[Sandyb]

If you are thinking of the LG G series own wall mount, and therefore separated from the Theatre, then no there is no easy way to hide an ATV (low board / cabinet would be required).

I think if you have the Theatre wall mount and joining interface with the LG, then there is space behind to hide an ATV.

But thats a motorised wall mount, and together with the interface back plate, awfully expensive.    STB make a non motorised wall mount for the Theatre and LG – but (to me at least) it sticks out from the wall a hell of long way.

[Sandyb]

How do you think Bl3s as rear，enough for movie？

Depends on how much of a movie watcher you are, I’d say.

I changed my rear/surround BL3s, and replaced them with BL17s (something broke with the 3s).

I’m not that much if a movie watcher, but 3s into 17s can be quite a noticeable difference when it comes to surround effects with movies.

So for those frequent movie watchers, especially effects heavy ones, I’d say upgrading from 3s is something worth thinking about.

(personally, I think 17s are the optimal choice, with 8s being over specified for rear/surround duties).

[Sandyb]

I think the issue with the 28s (if one wants to call it an issue) is that the 28s bass can roll off at high-ish volumes.   For those situations, and for those Theatre+28s owners, who get to these higher volumes, perhaps a 19 sub helps out a bit.

But generally I agree – the Theatre is itself very capable bass wise, and its bass management spreads the bass load amongst all connected speakers. As such, it’s far from obvious that one “needs” a sub.  We’ve seen some protest that its a near necessity, but it seems much more of a preference than necessity.

And in your case, if BST + 18s + 3s is bass enough for you, then you’re not desperately missing out on something.   Not everyone wants to feel the room rumbling at times (I generally find it unpleasant).

[Sandyb]

I’d tend to agree with your response MM actually – whole home installations can sound simple but there are a lot of nuances often, and its hard to really help without knowing everything.

For example, for the main room scenario and stated priority of playing NAS music and BS9000 CDs on the BL5s, it doesn’t seem straightforward given the connection options / limitations of the BL5s.  As MM I think previously stated, the 5s dont have auto sense to power on, as the 50s/90s etc do.

Also given the 16tb i.e very large NAS library, one would need to think very carefully about which streaming front end / app / UI can handle well such a large library. On the one hand we know Roon can, on the other we know the B&O app would be completely wrong for such a large library. Outside of these two opposing cases, it’s easy to find positive reviews of lots of decent steamers, but how good are each at handling very large NAS libraries?

Anyway, only to underline that there are lots of nuances beyond cabling.  By and large MM is right, and I think I posted this earlier – the rooms (5s in one room, 9s in the other) can be treated separately and simply.  If you add the same streaming solution / box in each room, multi-room will be taken care of by the streaming app/architecture.   Complex inter-room networking doesn’t seem necessary.

All one needs to do is to find a way to make each separate room “work” in a way that the OP wants – or at least as best as possible.   A simple Sonos like experience (i.e open app, press play and do volume control) through older B&O speakers may actually not be possible though.

 

[Sandyb]

Sure, and Apple have doubtless had feedback about making Airplay 2 + Apple Music 16/44 capable (or higher).

But there’s a pretty obvious reason why they haven’t – they’re a mainstream company, and too few actually care enough, given modern music listening habits.

As for signal info, while it would be nice for the B&O app to show signal info when it comes to music, when it comes to your (what I interpret as your) case – using the Music app to airplay (2) stream your ripped CDs, then we already know the answer to be 256 (according to the article I posted, and others).

There’s a reason why some who have more particular needs – wanting to stream their own CDs rips, and / or have long wanted to stream CD or above from whichever service provider – tend not to use Apple Music.

[Sandyb]

https://darko.audio/2023/10/apple-airplay-isnt-always-lossless-sometimes-its-lossy/

Your answer is here.

 

[Sandyb]

Not sure whether you are using Apple’s Music app to  air play / stream out your ripped library or something else. But if its Apple’s Music app, as mentioned before, it will get downsampled from 16/44, as we know that in this stream case Airplay 2 (from the Music app) does not stream out at 16/44.

I think thats really all that matters, as it relates to your initial question (relating to your library of 16/44 CD rips).

[Sandyb]

Have you read the links that MM posted in his earlier response?

One of them had a pretty detailed analysis of scenarios and bit rates delivered/played, so a pretty exhaustive list of use cases.

That all said, I think it’s pretty well established now that from Apple Music, airplay 2’ing does not stream in 16/44 (whereas it seems some other music apps on OSX/iOS will).

 

[Sandyb]

Yes, your numbers are more or less correct.

UK launch price (28s with oak) was 10,750 – thats now 13,950.

Cost inflation on the one hand, B&O’s increasing focus on super high net worth individuals on the other hand.

Is what it is I guess.

Recent form would suggest further increases to come (my guess, no advanced knowledge on my part).

[Sandyb]

Once a date is confirmed, I’ll gather questions (for those who have them etc), either here or on Discord, or both, and try and ensure he gets a chance to look at them in advance.

[Sandyb]

Mr.Anderson has seemingly agreed to appear on the Sunday podcast, at some point in the hopefully near future.   I’ll post when something is confirmed, as people may have questions etc they want to submit, or just listen.

 

[Sandyb]

Yes, I would tend to agree, that a meaningful set of changes to the app should be mapped out and explained to users – what those changes are in their entirety and once completed, and some rationale for moving from one state of affairs to a new one.

That perhaps is all a bit ex-post though – after all these decisions are already made, and one must presume that the app team / company more broadly has broader insight into usage patterns / usage issues and preferences than we as a smaller select group do. Of course it would be nice to be in the loop earlier in the process, but being realistic its not something I’d expect.

Personally I dont use the app much beyond checking/changing settings, as all my music listening exists outside of any B&O UI.  Nevertheless, for those more embedded in the “app as experience”, I have sympathy, and perhaps a little more optimism that once these incremental updates are done, the app will land in a place where most of the control possibilities are back.

[Sandyb]

Stephen, I’ve sent you a message with an invite etc., and small explainer.

Let me know if you have any q’s.

 

[Sandyb]

You can enter a Feature request – in the App Feature Request thread – in Discord.

Mr.Anderson of the app dev team asked me to set up a section there (its under B&O Engagement), and there is a master list of outstanding feature requests there, for B&O to look at.

While i imagine you have provided your feedback through other means, I only mention it to you as the B&O guys have a specific place on the Discord server where they check in and look at a collated list of feature requests.

Anyway, just a passing thought.

[Sandyb]

no cables visible!

[Sandyb]

A fair few people have reported that B&O dealers are offering 15K trade in on BL5s for BL50s.

Obviously completely ignore this if you’d never consider this (Bl50s may not be your thing etc). But they are clearly the more modern high end BL, with lots of simultaneous connection options and will allow you to do what you want cleanly.

I have 50s – connected to both my TV with powerlink, and separately to my streamer / DAC.   So in the case of music, I just pick some music and the 50s just wake up / start playing.  You can set input priorities for the 50s in the app   But obviously, ignore if this is not appropriate.

** the other advantage is that, because of where the BL50s cabe connection panel is, you can have the cable outlet pop up essentially underneath the BL50. Thats what I did when my apartment was renovated – and both 50s appear to be cable free.

Anyway, apologies if this is unhelpful.

[Sandyb]

Re question 1 – if, as MM says (and I dont have 5s myself), you can only connect 1 device to BL5, you would need to connect the BS9000 to the BL5s in the normal way to get your CD playback, and then connect your streaming transport (Blusound, Wiim etc) to the BS9000.

Check with Steve what cable you need – but you’d need an idea of what streaming box you are going to use.  Some streaming boxes will output both digital from one output, but can also output analogue (if the streaming box has its own internal DAC), from a different output.  My guess is that it should be possible for the streaming box, when it wakes up to stream, will activate the BS9000 and BL5s – again check this with Steve I’d suggest.

Again, I wouldn’t lose sight of your main goal – there may well be all B&O solutions to both rooms, but you’d need to be confident / happy in using the B&O app to play your NAS music, though I’d be surprised given how rudimentary / skeletal the experience is.

As for room 2, I’ll leave others to opine on that.

Otherwise, when it comes to multi-room music, if you get the same streaming box for each room, that may well be sufficient, as (for example) the Blusound app will be able to multi-room including any room where it sees a Blusound box (similar to Sonos).

Anyway, I do think (of you havent decided already) you need to decide on what and how you want to control your NAS library (remember, the NAS library can sit hidden away, but you streaming box will see it, fold in its contents, and act as the “local to each room” conduit).

[Sandyb]

out of interest, what did you not like about the A5 sound?

[Sandyb]

With respect to tv/movie watching – let the mic calibration setup do its thing.

It will most likely allocate only one of the BST front facings as Centre channel, and that’ll most likely be ok.  The BST Technical Sound Guide mentions that those setup including large front l/r speakers attached (50s/90s etc) may want to activate all three BST front facings as centre channels, but otherwise I’d go with the mic calibration/setup suggested setup.

As for music listening, thats more a matter of preference I’d say.   Personally, I’d define a music listening position of BL8s+BL19 (i.e no Theatre) – that should be ideal for music.    You could, for some types of listening experience, leave the Theatre off, and just use the pair of BL8s (paired, in Beosound mode) and have a nice BL8s only time.

Of course, you can experiment with including the Theatre for music – but I’m not sure if thats really going to be worth the effort.

 

[Sandyb]

Carolpa wrote:

Sandyb wrote:

B&O, when it comes to control UIs, dont cater well for NAS stored music, so you’re right to look elsewhere for that part.

I can agree to some extend for the Moment. But on all other players (BS35, Essense, Shape, Harmony, Theatre, BL28, Balance) the control of NAS stored Music is heavily dependant of the DLNA server used and the ability to tweak the settings of this server.

Sure, there are dependencies in the chain.

But using the B&O app to browse a large library of NAS stored music is truly dreadful.   There are much better other options.

[Author]

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