Using a non-B&O TV with Beosystem 3 – advice needed

[CharlieWednesday]

I currently use a Beosystem 3 Mk2 with a full set of surround speakers connected (BL Penta 3 Front, BL6000 Rear, BL7.4 Centre and BL2 Sub).  The Beosystem 3 is also in an ML Network with my Beosound 9000 and Beosound 5.

I use the BS3 with a projector, but I’ve decided to replace it with a large screen TV (75″ probably).  While that’s not quite as big as the projector image (about 90″) it would be brighter and clearer, and I wouldn’t need to have the room in darkness.  My projector is Full HD, but the TV would be 4K.

A B&O TV of that size is well outside of my price range, so I thought I’d buy a reasonably-priced TV and connect it to the Beosystem 3, so the Beosystem 3 is still handling my speakers.

So my first question is, is there anything I need to look for, or avoid, when choosing the TV? I don’t really understand the difference between LED, QLED and OLED – which is the best choice?

Also:

• I’m assuming I will be able to connect the TV to the BS3 via HDMI, so I know the TV will need to be able to decode DTS and Dolby 5.1.  Most TVs I’ve seen for sale now support Atmos – do Atmos TVs also support 5.1?
• Would it be better to connect the TV to the BS3 using SPDIF rather than HDMI, since I only need sound, and no picture, to go from the TV to the BS3?
• In order to occasionally use on-screen menu of the BS3 for settings, I would also need to connect the BS3 to the TV via a DVI-HDMI cable.  Are there any complications in having the signal go both ways between the TV and the BS3?  I also have a couple of old SCART devices which I’d like to continue having access to via the BS3’s SCART sockets, if possible.
• At some later stage I plan to set up a Beovision 8 and a Beosound 4 in a link room.  I’m also considering adding Beolab 2000 and 3500 speakers to some other rooms.  Would this add any further complications? (I am already aware that HDMI audio sources can’t be shared to link room speakers)

• This topic was modified 18 hours, 41 minutes ago by CharlieWednesday.
• This topic was modified 18 hours, 41 minutes ago by CharlieWednesday.

Location: Liverpool

My B&O Icons:

[Tignum]

Hello Charlie,

Nice project! I use an LG oled (C9) with the BS3 and I very much like the picture quality of it. The black is really black.

Be aware that the BS3 has no HDMI ARC (audio return channel) capability. If you want to use the HDMI input sockets of the BS3 for audio, your TV must have a normal HDMI OUTput, or it will not work. I think such TVs are rare, if they exist. I use the optical SPDIF output of the LG, converted into coax and feed that into the BS3. You might find a box that strips the audio signal from the TV’s ARC (that your TV for sure will have) and feeds into an HDMI input of the BS3. There are multiple threads about this.

Indeed you will need to connect the BS3 DVI or HDMI output with the TV for menu access, but of course can make use it for your SCART devices. They will not play 4K anyway. I connected an Apple TV to my LG directly for high resolution picture, making my TV the video hub, and the BS3 the audio hub.

For your MasterLink questions I would say that the regular MasterLink (im)possibilities do not change.

When controlled over IR, daily management of the new TV could be done over PUC! Then you will hardly notice you do not have a B&O TV :-).

Regards,

Johan

 

Location: Netherlands

My B&O Icons:

[CharlieWednesday]

Thanks for the advice.

It looks like this is an option for me.  I think I will use the SPDIF output of the TV, which I know most if not all modern TVs have, and use an optical SPDIF to Coax converter (I happen to already have one) so I can feed that to one of the digital Coax inputs of the BS3.

I love the idea of using PUC – I do also happen to have a PUC cable (one with two IR blasters) but I have no idea how to use them – I’m assuming a B&O engineer would need to add the TV model to the BS3 as a PUC device, so I can control it?

I also have a couple of Beo6 remotes which I know can apparently control 3rd party devices, but while I have been able to reprogram my Beo6s several times for my B&O devices, I have no idea how to program them to work with 3rd party devices.

Nevertheless, looks like I’ll be shopping for a big TV soon then!

Location: Liverpool

My B&O Icons:

[Author]

Posts