Beolab 3500 with a beosound Core – possible?

[Sam Long]

Hi folks

I bought a fairly cheap Beolab 3500 (with no beo4 controller) and I am trying to connect to a beosound core.  I have the most basic understanding of the master link system ( my other speakers are beolab 8000s connected to a beosound 3000…) so I’m struggling to work out if I can use the 3500 as a standalone speaker to stream music to.  I have a cable with 8 pin din at one end and an audio plug at the other and I have another cable which is RJ45 at one end and 8 pin din (female).  So the questions are:

 

1. Do I need a beo4 to control the 3500 or is there a way I can manually program the 3500 to receive input from the Core?
2. If I find a beo4, how do I set up the 3500 (does everything that comes in through the DIN plug come through as an aux input?)

Sorry for the numpty question – thanks all.

 

[matador]

Hi,

Beolab 3500 maybe the most frustrating Beolab speaker around ! Tremedous form factor, acceptable sound, very fair price nowadays, but…

Unless you use it in a Masterlink network as it was inteded to or trick it with solutions ranging from a “simple” Beolink converter (making it less “form factor convenient” to cumbersome IR remote keys sequences, it will be – Argh, it hurts to say it – pretty useless.

Sorry for you.

Location: Paris France

[Sam Long]

Thanks Matador

 

im going to persevere I think. I have my beolink 1000 and the sounds heavenly.com instructions. My only problem is that the beolab doesn’t seem to respond to my beolink. Do I need to pair them or something?

 

cheers (et Merci en avance)

 

sam

[Madskp]

Sam Long wrote:

im going to persevere I think. I have my beolink 1000 and the sounds heavenly.com instructions. My only problem is that the beolab doesn’t seem to respond to my beolink. Do I need to pair them or something?

No need for pairing

Since you are mentioning the sounds heavenly.com instructions I guess you mean the MENU MENU 0 4 PLAY combination? This should work regardless of how the Beolab 3500 is setup.

Normal source commands like CD and Radio however will not always work unless it is connected with a B&O Masterlink sound system.

Can you confirm that the Beolink 1000 is working? You can should be able to se the IR light when a key is pressed through the front camera on a phone.

Location: Denmark

[Sam Long]

Thanks Madskp. I can see the purple light so I’m pretty sure the beolink is working ok.  I’ll try the sequence again

 

Sam

[Sam Long]

Sadly no joy. I know the beolink is working because I control my beosound 3000 with it. Am I missing something?

[Madskp]

Hello again

One last thing you can try to verify if the IR receiving part on the Beolab 3500 is working is to try to do an option setting.

Do the sequence LINK, 6, STORE on the Beolink 1000

If it works the Beolab 3500 should respond with Option 6 in the display

(Note: if the Beolab 3500 is a MK2 version this only work if it is connected with a Masterlink audiosystem like your BS3000. An easy way to see if it is an MK1 or MK2 version is to look at the 8 pin DIN connector on the back. MK1 will have MCL engraved into the metal below the connector whereas MK2 has no engraving).

If you still got no response from the Beolab 3500 the IR receiver is much likely not working. A known fix is to replace to capacitors on the display board. There is a great guide for that in this post https://forum.beoworld.org/forums/topic/beolab-3500-sometimes-responds-to-remote-control-sometimes-it-doesnt/#post-52572

The fix involves disassembly and soldering of very small components

 

Location: Denmark

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