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I was one of the first people to get it in Canada at oct 30th.  I have plenty of B&O speakers but none of the music centres. I was REALY worried that with B&O’s really bad software track record (Halo, moment, etc) it would be a bleeding edge disaster at launch. I was coming from a Marantz and Harmony setup which worked rather smoothy and 99% reliably with minimum interaction.  Since I was selling all my old equipment when the theatre arrived I thought things might be bad enough that I would be left with a buggy mess of a setup.

However I was very pleasantly surprised from the first setup.  Basically besides some hidden settings everything was smooth.  The only hardware bug I had was it wouldn’t see my 3rd party sub, lucky turns out I didn’t need a sub.

Im really impressed with the auto detection on the Theatre. It senses the input and material (movie vs game) and automatically applies the correct sound presets.

The audio up-conversion is also much better than I expected and better than my Marantz.

Right now my only pain points are some software bugs and interface problems.  My theatre seems to crash every couple days needing a power cycle. The software is still messier than it should be.

My ONLY real disappointment with it is the music performance.  Movies sound really full and amazing with great clean bass.  But when I listen to any music no matter the source it sounds really bla and flat. Only if I crank the bass equalizer to +8 does it sound good but that setting is much too high for movies. Im hoping this is a bug but im not optimistic.

Overall I highly recommend the theatre even in its current state.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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For me the words that comes to mind when I use my Halo for the last 3 months is: SAD MISSED POTENTIAL.

Hardware:

1. The battery life is horrible at 1-3 days. They could have easily fit a bigger battery or create more intelligent power management abilities.
2. The screen should be OLED especially for the price. If it was OLED you wouldn’t know where the screen ended and bezel began, and save battery. It should also be in colour to show your music artwork.
3. The off centre logo in the motion sensor looks sloppy

Software:

1. It’s dumb as dirt. It’s basically a glorified remote for music.  That is unless you get the Beoliving intelligence which costs more than the Halo.
2. Why can’t think do everything my iOS device in terms of just the B&O app and maybe some home automation?  Is it because the CPU and OS on the halo is super basic and it can’t do as much as an album cover? Is that why you need the intelligence just to turn the light off?
3. The software isn’t intuitive. Lots of totally hidden gestures like swipe from top/bottom and they aren’t even consistent. No why for casual user to figure that out.

Long story short if the halo came with OR just had the intelligence built in for the same price it would actually be a pretty good product. Not for non-advanced users but for the price it is now (same as iPad Pro which kills it in every way other than a volume wheel) I would be happy.

For now it’s super over priced and extremely limited. Worst part is when B&O released it they mentioned they wanted it to be the hub of your smart home and software updates were coming. It’s been 2 years and still waiting. Don’t think its coming either again without the expensive intelligence.

Sad 🙁

Location: Toronto, Canada

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I think that would be the opposite of what the user experience of the halo is intended to be.  If you have a clock taking over the screen when you approach then you would have to have a user interaction to dismiss the clock. Even if that is a tap or a swipe it’s the same as having a dedicated iPad or phone at that point.  The great thing about the halo is the motion detector so it essentially saves you the step of a unlock or activation.

This is one of the only 2 advantages the halo has over the alternatives.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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My dealer confirmed there is a MKII last October with minor changes but he didn’t know exactly when it was coming out.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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Weird I’m not seeing the update in TestFlight or the public app.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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You have to use SHIELDED cables or it will get lots of interference.

Honestly I wouldn’t put yourself through the trouble. I got dirt cheap Shielded cat 7 cables on amazon and they work perfectly.

https://www.amazon.ca/

Location: Toronto, Canada

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OUCH

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation

Location: Toronto, Canada

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beopaul wrote:

So the linked article seems to say Beoremote One will directly work with Matter devices, but I’m wondering if it would it need a gateway, (BLI, etc).

I seriously don’t think it will act as a hub. That would be very odd mostly because it needs a wifi connection and AC power to do so reliably.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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Hutsefruts wrote:

Hi As a fresh new owner using it a couple a days now i see the Beosound Theatre does evidently not handle DTS audio streams? Is that correct? No sound from several movie files I’m runing of which I expect they only have DTS audio inside as audio stream. Any chance if so that DTS audio capability (codec) becomes available later on? (license cost of it should be peanuts i guess). Furthermore, very satisfied and curious about further developments as this product matures in the near future

Correct is does not and I wouldn’t hold my breath on it. Not sure they can even add the feature without billing us customers after the fact?

Location: Toronto, Canada

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Anyone else having their Theatre hard crash every couple weeks? I get a flashing white light on the front with nothing working and the only solution is to unplug it to reboot.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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I read this and it’s worrying for my setup.  I wonder if the 19 would be basically dormant.

There are cases where bass will be re-directed to a full-range loudspeaker instead of to a subwoofer in your system. This is because some full-range Bang & Olufsen loudspeakers have a greater capability to play low-frequency materials than most subwoofers. For example, if you have a system that includes two BeoLab 20’s and a BeoLab 19 subwoofer, all bass (whether from the main input channels or the LFE input) will be directed to the BeoLab 20’s. In other words, the BeoLab 19 will receive no signals. This is because a single BeoLab 20 is capable of playing louder than a BeoLab 19 in most low-frequency bands. Consequently, routing low frequencies to your BeoLab 19 will be equivalent to downgrading your loudspeaker system. If you wish to do so, this can be overridden using the advanced settings of the Bass Management and Bass Re-direction.

I heard the theatre has a bug with the 19 right now anyway where it doesn’t know it’s a sub and sends all signals to it.  Anyone have a 19 and theatre?

Location: Toronto, Canada

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beojeff wrote:Indeed. I watched “Yellowstone” and kept toggling between having just the center front-firing speaker and also having all three front-firing speakers as the center role. I found that using all three speakers of the Theatre for the center role was too much and really reduced the immersive surround sound. I think that just using the single speaker for center channel might be better.

I also tried this out last night and I would agree.  When I used all 3 channels as “Front” the image sounded too wide like the dialogue was coming out in stereo from the edges of the TV and not coming from the image on the screen.  All 3 speakers made things louder at the same volume but that’s not a good reason to use it alone.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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beojeff wrote:

Also, note that we can now assign the “Center” role to the Theatre’s Front and Left Front-Firing speakers. I’m interested to compare the difference with these added speakers.

Wait, how you do this? I have the beta app and the latest firmware and it still won’t let me do that.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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Millemissen wrote:

Maybe this helps (go to 9.00 ->)

https://youtu.be/tlSHz_AysTQ

MM

Sadly that’s not it. Thats for Home Screen ads. The annoying ones are the “notifications”. I can go and view and delete them all but new ones keep popping up on boot.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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oh boy I want to avoid doing that as its a mess and I want the TV to get software updates.

Something else I don’t know if it is a bug or not… I have the theatre connected to the LG by the special ethernet TV port.  The B&O app on the TV says it’s connected fine and using any internet services on the TV also works fine.  The weird thing is in network setting on the LG it says ethernet is disconnected (and wifi is set to off). Anyone else have this?

 

Location: Toronto, Canada

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ok im THRILLED someone posted the tip on how to get rid of the LG logo on shutdown for the G2.

Can anyone figure out how to get rid of the notifications the TV gives you about sports and app updates? I get 4 popup notices every time the TV turns on and its annoying.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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I also got the update. I haven’t noticed anything different. What has been solved for you?

Location: Toronto, Canada

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Ive always heard the the MK1 are light on the bass and don’t sound the best so I don’t think its just you.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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My god I would be all over this if it was real.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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Apparently there is a bug with the theatre and the 19 right now where it doesn’t know it’s a sub and sends all the audio to it.  So be sure that bug is fixed before you test it out.

Location: Toronto, Canada

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