Forum Replies Created
-
speedsixdave wrote:
(2) Madskp and Guy have suggested elsewhere that the 15v power supply is only vital if you have a MCL2AV which also has passive speaker outputs and you want to use it (effectively) as an MCL2A. I’m not sure if there’s any real bonus to doing this (rather than just an MCL2A) as I don’t think it gives you independent volume control. Most MCL2AVs don’t have the passive speaker ports anyway.
Just to clarify, the MCL2AV will need an external power supply for powering it in all uses cases whether it is acting as a MCL2A or a MCL2AV since the pink wire with power in the MCL cable is not connected internally. I am not sure about the reference about this, but it might be a misinterpretation of what was meant.Sorry, my fault for not being clear. Late night post as usual! Agreed, an MCL2AV needs external power to work. The official B&O power supply was 15V either from a plug-in transformer or from an MCL2P, but if you’re connecting Beolab active speakers or a Beolink Passive to the MCL2AV via powerlink, a more common 12V supply seems to work fine. As I understand it the 15V supply is needed to drive the internal relay if you’re connecting passive speakers direct to the MCL2AV and using it as an MCL2A. I thought it was @madskp or @guy that had demonstrated that but I’m not sure. The odd thing is a simple MCL2A works fine as a relay without an external power supply, using only the power carried by the pink wire (7.5V?) in your MCL cable.
Agreed also that to get independent volume control with passive speakers you need an MCL2P or Beolink Passive amplifier between the MCL2AV and the speakers. It’s less neat than active Beolabs but you can pick up a used Passive for about UKP30 so pretty cheap, especially if you already have those CX50s. Be aware you would also need a length of powerlink cable with the 8-pin DIN plugs on each end to go between the MCL2AV and the Passive / MCL2P, and I think it has to be ‘fully wired’ (Mk2).
For more cheap fun, from your terminal block you can run another length of MCL cable out to a Beolab 3500 Mk1 active link room speaker and you’ve got volume- and tone-controlled Beolab sound in another room. I bought a BL3500 for £2.30 off ebay once, and it’s working happily in our conservatory even as I write this. The BL3500 is the bargain of the century.
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
Guy wrote:
Yes to all the questions that you have asked in this paragraph. Be aware that the MCL2AV requires a 15v power supply so ideally look for that when you purchase. If you can find one, the predecessor to the Beolink Passive was known as an MCL2P, and had the advantage of a built in 15v power output designed to power the MCL2AV.
Actualle I have tested that a 12V power supply can also be used. However be avare that the polarity on the connector is reverse to what is common (+ is on the outside of the connector and minus is on the inside), so if you do no use an original power supply be sure to find one where the tips can switch position in order to change polarity.(1) Of course if you have a ‘normal’ 12v power supply it’s easy enough to cut the wire and switch round the +ve and -ve with a terminal strip, crimps, solder or whatever.
(2) Madskp and Guy have suggested elsewhere that the 15v power supply is only vital if you have a MCL2AV which also has passive speaker outputs and you want to use it (effectively) as an MCL2A. I’m not sure if there’s any real bonus to doing this (rather than just an MCL2A) as I don’t think it gives you independent volume control. Most MCL2AVs don’t have the passive speaker ports anyway.
(3) MCL2 is a pretty good system. In my experience (detailed here) it’s much easier to set up an MCL2 system that works as you’d like than with Masterlink (ML), especially with older kit like yours. In theory the sound quality is better with ML but you’d need good ears to tell. ML has the additional advantages of volume control on the IR-eye transceivers and the option for standard CAT6/7 cabling and RJ45 plugs though.
(4) MCL cable is hard to come by nowadays but there are fairly straightforward options if you’re happy for something a bit less neat than real 7-core MCL cable. The 7 conductors are left speaker + and -, right speaker + and -, low-voltage trigger power, data signal, and a shield around that data signal. The trickier bit is the shielded data cable but something like this should work fine for pence per metre. The other five conductors you can fudge from real speaker cable, or 240v power cable (with and without earth), or a fairly neat and cheap option is five-core cable like this, about a pound a metre. The colours are all wrong of course but that’s easy to figure out. This is what I’ve been using with the shielded data cable wound around the outside. It all functions fine and the 0.75mm2 cable carrying the amplified audio signal is pretty similar to the original MCL cable.
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
Interesting progress!
I was very fortunate to be able to take advantage of a local advert for a Beosound 3000 and pair of BL6000s for… £100. Nice. Once I’d made sure it all worked ok, I tried the Masterlink port:
BS3000 > ML > BL2000
And it worked as I thought ML ought to work! If the BS3000 is on, turning on the BL2000 starts the sound and short press on . turning it off again stops the sound without shutting down the whole system. No Videomaster attached. So I tried:
BS3000 > ML (RJ45) distributor &> BL2000 &> BL Active
And again everything seemed to work as I’d hoped. Short press on . turns either on or off without affecting the others. Long press on any of the three turns everything off. If all three are on, and I short press . on the BS3000, only the BS3000 goes quiet but a CD continues playing through the BL2000 and Active. Incredible! And all without a Videomaster.
So I conclude for now that it’s the presence of the BLC1611 that causes the ‘everything turns off’ problem.
The BS3000 is a lovely thing but the lack of an (ideally datalinked) phono port and only one Aux port brings it’s own problems for my setup. Not quite perfection yet!
Incidentally I’m surprisingly impressed with the sound from the BL6000s. I had expected them to sound a bit thin and reedy but certainly with loudness turned on they’re quite punchy.
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
Evening all,
A couple of bits of unsuccessful experimentation to report. I wondered if my problems (short press on the IR eye or remote turns the whole system off when Masterlinked) might stem from a faulty 1611, so I bought another from Quality Dream Audio and tried that. No change, same issue.
I then tried both 1611s in one system. I built a 3.5mm-DIN cable as per Matador/Guy/Madskp’s instructions using only the ‘video’ input pins and tested that it worked by connecting to a standalone BL2000, which allowed me to activate a Bluetooth streamer using the V.x commands, and presumably therefore configured the 1611 as a videomaster. However adding this to a fuller Masterlink setup (hopefully with one 1611 as audiomaster and one 1611 as videomaster) resulted only in the same behaviour as above. This confirms what Madskp thought a couple of months ago.
Still looking for a very cheap Beovision 6-22 or similar to try that. The good thing is our building work is still about as far away as it was in March so time yet to make a decision over ML/MCL/Wiim or whatever.
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
A sort of resolution or at least an update to this! Carl, one of our other members, had a similar problem with his Beolab 5000s and narrowed it down to one of the display panels, detailed here:
This made me wonder if that was my problem too, so I bought a PL3 cable from Steve without the data wire, and the short answer is that this seems to have resolved the problem! The displays do not work but the speakers seem to work fine without switching on and off. And I have a better idea where to direct someone to try and fix them when the time comes. One thumb up at least!
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
A degree of confirmation on this. I purchased a short powerlink Mk3 cable from Steve and so far my Beolab 3000s seem to be working fine. I’m going:
BM6500 > MCL cable > MCL2AV > PL2>PL3 > BL3000 > PL2 > BL3000
The short PL3 cable is enough to break the link to the display so although the displays do not function, everything else seems to. Partial huzzah! Thanks Carl for pointing me in this direction, and I hope you have luck with yours.
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
Apologies, lausvi, I’m not quite ready yet to take my amps apart. I presume you mean the circuit board not the display itself?
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
Hi Carl,
I’m probably not going to help you but you may have helped me!
I have had a similar problem with my Beolab 3000s, detailed here:
Without any solution really. However your post has encouraged me to try something new, which is connecting via a not-fully-wired Mk3(?) powerlink cable. In fact BM6500 > PL3 > BL4000 > PL2 > BL3000, as the only PL3 cable I have is fairly permanently routed. Anyway, todays experiments are:
BM6500 > PL2 > BL3000: rapid switching on and off started after about 30 minutes, and whether the display is turned on or off (Audio/Video/Standby switch)
BM6500 > PL3 > BL4000 > PL2 > BL3000: currently been on for about four hours without switching off, which is the longest I’ve managed in a long time. No signal going to the displays obviously with the PL3 cable.
So I think my BL3000 problems might be the same as yours, i.e. related to the display. My displays work fine until the switching starts, but then turn off until I give them a new input, e.g. change the volume. Do yours do the same?
I’ll do some more experiments nest weekend, including trying the other BL3000. I could live without the displays if the speakers work with powerlink, but I’d rather have the displays too!
Dave
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
Given that one of the latest ‘Reloved’ products is a Beogram 2000 for £2000, I’d say B&O still have a fairly healthy VHNW strategy.
Is that the one Steve bought off eBay for £45?
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
just ask what you want to achieve, there is almost always somebody over here with the right advice
That’s why we come here 😁
What I’m after should be pretty straightforward. At its simplest we have three rooms – lounge, dining room, kitchen. The sources (Beosystem 6500 at the moment) are in the lounge, as is the non-B&O TV. We listen to vinyl records, CDs and FM radio (and TV in the lounge only) via the Beosystem, and I also have a Majority Fitzwilliam streamer into the Tape2 port for DAB, Spotify Connect, Bluetooth and Internet Radio.
In the dining room and kitchen (and possibly other rooms too) we would like to be able to listen to (and control) the main audio sources from the Beosystem without echo, and be able to press a single button to ‘Join’ and the same button to ‘Leave’ as we see fit. Volume control without finding a remote is a bonus too.
Masterlink seems like an ideal way to achieve this – IR eye with volume control, almost instant joining, no delay or echo, CAT7 RJ45 infrastructure. No messing about with networks or wireless dropping out, everything reliably hard-wired, and no having to use a phone to control anything. And pretty cheap now. Better than Master Control Link as the wiring is easier to install and more versatile, and the IR eyes have direct volume control. But I as discussed above I can’t get Masterlink to work without putting the whole system into standby when ‘Leaving’ the last link room. This is slightly annoying with e.g. FM radio or the streamer, as it’s quick to turn back on again, but really annoying with vinyl, as the record stops completely and has to be restarted again from the beginning.
I have no interest in distributing sound or pictures from a TV.
Should be straightforward!?!
Dave
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
Not sure if it has an effecgt, but have you tried to power up the NL/ML Converter before the other parts in the system?
I do not have acces to my NL/ML converter at the moment, so it will be some time before I can share how my settings for it are
I’ll have another crack at this at the weekend. Am more prepared to invest time into the Converter now after carolpa’s revelations.
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
the BLC (NL/ML converter s not “crippled”!
the first BLC sold had these ports covered with a plastic strip. It, the strips, can easily be removed.
then the PL, Line in and IR connections are available and working. See a picture of a later version to determine which port is which.Amazing! You’re quite right. Thanks @carolpa! I’ve peeled off the white plastic strips and there they are – two more RJ45 ports and two Kinch/phono sockets. That’s a world of future fun if I can ever get it configured properly!
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
Well my eBay ML/NL converter 1790 arrived on Friday, and a bit of time this weekend to do some testing.
Firstly caveat emptor, my ML/NL convertor – apparently Hardware Type F according to the web configuration – is a bit crippled as it does not have ports for Powerlink, for Line In, or for an IR sensor. When I looked again at the eBay photos that’s clear, but I had not thought such things existed so failed to look closely. I did look at the software version etc, which seems to be up to date – 1.43 or something. Not a problem for this particular problem, but it does mean I’m not going to be using it for any other exciting purposes.
After a lot of messing about with routers and IP addresses etc, I eventually got the thing connected to a web browser and was able to check it was set as V. Master. Then connected it to my Masterlink setup, turned everything on in hopefully the right order and… no change. Play button on a ML-connected link device still turns everything off. I have not done extensive testing with lots of different IR eyes and devices but have tried various sorts of turning things on and off again.
I’m still baffled and a bit disheartened at this stage. Mostly I think I’d be better off going back in time to the reliable MCL system and wiring the house and new extension for that, but it does seem a bit strange to hard-wire a new build with fairly obsolete tech. One of the attractions of ML is wiring with standard Cat 7 infrastructure which could be used for ML, PL, NL or even The Internet. Or I could go the other way to the modern world of NL and Mozart but that brings all its own issues of network configurations, audio delay, potentially vast expense and, god forbid, controlling things via a phone app. In so many ways Masterlink feels like the sweet spot but if I can’t turn a link room off without the whole system going into standby, it’s all a bit pointless.
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
If you are going to use an IR eye for it be aware that you will need the newer type with a join button to be able to use the buttons on the IR eye. If you however only need the IR functionality you can wire up the one of the older ML or MCL IR eyes but only connection to ground, +5V and data.
That’s really useful to know, thanks. By chance I have an IR eye for a Beosystem 3 which has more connections inside than the standard round eye. Do you know if that would work with the NL/ML Converter? It’s just sitting in my spares box otherwise.
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
Well I missed out on the Beosystem 3 but have successfully outbid everyone else in the entire world on a NL/ML Converter which will hopefully arrive for the weekend. The madness continues!
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
A little more testing today. Tried again with the NL/ML converter and some other cables, and this time it worked as expected so that is a possible solution for this issue.
That’s interesting @Madskp. With the NL/ML converter configured as videomaster?
I was bidding on ebay for a cheap Beosystem 3 to try that too, but outbid. Hey ho. Not sure what I can try next.
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
Well that is interesting, @Madskp, and I’m sorry I doubted you, @carolpa! It does seem a slightly peculiar state of affairs. Am I going to have to buy an old B&O tv and hide it in a cupboard somewhere to get a Masterlink audio setup to work properly?
Now I’m wondering whether it has to be a genuine video source or whether it’s possible to fool the system with an additional source into the 1611 as in Matador’s illustration?
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
At the moment I have no genuine junction boxes in ML cables, so there’s no shorting between pin 3 (wh/bl, ‘ML sensor’) and pin 12 (pink, ‘+supply voltage’), as recommended on pages 34 & 35 of this Masterlink handbook. I should be able to do this fairly easily at my distributor but not for a couple of days. Do you have the short circuit in your setups, @madskp? No idea if this is actually relevant or not.
Wrong again, disappointingly. I set out to connect the white/blue and pink on my distribution board but found they were already connected, which of course they have to be in a ML-plug to RJ45-plug cable. So that’s not the answer to the conundrum. FWIW I tried disconnecting the pink cable entirely, but then nothing worked.
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
@TK – thanks for all that helpful and interesting information. If I can attempt to boil that down to my own level of understanding. everything is ‘Language A/MCL’ from the invention of the Beolink 1000 and MCL2, up to the invention of Masterlink, which is then a new ‘Language B/ML’, and the IR-eyes are not doing any translating, just passing ‘Language A/MCL’ messages. Newer ML equipment is presumably translating the Language A signals to Language B and in the case of the BL1611, back again:
Beolink 1000 > Language A/MCL > Beolink Passive > Language B/ML > Beolink Converter > Language A/MCL > Beomaster 6500
Possibly I’m wrong and there is no independent Language B, it’s just Language A with a bigger potential set of commands.
Anyway what I still think may be happening is that the short Standby command is being mis-translated or miscommunicated into Language B/ML. I presume this is happening in the Beolink Passive (or Active) but whatever circuitry is doing that mistranslation is bypassed if the Passive is used as an ML/MCL converter. This is definitely making my brain hurt a bit!
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
The T1611 was designed to connect a non ML Audio to a ML Video – or – to connect a ML Audio to a non ML Video.
In the proposed settting the Video ML/ Video non ML is missing. Maybe this is the cause of the behaviour.
Note: I have a Beosystem 7000 – T1611 – BLC connected in my Netlink. I have to set the BLC up as VMaster to work correctly if I’m right (note: I have to check this though! Currently the Beosystem 7000/BLC is out of order, starting early next week it is up and running again).Is that right? The 1997 Masterlink manual has this:
BeoLink Converter is used when audio and video products with Master Link and Audio Aux Link (datalink) have to be interconnected. BeoLink Converter can be used in conjunction with both a video and an audio master. BeoLink Converter features autoconfiguration, meaning that it is able to detect automatically whether it is installed in a Master Link audio or in a Master Link video system. Configuration takes place when it is connected to the mains. BeoLink Converter can also be used as ML-driver*, which means that it is possible to connect e.g. a BeoCenter 2300 via the BeoLink Converter to the Master Link and thereby distribute sound to all link room products (see page 17). BeoLink Converter is used in compatibility setups (see the section on recommended compatibility setups, page 17). 1161166
Which I would interpret as ‘can be used in an audio-only setup’. Frankly I can’t understand why anyone would want to connect their telly to a multiroom setup, but that’s me being out of step I guess!
Location: UK
Favourite Product: Beolab 3000
My B&O Icons:
