BL3500 and the MCL/PL connector

[Madskp]

An observation I did today was that my BL35000 MK1 would not react to the Menu + 0 + x + GO sequence from my Beo4 with joystick. I don’t know if the press on the Joystick sends a different command than GO on the older Beo4’s. But worth noting if a BL3500 do not react on a Beo4.

In my case I could just find a Beo4 with GO button and complete what I had to do

[Ravsted]

On a beo4 with joystick you can select ‘mode’.

There are 3 modes.

With your ‘mode’ setting pressing the ‘play’ button instead of the joystick should do the trick.

[Madskp]

Ravsted wrote:

On a beo4 with joystick you can select ‘mode’. There are 3 modes. With your ‘mode’ setting pressing the ‘play’ button instead of the joystick should do the trick.

Yes of course. Thanks for reminding me. I Did not think that far when I was trying to use it, and had the other BEO4 near by.

 

[Rob]

Good afternoon,

I am trying to play music from my iPhone using my old Beolab 3500 speakers. I purchased a device from Bluetooth Solutions to interphase with my phone. I connected as instructed but the speaker remains dormant. I have tried Red-list, then go to Lopt and press 2 and 6 as those settings have been recommended in this website. Speaker does not respond. I was wondering if you can help me. I am attaching a picture. Thanks.

[Madskp]

Rob wrote:

Good afternoon, I am trying to play music from my iPhone using my old Beolab 3500 speakers. I purchased a device from Bluetooth Solutions to interphase with my phone. I connected as instructed but the speaker remains dormant. I have tried Red-list, then go to Lopt and press 2 and 6 as those settings have been recommended in this website. Speaker does not respond. I was wondering if you can help me. I am attaching a picture. Thanks.

Hello. I don’t know this bluetooth Solutions product, but can you tell how it is connected to the Beolab 3500? Is it a DIN connector?

If so the MK1 and MK2 versions of the BL3500 has different pin assignments in the connector, so could be a cable issue. Please see one of the first pists in this thread to tell if you havd a MK1 or MK2 BL3500.

Next thing I wonder is if this product is supposed to activate the BL3500? Based on my findings in this thread I would not think so, but interesting if it does.

If it does not have this feature, and the connection is via the DIN connector the only way to activate the BL3500 is to use this key sequence on a BEO4 remote:

For BL3500 MK1: Menu + 0+ 4 + GO

For BL3500 MK12: Menu + Menu + 0+ 4 + GO

Note than when the speaker is activated with this sequence any keypress on the remote control will make it go to stand by. So volume control is done on the bluetooth part of it.

Hope this gets you further. You are welcome to make follow up questions

 

 

 

[Klaus Stoetzel]

Warm Hello to all the B&O tinkerers, great to have found this place, special thanks to @Madskp

I have been using B&O from the 80ies, using at one time The Beomaster/Beogram 5500 series with Restek speakers, with an additional LCS9000 in a linked room, controlled the lights, MX TV, had a B&O wired phone, you name it, happy times.

Fast forwarding like 35+ years all this vanished over time with more modern equipment taking over .. last year I re-surrected the Restek speakers with a Arylic S10 streaming device, moving great sounding speakers into the new age.

I just the other day re-soldered a MLC cable to connect the Beomaster 5500 to the LCS9000 (SW1.0) .. as I have re-wired the speakers to the S10 and rarely used the old equipment anyway .. it kinda works but volume control is questionable so I guess some capacitors in the amplifyer stage died along the way, unnoticed as the main Speakers are active.

The LCS9000 is half good, can be activated by the tight button, no reaction to the IR remotes (Beo4 and Beo1000)

With this and a couple of other threads I have been digesting here‘s my braindump and related questions.

Would the special DIN cable mentioned upthread probably allow the LCS9000 to perform better, taking the amplifyer out?

The lack of IR on the LCS9000 should require the two caps to be replaced, right?

The DIN to Jack cable (as from SoundsHeavenly) would be my best/easiest bet on hookup to i.e. S10 srtreamer (after the IR fix obviously)

As the LCS9000 has been collecting dust for like 15years (last move) I am hesitant to spent much effort / money as it would be mostly for the occasional use on the terasse.

While a 5V hot-fix and a DIN-Jack cable would be a pretty setup for occasional use actually 😉

Maybe we can get this thread energized again, soldering iron and Multi-Meter on stand-by

BR

Klaus

 

 

 

[Madskp]

Welcome to Beoworld, and glad you appreciate this thread 🙂

For starters, you call the link speaker LCS9000, and the SW 1.0 tell me that it is an early version you have. Out of curiosity is it actually labeled LCS9000 on the speaker? Just asking as I have not yet seen it printed on one.

Klaus Stoetzel wrote:

Would the special DIN cable mentioned upthread probably allow the LCS9000 to perform better, taking the amplifyer out?

If it is the cable pinout mentioned in this post https://forum.beoworld.org/forums/topic/bl3500-and-the-mcl-pl-connector/#post-44540 then yes that will bypass the need for the amplifier in the BM5500 and work just as a not volume regulated line out signal for the LCS9000, so the volume control is only on the LCS9000

Klaus Stoetzel wrote:

The lack of IR on the LCS9000 should require the two caps to be replaced, right?

That might be the case yes. This thread has a great guide on replacing them https://forum.beoworld.org/forums/topic/beolab-3500-sometimes-responds-to-remote-control-sometimes-it-doesnt/#post-29738

Before you do that however you might try if it has been set to option 0  at some point (no IR). With a Beolink 1000 you can press Link + 6 + Store and see if it responds with Option 6 in the display (option 6 is link room with both Audio and Video commands).

Klaus Stoetzel wrote:

The DIN to Jack cable (as from SoundsHeavenly) would be my best/easiest bet on hookup to i.e. S10 srtreamer (after the IR fix obviously)

That is an easy connection yes. However you have to use the Menu + 0 + 4 +Go combination to activate it and have no volume control with the remote + any remote press will put the speaker to standby.

I would like to recommend some of the other options mentioned in this thread where Masterlink is used, however with the SW 1.0 I am not sure how much will work and how much will not.

Please let me know if you need other input

 

 

[Klaus Stoetzel]

Thaks mads?,

and yes, absolutely positive it is a Beolab LCS 9000 (SW 1.0) as per the label close to the power connector

And sure, you are right, the AUX is not regulated .. so in any case I need to fix the IR first I fear 🙁

Will try the option resetting later today and report back

Laters

Klaus

 

 

 

[Madskp]

Klaus Stoetzel wrote:

and yes, absolutely positive it is a Beolab LCS 9000 (SW 1.0) as per the label close to the power connector

Thanks. Interesting to know that it was actually labelled as such.

Klaus Stoetzel wrote:

And sure, you are right, the AUX is not regulated .. so in any case I need to fix the IR first I fear 🙁

Yes I am afraid so. Right now I realize that the volume regulation issue you have experienced is because you can not volume control the LCS9000 itself. The LCS9000 has a circuitry to compensate for volume differences from the amplifier in the BM5500, so if you raise the volume on the BM5500 the LCS9000 will try to compensate and lower down the volume (i think in 4 steps).  This is so it is possible to do individual volume control on the LCS9000. So you might only have issues with the IR eye.

 

[Klaus Stoetzel]

No luck on Link + 6 + Store, its hot around here, so off to the cool cellar we go for some soldering fun

Great explanation on volume issues and yes, that makes absolutely sense and would be nice too

more later

[Klaus Stoetzel]

C18 was the issue, works flawless now on the BS5500 and comes up with MCL sel .. Yeah!

I will try to patch an Arylic S10 onto the LCS for some half-mobile streaming sound unit

 

[Madskp]

Klaus Stoetzel wrote:

C18 was the issue, works flawless now on the BS5500 and comes up with MCL sel .. Yeah! I will try to patch an Arylic S10 onto the LCS for some half-mobile streaming sound unit

Great to hear that it was possible to solve 😀

[Klaus Stoetzel]

Matched up the streaming device successfully to the LCS9000 (Menue 0 4 Go) and its a dream to be able to switch between the LCS9000 / BS5500 combo in the living room for the occassional CD listening and grabbing it, hooking it up to the little streaming box for use on the patio. Absolutely great re-use of such beautiful and nice sounding old hardware after 15 years and bringing it to new life in a more recent environment.

Sidenote: the LCS9000 is used with option 2, only other option settable was 4 but no sound, no reaction on opt 5 and 6

[Madskp]

Klaus Stoetzel wrote:

Sidenote: the LCS9000 is used with option 2, only other option settable was 4 but no sound, no reaction on opt 5 and 6

Ok there might be limitations on this since it’s SW 1.0. In an older post on the old forums it was mentioned that Masterlink was not even compatible in the first version, so the option settings might relate more to what it was in the older MCL products

[Klaus Stoetzel]

Mads, could you share the communucation / pics you? got from curious-dreamer / reddit?

If one guy got this running others should be able to .. never giving up ..

 

[Madskp]

Klaus Stoetzel wrote:

Mads, could you share the communucation / pics you? got from curious-dreamer / reddit? If one guy got this running others should be able to .. never giving up ..

I think the information provided was the picture in this post https://forum.beoworld.org/forums/topic/beolab-3500-and-1611-converter-settings/page/10/#post-42384

and that the 5V was connected to pin 1 and 7, so not much to go for.

The original Reddit post is this https://www.reddit.com/r/BangandOlufsen/comments/rvr4f4/best_way_to_modernise_a_beolab_3500_soundbar_as/

Let us know if you have any ideas as to how this could work

[Klaus Stoetzel]

No idea yet, still in gathering information mode

My unit is also early, so seems close enough to the 3500 mk1 sw1.1 curious-dreamer is using, thats a good start

[Klaus Stoetzel]

lol, talk about the virus, just bought another BL3500 mk1 .. (SW1.1 – with tablestand)

and I am in touch with curious-dreamer to get more details, he mentioned he bought the system from a guy who also supplied the DIN-Minijack cable to him, if we can‘t figure it out we get back to that guy to see if he modded anything

[Madskp]

Klaus Stoetzel wrote:

lol, talk about the virus, just bought another BL3500 mk1 .. (SW1.1 – with tablestand)

Hehe, yeah. I have 5 BL3500’s in my collection now, but the last 2 was part of a LOT where I was going for other stuff.

I think I Have SW1.0 in one that I havd not had luck connecting to anything, and the SW1.2, 2.0 in two other MK1 BL3500. The last two are MK2 with SW3.1 on both

and I am in touch with curious-dreamer to get more details, he mentioned he bought the system from a guy who also supplied the DIN-Minijack cable to him, if we can‘t figure it out we get back to that guy to see if he modded anything

Interesting if anything new arises. Let me know if you need me to test or doublecheck something on one of my BL3500’s

[Klaus Stoetzel]

he promissed to get me the details of his DIN-Minijack cable and if we still can‘t get things working we‘ll get in touch with the guy things came from, lets give him a bit time and as soon as I get the information I’ll share here. From all the tests done by you and the other guys here I am not betting on any new revelations cable-wise but probably the original guy modded something and we‘ll hopefully see soon and go from there .. will keep you posted

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