[Stan]

I also just tested Mozart (Balance) vs ASE (BS2 gen1) and at first I thought I had something. With the BS2, the icon did not show in the play screen (the thumbnail showed in the browse screen), but I switched to another device and then back and then it showed.  Also, when it did not show, it did show a box with a question mark (?).  You don’t even get that. It’s like it’s not even trying.

[Stan]

I have now tested with an older Samsung Note2o running Android 12 and the latest B&O app, and it works fine (sorry).

 

[Stan]

Yes, all the logos show.

I will try with an older phone tomorrow.

[Stan]

I have version 7.5.1.260424517 on Android 16, and it works fine.

[Stan]

I don’t have an A9 so I  can’t really help directly. However, over the years, I’ve seen oddities like this.  Might reappear in a few days, weeks or months.

[Stan]

Probably my final entry in this thread.  By working backwards and undoing the changes that I recently implemented in my setup, I found that the problem is when I have a wired back haul between the nodes.  I switched the back haul back to wifi, and bob’s your uncle, it all works. Hat tip to the site Dong Knows Tech for mentioning problems with wired back haul in his review.

Now, I wait and watch, and see how reliable my configuration is with all the B&O on 2.4GHz (except the Eclipse). Otherwise, I’m heading to Unifi.

[Stan]

I will keep talking to myself here on the odd chance that someone runs into this in the future. I connected my laptop to the satellite node, and, sure enough, it cannot reach the blc… but it can partially reach the Balance. With the blc, the connection to the management interface just times out. With the balance, I get an empty admin page so there’s a little bit of a response.  Must be a slightly different connection protocol between the blc and the balance.  In any event, it’s clear the router is messing things up. Time to dig into the Asus forums. I have Asus XT9 routers. Maybe there’s some permissions I need to enable somewhere.

[Stan]

I may have figured it out. I have a 2 node wifi mesh, and only the devices connected to the satellite node cannot see the blc (which is hard wired to main node. This wasn’t the case until I recently put all of my B&O devices on a 2.4 Ghz network in an attempt to resolve intermittent network problems.

Looks like my router isnt routing correctly. However, the odd thing is that these devices can see my Balance which is hard wired to the same router as the blc. Why would they see the balance, but not the blc?

[Stan]

@dueno. I saw someone post this a while back, and I was skeptical so I looked it up and found something. Now, I look and all I find is Beosonic… which is something. It also does the equalization for the Shape. I will have to find that older post. Maybe it can lead me back to what I found before.

[Stan]

To be fair to the Beoconnect Core, it does include some more advanced signal processing for certain B&O speakers. They’ve hidden this information because that’s what B&O does, but it’s not quite a WiiM equivalent. Is it worth the 3-4x price, that’s up to you (it wasn’t to my son) .

[Stan]

I am having this same problem.  My “play” key falls off.  Has anyone tried gluing a key back on?

I’m thinking of some carefully applied superglue. It looks like the internal mechanical button has a plastic “shroud” that has some glue residue so maybe it is just that simple?

Stan

[Stan]

Completely agree about the “New” prices.  It’s especially galling when it’s exactly the same product for 40-50% more. Pure money grab.

I also agree about a reasonably attainable ( $1 – 2K ) turntable.  See the following youngster story:

I gave my BL8000s to my son, and a BeoConnect Core perfectly fit his requirements (TV, streaming, turntable) for a source. Unfortunately, I couldn’t recommend it. ~$1000 more than a WiiM Ultra (and another $450 for a remote), and it’s not even good looking!!! Granted, the WiiM has no NL, but if he starts making B&O-level money and wants multi-room, he can easily replace the WiiM since it’s wasn’t that expensive. He has a inexpensive Sony turntable, but I could see selling him on a reasonably priced B&O turntable. It will look nice, last forever and the technology is mature so spending a couple $K isn’t a terrible investment.

[Stan]

I’ve said this for the last couple CEOs. Good luck! B&O is in a very difficult situation, and I don’t know what I would do if I were in charge.

Challenges that I see:

• What can be done to create a desirable streaming device?  There’s just not much to work with. I thought the Moment was a decent concept, very poorly executed. But the bigger question is how to break through to the 95% of the market probably thinks “Why not just use my phone or iPad”?
• The kids are not as excited by stuff. They prefer their experiences. Also, since housing prices have gone up possibly more than B&O prices, many want to make moving as easy as possible. Big beautiful speakers don’t fit that model.
• Support. At these current prices, it better be top notch. Judging from Facebook and Reddit, it’s not. Yes, people like to complain, and many have unreasonable expectations, but still. Personally, I’ve had very good support lately, but it seems like I’m an exception.
• Economic headwinds, tariffs, wars…

I don’t have a plan, and I’m glad I’m not expected to :).  I just hope B&O survives because every time I get fed up and decide I’m not going to spend any more money with B&O, I can’t find a replacement.

[Stan]

https://investor.bang-olufsen.com/news-releases/news-release-details/kristian-tear-steps-down-ceo-bang-olufsen-cfo-nikolaj-wendelboe

I haven’t been following B&O that closely since they went down their “very high worth” customer path so I don’t have an opinion whether this is good or bad news… unless he’s the guy responsible for the VHW direction… I mean, I bought some Balances in 2022 and now they are 40% more expensive for essentially the same product… so I guess if he’s the guy who came up with this plan, then good riddance.  I just hope they survive.

[Stan]

It doesn’t surprise me.  The BL18s have been around for quite some time.  All that fancy aluminum probably made them too expensive to produce in today’s world. I guess us “poors” can always go for the BL8s. 🙂

I just saw a press release that they fired their CEO so who knows what is next.

[Stan]

AFAIK, there is a hpf in the output chain. Its cutoff depends on the setting of the 2nd switch (the 1st switch is for corner, wall, free placement and doesn’t impact the PL output, only the BL2 sound). This 2nd switch does impact the PL output on the BL2. I and many others have heard this with our ears (or perhaps we’ve all been tricked by the placebo) – read the old forum posts around the time the BL2 came out.

For music, it’s generally recommended to connect the BS2 to the source, and then the speakers to the BS2, and set this switch according to the speaker type to get the appropriate cutoff for the speaker. I believe the speaker assignments for each switch position are in the manual (but, of course, speakers created after the BL2 will not be there). I believe the switch position 1 is for the BS1, and 2 is for the BL8000s and a bunch of others (these are the two speaker types I’ve had connected to my BL2)… don’t recall which speakers are recommended for 3. There are only 3 settings.

In typical B&O fashion, the technical details are not published (perhaps in a service manual?).

For Home Theater, you generally do not connect your speakers to the BS2 so the audio engine can control each type of speaker individually.

[Stan]

Thank you, and Merry Christmas 🤶 🎄season to all.

If an early Happy New Year is not bad luck in your country, that too!  I have never heard of this in the US, but I also don’t set my watch to local time until my plane lands so I appreciate the underlying concept.

[Stan]

I took the Bl1 + bl2 route. I am very happy with them. They are a definite improvement. My wife thinks they look much better, too.  Beware, they are a very large, heavy speaker.

I looked at the 9s when I did this upgrade (maybe 10 yrs ago), but they were much more expensive and didn’t really fit the room. They probably sound the best by a small degree.

I have no experience with the 18s, but they could be the best option from a longevity perspective since they are the newest design.

 

[Stan]

Over the years, I’ve caught my BR1 upgrading a few times.  That’s sort of what I was thinking this could be… I happened to pick it up mid-upgrade so it aborted, and I was just getting very unlucky with the timing.  I haven’t seen this happen for a couple days so maybe it has resolved itself (fingers crossed).

Finally, even though I live in one of the larger metro areas of the US (Chicago) my closest dealer is > 700 miles away so dealer involved solutions are generally a no go 🙁

[Stan]

It turns out if I first go into “troubleshooting” and select the software re-start – a little easier than unplugging –  it will now upgrade successfully.  As timing goes, I have 2 Essences and a BS2 that upgraded in October, but didn’t get the upgrade indication on the Eclipse, M3 and BS1 until recently.  Might be a US, thing.

All works great now.

Thanks for the comments.

 

[Author]

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