@severed_hand The Marantz can’t multi-room with my Beosound in the adjoining bathroom. It also doesn’t work just like all the other beosounds with which my wife has finally become comfortable. I listened to TV through stereo speakers for many years. I don’t understand the pushback. I’m not doing critical listening. It’s mostly background noise, but with better bass, treble and midrange than the weak built in speakers. If stereo is so odd, why do most tvs have 2 speakers?
Another point is that you can not control the Marantz with a Beoremote One.
The reason why most tv’s have two speakers, is that it is the easiest (and cheapest) way to do sound.
For decades tv programmes were 2 channel aka stereo natively, so there was no real need for audio processing for more channels.
Since those two speakers are located in the tv/with the screen, what we call a phantom center is mostly also heard coming from there.
The further away from the screen/the picture the external speakers are, the more this shifting of the phantom center can be disturbing…..especially for those who sit off axis.
For many years all B&O tv’s have had an option for creating a center channel, if you had connected external L/R speakers there also.
In the 90’s, when I had a BV6000, there was an option for creating a socalled ‘center balance’. This was before they started processing the sound in a modern sense.
Later – when the first Avant (the CTR tv) came, there was a ‘surround decoder’ built in, which made the two builtin speakers a center channel, if you had external speakers connected.
For the BV7 there was even a dedicated center channel speaker option (the BL7-4/BL10) – these BV’s had a surround decoder.
The new Avant had a 3 channel speaker system built in and in addition a multichannel processor for more speakers.
So does the Eclipse and the Harmony – also the Stage and the Theatre do have multiple speakers built in….the center being relatively powerfull.
From this point of view just having a set of L/R speakers with a tv is a retreat from what B&O untill now has offered as their ‘normal’ way of listening to audio from video sources.
Nowadays a lot of video material is multichannel (5.1 and more), which means that this has to be downmixed for the Beoconnect Core, which potentially will make the dialog less audible.
Something that you would not experience with a genuine 3-channel speaker setup.
There you have a wider seperation of left/right and a much more defined center.
That two speakers isn’t sufficient is also the reason for the popularity of soundbars nowadays.
Of course you may have become used to/get used to two channel tv sound, but it is far from optimal in most cases.
And it should not be praised so in the PR announcements for the BeoConnect Core:
Quote: “Simply plug in your screen and marvel as your B&O speakers transform movie nights into cinematic experiences”.
But, of course they want to sell speakers!
If you primarily use the box for 2 channel audio/stereo music, the box is fine – however, so was the Core and the Essence box.
Whether this box is better, only a test/daily use will tell.
For Shape users the COM port seems to be an improvement – also the USB-out could be beneficial for BL90/50 users.
For users with primarily Mozart based products the new Core may be the better choice.
If sound is just ‘background noice’, all this does not matter, of course ?
MM
