[Stan]

I have a gen1, but it is currently being used.  I have a gen2 that is available.   I don’t really want to buy a 2nd hand gen1 because of age/battery life.  However, it is good to know that analog input to the gen2 is not an option.

[Stan]

Thanks for the answer.  Not the one I was looking for but confirmed I’m not overlooking anything.  I was hoping to avoid Bluetooth because it can be flakey, but it looks like the way forward… at least until she decides to upgrade to something better.

[Stan]

The mk11 actually includes mk11 in the product name on the product information sticker. An essence mk1 just says “essence”.  An essence mk11 says “essence mk11”.  There should be no confusion so long as you can see the sticker with the product name, model, serial number on the bottom of the unit.

[Stan]

Thanks for the clarification and warning.  I guess I didn’t read the listing close enough. Given the price, I thought it might be used but missed it anyway.

[Stan]

It says there are 2 black balances for ~1600.  Get ’em before they are gone.

[Stan]

I’d be interested to know who looked at it in Chicago. I’m in the area and my BS9000 is broken. I’d prefer not to ship it to get fixed.

[Stan]

I don’t have a Core, but on my Essence, when I check the local sources, they immediately show up in my sources pick list

The fact that you’re not seeing B&O Radio, maybe you need to upgrade your app?  Also, go into the TuneIn/B&O Radio tab on the app (the little transmit icon in the lower right corner of the app), and click on the B&O Radio tab, this might prompt for a TuneIn -> B&O Radio upgrade.

[Stan]

matteventu wrote:

Yes, it’s been officially discontinued a few months ago.

Replacements are the Level and the new A5 – both sound much better than Beosound 1 to be fair, even though in terms of design they’re far less iconic.

I have to disagree on this point. I tried a BS1 head to head with the Level, and the Level was not that much better to my ears. I know initially, the BS1 was pretty weak, but I believe it got much better sounding as it matured (and B&O upgraded the software). In my testing, yes, the Level sounded better when you were in its not very large “sweet spot”, but otherwise was comparable to the BS1. At least in my kitchen with my ears.  I’ve had one for about 2 years, and I agree it works great in the kitchen.

[Stan]

Some people prefer warm and fuzzy.  Nothing wrong with that.  The BL3s are not as warm as the BL4000s.  Sometimes it takes a little while for our ears to adjust.

Sometimes the additional resolution provided by newer/better speakers expose the weakness of the content or upstream hardware. Again, sometimes, it just sounds different (not necessarily better or worse).

I never had a problem with Spotify sound quality until I got a pair of Balances.  Chromecast audio connected to BS9000 + BL1s sounded fine to my ears.  Spotify streaming directly to Balances seemed to be missing something so I stream with Deezer mostly, but also listen to my digitized CDs more often.

All you can do is experiment because you are the only one the hears like you do.  You don’t mention what you are currently using for streaming, but IIRC, the Airport Express is supposed to be provide reasonably good audio quality.

I don’t think there is a one size fits all solution.  First, I might try a different audio source – maybe give Deezer a try, or better yet, if you can somehow stream digitized CDs via DLNA (for example), you’d be working from a known source quality.  See if it sounds better.  Try a new DAC (make sure you can return it if it doesn’t help).

If nothing helps, maybe buy a pair of BL4000s.  They are pretty cheap now days.

[Stan]

With respect to the question of will PL cables sound better then line-in RCA cables, the answer is “it depends”.  I don’t believe there is a hard and fast answer because the RCA cables are of an unknown quality.  Let us know what you think.

[Stan]

About the Beo Remote, I think it’s just terminology.

The site says: “Beoremote One works with both Bluetooth and IR commands to control all your Bang & Olufsen products – both new and classic. Bluetooth is only available with compatible products.”

I have one to control a BV8 (ir) and some Bt devices.  I find when I switch into IR mode. If I accidentally hit the wrong button – say Music – the remote seems to go back to bt mode (I assume) because it no longer controls my bv.  To get it back, I have to select a bt source, the re-select IR mode and a source – like music.  Kind of a pain and not anything I can train my wife about.

 

[Stan]

It is my understanding that the delay is an artifact of both digitizing and DSP’ing the audio on the Mozart speaker and the latency from transmitting over NL/ethernet (and then decoding/DSP’ing on the receive end).

For older speakers, there’s already a “NL/ML delay box” which delays the ML audio to account for the processing time required on the NL side.  However, this doesn’t work for ML sources with directly attached speakers because there is no way to delay the audio between the ML source and its directly connected speakers, only ML distributed audio is delayed.

If I understand prior discussions on this topic, the ability to use Mozart speakers as “surround” speakers will require by-passing some of Mozart’s internal audio engine processing to minimize the delay to avoid lip synching issues as well as software changes on the BV to also account for this, now minimized, delay.   I doubt if any of this is just API settings (at least until the underlying software supports this).

I must say, it seems pretty cool of B&O to publish this API.

[Stan]

Also, I’ve been using an Airport Express 3rd gen for quite a few years in a manner similar to XavierItzmann’s diagram above (providing a wireless ethernet connection for my BS5).  It works fine.  Similarly, I had an earlier version that went wonky.

[Stan]

Configuring “Link to other product” setting as Carolpa suggested did the trick.  Thanks for the help everyone!

[Stan]

Is there a more direct way to listen to ML sources in the NL world than playing the ML source on the BLC, then joining the NL device to the BLC?

[Stan]

Figured out the NL side as well.  Need to add the BLC as a product to the B&O App.

Well, I had a nice conversation with myself here 😀

[Stan]

I was missing something for the BS5 configuration.  I had to set the audio option to 2 on the BS5 for it to respond to non-BS5 commands like TV.  It was set to 1 by default, I assume, when I switched it to audio master.  For most of its life, the BS5 worked with a BS9000 so I never had it set to audio master until recently (when my BS9000 died and has yet to be fixed).

Still not sure how to see the ML sources from the NL side of the world.  I guess I will dig into the old forum…

[Stan]

Since I just bought a pair of EXs, this would make sense :D.  Hopefully, it’s just the new very expensive, limited edition colored ones.  Not sure why a different color would require a new FCC license, but who knows.

About the EX, I think they are amazing.  They seem to fix everything I grew to dislike about my e8 and e8 sports.

First, they are much more comfortable for me since all the weight of the earphone is not supported by the ear canal.  That is, the heavy part of the earphone rests in your ear (in the concha, according to ear anatomy diagrams), outside your ear canal whereas the e8s are pushed into your ear canal and that’s what holds them up.

Even with the “wings” on the e8 sport, I still found I need to reposition them quite often when working out.   The wings, while adding support, also increase weight which, in turn, requires more support (at least in my ears). So far, this hasn’t been the case with the EXs.

Also, they seem to be more comfortable for long term wear, again, since the seal in your ear canal is not the only thing supporting the earplug.  I say “seems” because I haven’t yet actually worn them for hours straight, but the e8s would start bothering after an hour or two.

I like that they’re easier to grab without hitting the touchpad.  This was a bigger problem with the e8s vs. e8 sports (as rubber on the e8 sport makes grabbing them easier), but unless I am really careful, when I repositioned the e8s in my ear, I tend to bump the touchpad which would pause the payback or skip ahead/back. Now, I can just grab the stem.

I also find that I don’t get as much thumping in my ears when walking/running. That is, there is a thumping noise created by the vibration from walking/running.  There’s a thump with each step when the earplugs are well sealed into the ear canal.  This was a bigger problem with the earlier e8s, but it’s still there in the e8 3rd gen and e8 sports 2nd gen.  Makes walking with these much improved.

They sound much better with phone calls.  Still not as good as earpods, but better than the e8s.

I like that they pause playback when you take one out of your ear…which I tend to do when I need to talk with someone while wearing them.

Haven’t had the opportunity to do much with the electronics…  ie. noise cancelling and transparency mode.  I did notice that the noise cancelling did a decent job with blocking out the air conditioning noise in my office so I image it should work pretty well on a plane (my main purpose for NC).

Audio-wise, they sound great… but so did the e8s.  I don’t think sound quality alone would be worth upgrading.

I haven’t really discovered any negatives yet.  Aside from their price, of course, and that they’ll probably release an updated model in a few weeks :D.

In summary, I think B&O knocked it out of the park with these, and I can see why they discontinued the EQs and e8s.

[Stan]

I believe you can distribute the AUX-in audio of the ML/NL converter.  However, if the beogram doesn’t have a built-in phono pre-amp (some models have them, some don’t), then you’ll need one of those or else your beogram will sound bad.

[Stan]

I struggled with my BS1 (and BS2) top buttons as well.  After a few years, I have finally perfected my technique to give a short tap.  My rules:  Your hand must be dry.  You must have good aim to cover the complete dot with your finger.  No partial coverage allowed.  No slight touching of any other buttons.  Don’t linger too long.  Tap and release (unless you’re doing a long press, but I’ve less problems with those).  Then, it takes a bit for the device to respond so you need to be patient.  If you think it didn’t work, and press again too quickly, you might turn it off before it fully awakes.  My Gen1 BS2 brightens the LED on the tip of the acoustic lens to indicate a correct press before it starts playing, but this is only visible to me in a dark room.  I haven’t noticed if my gen2 BS1 does this because I rarely use it in a dark room.

[Author]

Posts