my vote goes to the beomaster5.

basically a totally outdated pc. hooking this up to the local network or -much worse- to the internet in 2022 is insane, since windows xp didnt get any security updates since 2014. some enthusiasts are installing antivirus software on this thing, because they believe this would fix this. as an it-guy i can assure you: no, it doesnt. using it as standalone device is completly pointless. also, i dont understand why they put a custom proprietary bios on this thing. swapping the harddisk or the motherboard is a pain in the back this way. there is no reason for something like this, except enforcing you to visit a branddealer. the casing is an other story: it has some kind of rubbery layer on it. nearly impossible to find one in good condition these days, since the rubber doesnt age well. btw. what material is this? is it healthy to touch this after 20years, without instantly diying on cancer? maybe an exaggeration, but you get the point. then there is power consumption. A whole pc, just to listen to some music.

its sad. the beosound5 which comes with it, is such a nice display-controller-unit.

Current

Beosystem 72-22

Beogram 4000c

Yet I’d love to have them

Also

BeoSound Emerge

 

Past

Beoplay A3 iPad speaker dock hands down

Design, sound and price are subjective and vary among us, which leaves us functionality. I think products with poor functionality are the ones with the least value. Many here suggest BS-Emerge is a failure, yet it has an excellent design and functions pretty well, although a bit pricy. The same goes for Beosound Edge; it is unusual and sounds different, but it works, so I wouldn't suggest it is a failure. On the other hand majority of B&O TVs (from their early LCD panels and onwards) feels extremely overpriced, have many bugs, and are not exceptional in any other way than their design for which they come with a price tag that is  7-8 times higher than similar technologies. That is not expensive, it is simply madness to pay around 10,000 Euro or more extra for an LG TV combined with Beosound Stage, worth less than 2,500 pounds (especially when you can put together them yourself, minus the sleek positioning of the speaker). I understand that as a small company it costs a lot to compete with big brands such as LG or Samsung. I believe they shouldn't. Instead, they should focus on what they are good at, which is sound and design and to certain degree integration (if they can manage to handle their software issues). I can't wait to see the new Beosound Theater for example, which, according to rumours, is moving in that direction. So B&O TVs are the least valuable products to me.

Tend to agree - my BV12-65 is still going strong. as is my Avant 55.

Unless they produce a one piece BV of outstanding design, like the BV11 / 14 form factor, then I cant see myself buying a BV again. We'll see how good / sensibly priced the Theatre is.

Worst value has to be the Moment, simply because it was buggy, laggy, fell short of its promise, and even when it worked was a pretty limited music experience device.

 

So much hate for the Moment!  I absolutely love mine - I'm listening to music on the one in my office as I type this message.  It's a gorgeous device that works great for what I do with it.

But to be fair, I bought both of mine used and knew what I was getting into.  I can imagine I'd be upset if I purchased it based on the promise of specific functionality that never arrived

Beosound 5:

Beautiful but the rotary dials were a pain in the ****.

Hardware that was 10 years out of date on release.

Dust under the glass despite replaced seals again and again and again...

Expensive, fancy, rubbish.

For me it's definitely the BeoSound Moment.  I don't think I was an early adopter, but from the appalling quality of the software I certainly felt like one.

• For about the first year it DID NOT WORK AT ALL.  Whenever I tried to play something it would give an error.
• After many software updates it was finally able to play songs, but was extremely unreliable and would randomly start skipping everything in the queue.
• It had to be factory reset about once every week because it would gradually get slower and slower until it froze up.
• The Jukebox would randomly disconnect from the SoundHeart and would need to be power-cycled a few times to get things connected again.
• The Deezer integration was SHOCKINGLY bad.  It created entries in your "collection" for every track liked, causing lots of albums to show up with only a few tracks in them.
• It also tried to merge your Deezer and DLNA libraries, which caused weird things like albums to show up with extra tracks (the full album from DLNA plus the liked tracks from Deezer).  As a result I ended up unliking everything on Deezer to make it semi-usable.

The rewrite was a massive improvement, but it's still only beta quality.

link

For me it’s definitely the BeoSound Moment.

. . .

The rewrite was a massive improvement, but it’s still only beta quality.

I own two, but I bought the first one just about a month before the rewrite and the other a year later, so I didn't have to go through that miserable experience.  I really love my Moments, I just wish they hadn't abandoned the product - the hardware platform has so much promise.  All the home automation they're trying to squeeze into the Beoremote Halo would work much better on the larger screen of the Moment .

For me the Beosound 5 encore is the worst value for money, it was already abandoned when it hit the market.
Mine still has the factory firmware from 2011, never had an update.

So when I use it is on my guest network so that it doesn’t compromise my regular network

It only plays Beoradio and the music from my Synology NAS, no Deezer, Spotify or Tidal.

And I can connect a Chromecast Audio dongle to it and tuck it away behind it.

But I really like the looks and operation thru the wheels and lever, I never used a remote control with it.

It is beautifully made, but the software is so bad.