Very interesting! As a BL50 owner I would like to know which streamer do you use (BL50/90 owners) to bypass Theater / Eclipse / Harmony ?

 

It was counter intuitive for me to introduce another DAC in the loop but it seems that a lot of people benefit from an analog connexion to BL50/90 ?

Does the BSCore do the same ? Or I guess you have to go for a high level streamer ?

thank you for your help ?

It was counter-intuitive to me as well but at the time, the development of the BL90 did not allow the input of USB volume control (Im not sure if it does now or not). However, I opted for the Auralic Vega G2 DAC on the grounds that I could:-

• increase the competency of the G2 by adding incrementally extra improvements over time
• XLR is the defacto cabling system used in most high-end Source to Source equipment
• XLR also fitted in with my speaker placement and source placement (+6m apart - no good for USB)
• But with an option to go digital to digital when the BL90 was capable.
• If I ever wanted to split apart from B&O (and boy o boy I've been tempted until recently), the Auralic and BL90 can live together perfectly.
• The Auralic Vega G2 can support DNLA to pipe-in music from my music server (or NAS) - thus compatible with the prior arrangement via the BV.

I think you can get into a rabbit warren of capable streamers. It is a balance of what you want, what you want to pay and perceived quality. It may be there is an all-in-one solution such as the Auralic Altair G1 (discontinued - I have one in the office driving BL3's - soon to be BL17s) which have a streamer, DAC and can take an internal harddrive (Server) that may suit your needs - but - but the BL50s do not have XLR so you will need to look whether the Altair G1/G2 is suitable in terms of connections. Other possibilites are to plug-in say an Aries G1/G2 and keep it all digital and include and internal server.....but you need to listen if it is the sound you want. By adding the Auralic Sirius - a sophisticated up-sampler - native in the G2 series but can be used on the G1, you can take all your 44/16 music files up to DSD512, (which gives a really clean filtration in effect - not more data) before the Lab90/50's drop it back down to 192 for internal processing. Another meaningful step up sound-wise. I could go on and on on this but in essence you need to look at the market, swap the Auralic brand for Bluetone, Aurender, DCS, Lumen etc...etc... and find the sound/price that suits you. Ultimately, I believe you will be impressed in what different 3rd part sources can do compared to B&O Source when playing through the BL50.

Thank you so much for your expertise, I read with great pleasure and attention all your posts, your knowledge is extremely beneficial and pertinent.

I'd second and echo Mr.10Percent's comments and reasoning.

very similar thinking, though my equipment is slightly different. My BL50s are fed by a Linn streamer / DAC, and I have a Roon Nucleus server.  The Roon is not strictly necessary, but I have quite a lot of ripped Cd's stored on it, some of which are not on streaming services. And additionally I wanted to use the Roon UI for my music browsing / listening. The Roon Nucleus server feeds my Linn DAC/streamer, but it also sends music to my other B&O single speakers in other rooms via Airplay (Beosound 2 and A9).

Having 50's,  using the B&O app for music and Deezer within it all seems like an unsatisfactory experience, especially given the 50s cost.  The Linn player (I have one of their upgraded DAC options), with Roon (I use Qobuzz within it) and the excellent Roon UI all add up to a much better experience. It also has a phono stage, so my turntable also goes through the Linn to the 50s. First class experiment for fist class speakers.

In addition, as alluded to above, and I wouldn't underestimate this, the Linn player I have is modular, can be changed or upgraded, and offered me not only the above superior music experience but also a B&O independent path, if I was to cut out Beovisions (i.e a B&O brain). My Linn DAC can be fitted with a surround sound module, for example.

Anyway, from my reading here over recent years, it seems some 50/90s owners are perfectly happy with a Core/Deezer Hifi, some use a Roon Nucleus into their 50/90s, some use just a 3rd party streamer(or +DAC), and then there are odd bods like myself who use Roon Nucleus+3rd party streamer.

 

Sandyb wrote: do you have the option of connecting the 9000 to the BL28s directly?

Yes I could have my BS9000 directly connected to BL28. But I had the hope that BSTH could handle as a system for various inputs and let me choose the desired output channels / speakers.

During installation I did first the BL28 install and ran its own room compensation. I wonder if the successive BSTH room calibration with mic, got messed up with the BL28 using room compensation. I hear a clear difference in bass and clarity/transparency when listening to BL28 directly or BL28 only via BSTH.
I tried to run BSTH in direct mode, bypassing True Image, however without a noticeable change. I will do more tests and let you know.

Thanks for all the valuable input/feedback, it is greatly appreciated!

I think the way the BSTH and BL28/50/90 work in my mind is as I’ve suggested in the last few threads:- namely, if there is a source played through the BSTH, it takes control of the output signal based on the Room-Sense and connected speakers and the baseline speaker profiles B&O painstaking inserted into the BSTH. The signal (I guess) bypasses all of the BL28 calibration, DSP and internal Mozart sources.

When you play a source internal to the BL28 or inject one that is not via the BSTH, that I assume goes via the BL28s DSP. Hence why there is a persecution of sound difference.

I guess the way to test is to recalibrate the BL28’s only with a duvet over each speaker. Then, if the sound is poor in standalone mode but ok as a part of the BSTH, then that should confirm mode of sound correction is different, source dependant?

I may be 180 about turn on this but that is my guess?

I see there's a new app update today that adds headphone support for the Theatre and manual speaker setup. It looks like there is now a place to add third-party speakers when adding speakers. Also, there are two new speaker roles "left downmix" and "right downmix" with this annoying scrolling list at the bottom of that page that covers up part of the page.I can't seem to figure out what those two new speaker roles are for. Has anyone noticed any other differences?

Weird I'm not seeing the update in TestFlight or the public app.

For those of you experiencing a difference in sound when having the BSTH as intermediary, what Sound Mode are you running the BSTH in ? I've found that I prefer to disable all the upmixing/surround processing in the Advanced tab, and switch to Direct feed, when listening to music.