[andy_js]

I wanted to make a note somewhere of a bug I’ve been running into with the Beosound Stage: it seems that if I turn my TV off using the Beoremote in the evening I’m not able to turn it on again using the remote or the app, but I’ve discovered using the app to put the Beosound Stage into standby seems to get it out of this state, and after that I’m able to control it again using both the remote and the app.  Sending the AllStandby command to the Beosound Stage using beoutil also seems to pull it out of this weird state.  I will open a ticket with B&O when I get a chance but I have not been impressed with their support so far.  They will probably ask for something dumb like a screenshot from the app.

• This reply was modified 2 weeks ago by andy_js.

[andy_js]

I believe it sits under the Theatre in the line up but I don’t know if it’s something completely new or an update to the Stage.  I don’t have a lot of details.

[andy_js]

My guess is that the update is being released in anticipation of the new soundbar.

[andy_js]

Here are some screenshots showing a multiroom “experience”:

[andy_js]

That’s probably because the Mozart products use ControlLink instead of the BeoRemote API that the earlier products used.

[andy_js]

I have a prototype web frontend for B&O products and I might share some screenshots of if people are interested.  It has support for discovering active “experiences” as B&O used to call them, shows the track info and artwork for music, has basic playback controls, and allows you to adjust the volume of each “listener” or product joined to an experience.  It’s basic but doesn’t look too bad.

In the course of coding this up I’ve found several bugs in the speakers firmware.  The most egregious are:

• Speakers randomly stop producing sound when they finish one track and move to the next one.  There doesn’t appear to be any way to detect this, because they still give progress updates and report themselves as not being muted.  Adjusting the volume doesn’t help, but pausing the speaker and unpausing it seemed like it did.  Because the speakers are moving through the track even though they aren’t producing any sound, you end up missing out on whatever they should’ve played, unless you start the track from the beginning again.  This is pretty bad IMO and should never have escaped B&O’s internal QA.
• Speakers suddenly forget they are part of an “experience”.  This caused me some serious head scratching and thought for sure I had a bug in my code.  I had music playing on my BeoSound Stage and then joined my BeoSound 2 to it, but for some reason only the BeoSound 2 was reporting itself as having an active source (the one playing from the BeoSound Stage), yet both were playing music, something I can easily verify with my own two ears.  This also confused B&O’s own app, which showed the BeoSound Stage as having “No source”.  Other folks may have seen this as well.

I’m going to file bugs with B&O because this really isn’t good enough, and I’m quite sure these bugs haven’t always been in the firmware of these speakers.

[andy_js]

That wouldn’t surprise me.  In my experience B&O products have a lot of software bugs that the app would need to work around if it wanted to provide a consistent user experience on top of them.  This could be a quirk of the ML/NL converter that older app versions had special handling for.  It’s also possible they broke something in a firmware update without realising it.  They don’t seem to test their software properly.

One of my other B&O related coding projects is a piece of software that simulates a BeoSound Moment.  It shows up in the B&O app and can be controlled by it, but it doesn’t actually play any music yet.  I hacked it up to better understand how beolink multiroom audio works, with the intention of writing a small app for Mac OS that would allow me to join my Mac to audio playing from a BeoSound in another room.  If I took that software and combined it with the ML Streamer Tinker Edition (see here https://hallaudio.com/en/produkter/the-ml-collection/ml-streamer-tinker-edition/) it could be used to build a totally open-source ML/NL converter replacement.  Support for Airplay, Tidal, etc, could all probably be added as well, providing a nice upgrade over the official ML/NL converter.

[andy_js]

To run beoutil from the current directory you will need to prefix the command with “./” so it ends up looking like “./beoutil”.  The dot here refers to the current directory.  To run beoutil from ~/go/bin (the tilde here refers to your home directory) you would type “~/go/bin/beoutil”.  I recommend the latter because it will work regardless of the current directory.  I don’t mind the questions so don’t sweat it.

[andy_js]

Go binaries are normally installed into ~/go/bin.  Try ~/go/bin/beoutil.

[andy_js]

As ridiculous as the need for it is, I’ve written a utility the you can use to clear the play queue on pre-Mozart products.  It’s available here:

Command line utility for controlling B&O products

[andy_js]

Part of the fixes I pushed involved correcting some mistakes in the README file.  You should have better luck if you try this:

go install github.com/andy-js/beoutil/beoutil@latest

Or

git clone https://github.com/andy-js/beoutil.git
cd beoutil/beoutil
go install

[andy_js]

No problem!  I’m glad someone else thinks this utility might be useful.  I’ve pushed some fixes that should resolve your problems.  Both installation methods should now work.

[andy_js]

I wonder if they are getting ready to release an update that allows these to be used in a surround sound setup wirelessly.  That might explain why the BeoConnect Core only has one powerlink port.

[andy_js]

I’m not fortunate enough to own a pair of Beolab 50 but I have seen a number of bugs in the non-Beta app recently, such as:

– After beginning playback on a speaker the volume bar is empty.  Changing the volume on the device itself causes the app to update.

– The playback controls for a device (usually my BeoSound stage) don’t work so I have to use the remote.

The app is certainly better than some of them, but it does not make me feel good as a customer to be finding issues that should have been caught by QA.

[andy_js]

I would like to see them produce a new turntable and think that one could be quite profitable for them if they did, but I expect they will release a 100” beovision (for €100,000) and slap themselves on the back for a job well done.

[andy_js]

I will also say that mine sounded much better after listening to them for a while so I believe there is a break in period regardless of what some people say.

[andy_js]

I find my H95 considerably more comfortable than my H9i which had the silly round ear cups which are only suitable for those with the tiniest of ears, but my trusty (and crusty) old pair of BOSE QC15 are the most comfortable i’ve ever worn.  With modern BT headphones that are quite heavy I don’t think it’s really possible to get the same level of comfort.

[andy_js]

I bought the BeoSound 1 when it was released without really getting much of a chance to listen to it.  It was the ideal form factor for my use and had Beolink multiroom support so I’d have bought it no matter what.  The first time I used it in my kitchen I was quite let down.  But I do recall several occasions where it sounded noticeably better and it was always after a software update.  The original sound was very muddy.  Now it has a decent amount of clarity.  It’s my most used speaker.

[andy_js]

That’s a shame.  I think the BS1 is the perfect kitchen speaker and was looking at buying 2 new ones.  The sound quality wasn’t the best but with its other features I thought it was still quite desirable.  Of course mine was only £930 new which made it quite a bit more palatable.

[andy_js]

My BeoSound 1, 2 and Stage all have trouble with my wireless network when mesh mode is turned on.  There is definitely an issue with B&O and some mesh networks.  Mesh mode completely breaks Beolink multiroom for me so I just keep it disabled despite losing some of the benefits it is supposed to provide.

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