Beosound Core to Beolab 17 via TOSLINK/Airplay

[Beovulf]

Hi everybody!

Long-time reader, first-time poster. This site is a treasure trove of information. Now, let me cut right to the chase: my two questions center around using Beolab 17 with Beosound Core using the TOSLINK output and Airplay:

(1) Will the Beolab 17 go in and out of standby automatically if I only connect the TOSLINK out from the Beosound Core to the 17s?

(2) When streaming to the Core via Airplay 2, and then setting the volume via a remote, will the volume on the streaming device (e. g. iPad) adjust accordingly/correctly?

A bit of background:

I’m currently using a Raspberry Pi with HifiBerry / BeoCreate OS as a streamer to listen to music via Airplay (from Macs and iPhones) and Bluetooth (from a projector and a Sony turntable).

I’m using the volume-controlled TOSLINK output to connect the Pi and the 17s, and in my humble option, that sounds great! (better than the few DACs I’ve tried with them). I’ve written a little Python script for the Pi that allows me to use a Beosound Essence Remote as a volume control for the Raspberry via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).

So far so good! But there are the problems with this setup, and the reasons I’m considering moving to the Beosound Core:

– Sound Quality is great, but like twice a day I get very short and loud “Pops” when I stop playback. It is frighting. It makes me want to use a “non-homebrew” setup.
– The speakers don’t go into standby, ever.
– The Beosound Essence Remote works with the generic Linux bluetooth stack, but it takes a big twist to get it to wake up from standby, and the steps when turning the dial feel to big. There seem to be some unnamed/cryptic Bluetooth settings on the remote that I believe are meant to be used for B&O clients only.
– Lastly, when I change the volume on the Pi, my iPhone/iPads try to adjust their volume, but the sliders in the UI jump around somewhat erratically. Not sure what’s going on there.

So yeah, for those reasons I’m considering switching to the Core, keeping my TOSLINK connection, my Essence Remote, and Airplay and Bluetooth. Will this fix my problems?

Thanks so much in advance!

[tph]

I can’t answer the questions around Beosound Core without much experience from that product, but as the person who designed and developed the user interface for Beocreate and quite a lot of the DSP layout for some of the HiFiBerry boards, I’m curious about some of these issues…

• Which HiFiBerry board are you using in your system?
• The speakers have signal sense in the optical input and they should go to standby after a minute or two of receiving no signal. That it doesn’t happen on yours suggests either something on the Raspberry Pi (or the sound card) is constantly generating a signal or that the signal sense does not work properly on the speakers. This could be related to the pops you’re experiencing.
  • I have used a Beocreate 4-Channel Amplifier connected to the optical input on a Beolab 18 and 20 (both of which have essentially the same “sound engine” as the 17) and both go to sleep automatically after I stop listening – also without any audible pops.
• Regarding the “sync” of volume control between AirPlay and the HiFiBerry system, this is likely handled by the shairport-sync (the open-source AirPlay receiver we use) application. I don’t have immediate solutions but may have a chance to investigate…
• I would also love it if you could share details/code how your Essence integration works. It’s been my dream to add this to the Beocreate platform some day but haven’t had the time.

[Curly]

I have a Core connected via TOSLINK to a pair of BL17.

#1. Yes. But what else would you connect between them? Each speaker and the Core need power. But otherwise, you can connect one 17 to the TOSLINK output on the Core and connect the two 17s together via TOSLINK. This is my setup. It works perfectly.

#2.What remote? A Halo or BR1? Yes. You can adjust volume on a remote.

 

I hope that helps.

[Author]

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