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etype76,

Its kinda difficult to help if you dont give as much information as you can with these configuration issues. It looks like your BL3s are connected.

Do you have listening positions setup? Have you ever run room-sense with the BL3s connected? If the answer is yes, re-post with more info and screen shots.

If no, then on the picture above in your last post, press “reconfigure Power link setup” and connect 2 x BL3s. Then go to listening positions and create “new”, start from scratch and follow instructions on running room-sense.

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The Theatre will recognise the number of powerlink connections connected. In my example, I have 4 “+”. If only connecting a single pair of BL3 with a splitter, you will show only 1 “+”.

Press the +, add a speaker.
Press the new +! Add second speaker

then follow instructions to set channels (music plays in each speaker), the follow room sense

 

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I’m on beta but no bite yet despite taking software auto on/off and rebooting.

I think Simon has an early bird unit, mine was commissioned a week later. May be by serial number or registration date roll-out until there are enough units on a higher version to prove stability?

just guessing.

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Hi,

I’ve just done a similar installation with 2 pairs of BL3 as front/surround height speakers.

2x15m flat CAT7 LAN cable,

1x5m CAT7 cable,

a CAT7 female coupler,

2x Bang & Olufsen Powerlink RJ45 Splitter (3132047),

4x RJ45 to DIN MK2 powerlink cables (2m)

all work fine

i found buying cheap RJ45 splitters from Amazon did not work at all. Needs to be the B&O flavour at £25 a pop!

 

 

 

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I have posted much on my system and 3rd Party equipment into the BL90s.

The issue comes down to perceived value (price, quality, usefulness etc) and how you wish to connect it?

1. Whatever you buy, connect directly to the BL5. Im very cynical that “beovisions” and “wide-body” Beolabs go together well sound-wise.
2. Do you want to connect via Analogue (RCA) or Digital (CoAx). There are pros and cons to each.
3. What are you listening to? Ripped music on a NAS, Hi-Res Streaming or something else?
4. Try and trial equipment at home if you can. The control systems (more often not iOS controlled) vary.
5. The BL5 may need the volume cable connecting and possibly a dedicated Beo4 for volume??

Equipment (from my experience)

1. BS Core. Currently EoL,  full B&O integration but relatively poor in terms of streaming quality. Muffles the sound of the BLs like Beovisions
2. Auralic Altair G1. EoL but good bargains now. internal DAC and RCA Output, add a HDD, Killer app and takes Qobuz, amazon, Tidal (Spotify HiFi once released). I have a Altair connected to BL17’s. works fine.
3. Auralic Aries G1. Top quality. Digital Coax out, Wifi receiving Streamer. Otherwise as the Altair. Again, lots of bargains out there.

Highly recommend whatever you go for (Core/Auralic/Other), that you know the controls, operability’s and limitations. Almost anything at the cost of the BS Core or above…will blow the Core out of the water sound-wise with the “wide-body” Beolabs. Loss of integration is the price.

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geoffmartin wrote:

This is not really true – it’s kind of the opposite.

• Atmos is the method of packaging the audio channels and objects.
• TrueHD is an indication of the audio quality of those signals

This similar to saying “5.1-channel LPCM” or “2-channel MP3” where the first half tells you how many audio channels you have and the second half tells you the COmpression-DECompression (or CODEC) method that’s used to encode those audio channels. Cheers -g

Well I glad you have cleared that up Geoff. I was kinda struggling to read and interpret other articles in the interweb and tell my experiences to all the forum members on Beoworld. Apologies that I got a few things wrong but now that B&O have in a way and stepped-in and provided us Users with the information we should have had on day one of our purchases (bug-free), all will be well and good now with us now?

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So just to add to the last previous posts, I’m listening to a Film4 flick on TV and this is what the BeoApp is telling me:-

So, crappy stereo 2.0, PCM coming in and the Theatre/True Image is doing its best to distribute the sound across all speakers. I’m guessing it’s trying to emulate 5.1.2 but there’s not enough info for any spacial sound distribution. The sound is weak to say the best on the surrounds.

 

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This is reasonably close to my configuration.

https://www.dolby.com/about/support/guide/speaker-setup-guides/5.1.4-overhead-speaker-setup-guide/

The lower surrounds are tending more to the 100deg angle

The rear heights are above lower surrounds but 2.0m higher.

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Emilos88 wrote:

Mr 10 Procent, which of these are the one that looks like your setup Dolby Atmos Speaker Setup Guides – Dolby As it sounds for me that you use the BL 3 as Height speakers and not Overhead speakers. So you are creating some form of 7.2.0 and not 5.2.2

I have 3 pairs of BL3’s a pair of BL90s and the Theatre. The living room is quite small at approx 7m wide but only 4.5m deep. It has a high-vaulted ceiling apexing 6-7m high.

Initially (hence the diagram), I was looking to install 2 BS Shapes (2 Amps, 4 covered Speakers on the inclined ceiling. I also wanted to improve the sound in my “office” which had a pair of BL3’s.

I ended up buying another used pair of BL3 whites and a pair of BL17’s which ended up in the office. I purchased some stainless steel flat bar (16mm wide, 3 or 4mm thick) and drilled out holes so I could a) mount the speaker with a clear polyurethane sticky pad) to the bar at 35 degree down angle (BL3 bolt holes were ideal) and b) mount the bar (screw down) to a 75mm parapet wooden board between the wall and the inclined ceiling. On the right-side, there is a small mezzanine making it even easier. All cables hidden.

This option worked out half the cost of the BS Shape combination and significantly easier to work the cables and install.

I cant mount (nor do I want to) the front heights over the BL90s but in 5.2.2 it seems to work OK. Again, I qualify my system as a X.2.Y because of the BL90 Subs. I definitely dont need 3 x BL19’s to “have Atmos” and the bass. The walls bend enough as it is.

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I think it works like this

Product Settings >> Signal Info >>

Channel Allocation – if this is an Atmos – it will show as Atmos. May be Dolby Digital Plus (say Amazon or Netflix)

CODEC – Dolby TrueHD (Atmos is an extension to DTHD)

Output Channel Allocation – 5.0.2  (The number of speakers)

Output Channel Processing – TrueImage (think the is B&Os emulation driver to upmix and downmix automatically)

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BeoMedia,

I referred to a hard 5.1 as a non-Atmos surround file (I dont know the correct name but refer to it as immutable). At Atmos file is (I believe by specification) mutable (i.e. soft) that it can go from as many channels and objects it was recorded (say 11.4.6 with 50 tracked objects) and emulate down to the common base of available hardware. i.e. 5.1. It is still Atmos but is not as subtle or spacial as an 11.4.6 system (obviously). This is why I guess fixed array soundbars are sold as Atmos soundbars?

Speaker allocation can be edited as follows:-

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Im still waiting for a pair of RJ45 B&O splitters so I can move to 5.2.4 (on 5.2.2). Hopefully they will arrive today.

One interesting fact – and this goes back to some earlier discussions on Dolby Atmos and DTS-X.

Dolby Atmos has a set of designated height channels as standard. DTS-X does not.

However, the way the Theatre and Room-Sense works is initially, when setting up my 5.2.2, (please note, I designate my system as x.2.y because of the BL90 “subs”),  the system recognised it as 7.2.

Therefore, with the Theatre, you have to designate the two new channels as height channels – almost like it calibrates like DTS-X?

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I suppose (cannot see why) that a 5.1 file that is non-Atmos will distribute sound upwards to a higher sound distribution. i.e a hard 5.1 file can only be a 5.1 sound or less. A hard 5.1 cannot move up to 7.2.4 as it does not have the information.

With the Theatre, it may be possible (I have not tried) to play a hard 5.1 file and assign the surround sides and surround backs to the same channels. i.e. a 7.1 system but sides and backs are assigned the same channel (surround sides) to become 5.1 but 4 loudspeakers play the side/back combination. This would be messy sound and ask why would you?

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Contrary to some of my earlier inaccurate posts, full Atmos runs on 21-23 channels and can track 128 objects (I confused channels from objects).

Depending on the number of channels available either in the playback device or the viewing device (Screen and connected audio outputs), D-Atmos will down-mix and emulate a lower-order sound distribution. I guess technically, you can take a full Atmos soundtrack and output to a single centre mono-loudspeaker?

So I have just moved to setting up 2 pairs of BL3s for height on a 5.2.0 system with the theatre. As of now, I have 5.2.2 as I need a RJ45 splitter to complete the 5.2.4

By going from a 5.2.0 to 5.2.2, I notice the overall sound experience is now more subtle as the sound is shared over an extra 2 channels.

Take an aircraft (film like Midway for example). under 5.1, the propeller comes from the side surrounds to the front and centre. Under 7.1, the propeller comes from the backs, side surrounds to the front.

Adding in a pair of heights on 5.1 to 5.1.2, the sound comes from the side surrounds, then is split/expanded vertically between front, side and height giving true atmosphere, before collapsing to the ear-level fronts.

Going to 5.1.4, the sides become atmospheric, moving to the fronts and remain true 3D atmospheric.

That’s how I see, hear and understand the format.

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Update.

Just purchased another set of BL3 in white (3 pairs in total now) and a pair of BL17’s

TV/Theatre:  BL90 Fronts, 1 pair of BL3 surrounds, 2 pairs of BL3s for height surrounds for Atmos 5.2.4.

Office: Moved 1 pair of BL3s to the living room, and replaced them with a pair of BL17’s as my new office speakers. Don’t have to buy a BL11 now.

Wires everywhere!

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My guess is that B&Os room correction system is years ahead of Dirac – or any other comparable system:-

1. Mapping of known speaker sets and their individual performances

2. Decades of adaptive bass control

3. Directivity and sound steering

4. With the BL90, essentially noise-cancelling of opposing driver sets to narrow or widen the sound beam to minimise room reflections.

Although not an expert, I would put Dirac capabilities similar to that of the BL5 in obtaining average room correction. BL5 was singing its stuff in 2003!

 

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Hi.

Not many people here operating passives with the Theatre or Beovisions. Main traffic will be with installing Beolab Actives.

Try this:-

BeoApp >> Theatre >> … >> Product Settings >> Connected Speakers >> Third Party Speakers >> Designate which Powerlink port they are connected to

Obviously, I dont need to tell you that you will be connecting your third party speakers to an external amplifier as the Theatre is only a complicated Receiver with no dedicated amplification for external loudspeakers.

Once connected, I imagine you will have to run room-sense again to calibrate them for sound level, distance, bass control etc…

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Hi,

sorry to be a bearer of bad news, but one of the possibilities of this type of behaviour may be a problem with the EPROM/ chassis module.

Did the failure occur after playing very loud or bassy music? If so, the fault could be overheating, but then not resetting itself.

Have you also tried doing a room calibration? That may “wake” the unit up??

Best of luck

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