-beosound-5-ssd-upgrade for purchasing an external cloner, and with the WD drive it was not very complicated at all. I took the SSD to my brother who (on a PC, I use a Mac) helped to stretch the 500GB partition on the SSD (that was the result of the cloning0 to 1TB). I do remember the BM5 needed a few recovery cycles, but since then worked well. I did place the WD SSD in an interface frame to be able to secure it well in the place where the much larger HDD was - see the images.

I saw you trying to contact Jens Rendboell over the forum already, maybe you can send him a private message?

I would say that the risk is low when you keep your original HDD, you can always put that back in.

Regards,

Johan