The best way to connect a Mac to a B&O MasterLink set-up

16 replies
R(
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RobN (archived2)
Bronze
Posted October 10, 2019 at 09:56 GMT
#1951882

Dear All,

I'd like to start a discussion on how best to connect a modern Mac set-up to an established MasterLink set-up. It would be great if we could harvest the great knowledge and experience of Beoworld.

This question is prompted by the release of MacOS Catalina, which has split the previous function of iTunes into three distinct applications: Music, TV and Podcasts. Two decades of iTunes comes to an end and so does my well established set-up of playing music from my Mac-Mini (via a DACMagic D2A) to a BeoLink PC2 then onwards via MasterLink to many rooms in my house, that contain a Beosound 9000, BeoCenter 6-26, Beovision 7-32 etc. All reliant on BM-Link running on the Mac.

BM-Link will not be upgraded, I've been in direct contact with Anders Odlund who wrote it and quite reasonably his life has moved on and he no longer even has the B&O kit to develop and test the software, let alone the desire to do so.

So, apologies for the long intro, that raises the question: "If you have a significant investment in the generation of B&O that uses MasterLink how best to connect a Mac stacked with thousands of music albums to be able to control the source in each room and listen to your chosen track?

Any/all thoughts would be most welcome?

Best,

Rob

trackbeo
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trackbeo
Bronze
Posted October 10, 2019 at 16:34 GMT
#1951883

Of course the unhelpful answer -- but possibly the best answer -- is simply not to upgrade your Mac OS.  My MacMini3,1 still works just fine, running iTunes 10.7 on OSX 10.6.8 -- including new purchases from Apple's store. [Edit: But it no longer does song previews; opens stream but will not play.]

If you *must* upgrade for some reason, buy a brand-new Mini to run Catalina and keep your old one for music, household control, and running the old version of QuickBooks!  (Run it headless, screen-shared in an always-open window on the new Mac: your "entertainment" window).  Echoing your significant investment in an old generation of B&O gear by maintaining your old Apple gear in stasis seems like a no-brainer.  A new Mac Mini is the easiest purchase you could make to maintain that status quo.

R(
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RobN (archived2)
Bronze
Posted October 10, 2019 at 17:33 GMT
#1951884

Hi Trackbeo,

Yes, thanks, not upgrading the iTunes music server is one option, it's just I use the Mac for other work related functions and having the latest apps keeps me compatible with others. This can be solved, as you say, by buying another MacMini. Quite a pricey solution and also one that might give security concerns in months to come when Mojave doesn't get updated, so the iTunes music server might become vulnerable.

Thanks for the suggestion, which is my fall-back if I can't find a technical way around BM-Link not talking to Music.

Best,

Rob

T.W.G
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T.W.G
Gold
Posted October 11, 2019 at 09:25 GMT
#1951885

trackbeo wrote:

Of course the unhelpful answer -- but possibly the best answer -- is simply not to upgrade your Mac OS. 




Currently it's indeed the most helpful answer to those upgrades!
For example professional audio equipment copmanies (like AKAI professional, Native Instruments, Pioneer DJ, Denon professional etc. ) are WARNING Mac Os users not to upgrade their computers as the updates means trouble. 
The companies suggest not to update until drivers etc. are updated, too and the equipment can work as usual.

 

TB
Offline
tb59427
Bronze
Posted October 26, 2019 at 17:11 GMT
#1951886

Hi all,

 

assuming BM-Link uses standard API access to iTunes what to do, I would assume (wrongly, maybe) that Music offers these or similar APIs access as well. If Anders released the source code of BM Link to the public, we could look into this and see whether we can get BM Link to talk to Music.

 

any chance?

regards

Torsten

My B&O Icons:

Beosound.png Beosound.png
Beovision-Avant.png Beovision-Avant.png
Beovision-10.png Beovision-10.png
Beogram-400x.png Beogram-400x.png
Beoremote-Beo4.png Beoremote-Beo4.png
T(
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tugster (archived2)
Bronze
Posted October 27, 2019 at 21:16 GMT
#1951887

The only other suggestion I would have is to emulate an older Mac OS through Parallels Desktop after you upgrade to Catalilna.  That would require a $30-$50 software purchase depending on the deals available.  As tb59427, maybe if Anders were willing to pass the torch on the BM-Link code to someone else here, then any incompatibilities with Catalina could be addressed.

R(
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RobN (archived2)
Bronze
Posted October 28, 2019 at 11:42 GMT
#1951888

Thanks Torsten,

I'll email Anders and ask him if he'd be okay with this.

Best, Rob

R(
Offline
RobN (archived2)
Bronze
Posted October 28, 2019 at 11:43 GMT
#1951889

Thanks Tugster,

A valid approach, much appreciated. I'll investigate and report back if I go the parallels route.

Best, Rob

R(
Offline
RobN (archived2)
Bronze
Posted October 28, 2019 at 11:44 GMT
#1951890

Thanks Tugster,

That's an interesting idea. I will investigate further and come back and report if I try the Parallels approach.

Best, Rob

MA
Offline
Madskp
Gold
Posted October 28, 2019 at 13:54 GMT
#1951891
A free alternative to Parrallels is Virtualbox if you want to try it out without to many expenses

Edit: OSX as a guest operating system is an experimental feature of Virtualbox so your milage may vary

Location: Denmark

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