[XavierItzmann]

I was unaware that B&O had re-targeted its product line to VHNWIs.  It is fair for any company to re-target its product offer, if it thinks a better business opportunity lies there.

According to the magazine Forbes, in the U.S. market, this describes households with liquid assets between $5m and $30m.  The website Insurance Newsnet says that these households are heavily concentrated in the 55 to 74 age group… and further defines this group as the famous, much derided 1% (!).

Well, it looks like we might all be, either by legacy or by recent purchase, one-percenters.  Congratulations are in order, one can hazard?

Did B&O announce when do they expect to complete this transition?  Because I have news for B&O: it is a bit questionable that Explore and A1 are suitable for this market, even if a rather gauche prancing horse happens to be pictured in the casing, except, perhaps, as party favors for the hired help.  I’d even put an asterisk by the Emerge.

Same goes for Beoplay EX, methinks, and Beoplay HX —for, if the target truly is the 1%, why does HX even exist?  What kind of skin-flint one percenter would buy HX, and why, when good and proper H95s are available?

As to the Stage, well, who knows, perhaps true one percenters could have it installed it in the servant’s luncheon area.  To show some magnanimity, you know, and besides, ostentatious displays of equity are all the rage.

But what really gives me pause is that Bang and Olufsen is included in the Audi A4 Premium Plus which retails for $45,400… this is below the price of the average car in the U.S.  Do one-percenters get around in compact conventionally fueled sedans?  Questionable.  On the other hand, they may buy this vehicle for their daughter as she departs for university, so it is not like 1% households would never own an A4.

——

Please take no offense, this brief essay is written with tongue fully planted in cheek.  In all seriousness, I am glad B&O still offers entry-level products and most of mine are, in fact, entry-level items.  And my current cars cost a fraction of what an A4 does.

[XavierItzmann]

Dear Steve,

I have been patiently waiting for several months for you to offer delivery to the US, and I am dismayed to hear it remains unavailable.

Cheerio,

[XavierItzmann]

In two different homes of mine I ran the wires through the back of the wall, as you appear to have done.

That Lewis design is now over three decades long, but when mounted this way, I always felt, to this day, that I was looking at some Utopian future where devices are magical.

[XavierItzmann]

On my BS3000 I use the wall bracket that I bought for my BeoCenter 2300.  I wonder if your bracket is different from mine, which evidently remained the same across generations.

The bracket system comes with two metal handles that you screw into the BC2300/BS3000.  Meanwhile, there is a black plate which you attach to the wall.

Once this is done, there are hooks (on the plate I believe) which catch nicely on the handles.  Small slots into which the hooks slide prevent any slippage.  The sistem is held by pure gravity.

I still recall 26 years ago hanging my BC2300 from the wall and not being sure if I could let go.  It seemed the B&O could tip forward and crash to the ground!  But it is a secure system.

Let us know how it goes.

[XavierItzmann]

The Wiim Mini will receive audio from its Aux-In/Line-In port (you can make that input port be either one from the Wiim Mini app).

The Wiim Mini can be set to transmit any audio it receives from that In-port to a paired bluetooth device.  It can also be set to be automatic, so if sound is detected from the In-port it will immediately start transmitting to bluetooth.

However, I would not recommend this solution.  It is well known that bluetooth is a bandwidth and data-rate limited protocol.  Your audio will be degraded from its original CD quality.

A better solution to integrate with an Emerge would be to run a stereo audio cable from the BS3000 or Ouverture to the Emerge.

[XavierItzmann]

Thanks, Stan!

[XavierItzmann]

Hello!  All this week I’ve been meaning to ask the following question, and this thread seems appropriate:

When shopping for a Beosound Essence, how can I tell from the used product photographs which ones are MK1 vs MK2?  Often the sellers themselves are unknowledgeable.

Thanks in advance,

[XavierItzmann]

Your posts are of great interest.  Thanks for your contribution.

[XavierItzmann]

Well, with the benefit of a further week of operation… I think I was doing something wrong!

Carolpa’s comment “(if no Standby and/or ‘un-link’ command is given to devices or the whole system)” appears to have hit the nail in the head.

For whatever reason, I was in the habit of hitting the I/O icon on the upper left corner of the  main B&O app… and selecting to put all my products on standby.  Bad habit, evidently!

It turns out that if I merely hit “pause”, after a few minutes the devices go on standby… and then hitting the “play” button on the Essence Remote the next day actually does get sound going.

Mind you, I am not yet 100% convinced that this is wholly reliable (maybe it is), but so far, I’ve awakened the system to Deezer, to RADIO (!), and to B&O Radio.  It is possible N.MUSIC came on once, not sure.

I confess to not really keeping notes on what was the system doing when it went asleep, so my observations aren’t scientific; all I can say is that the Essence Remote has, for a week now, gotten at least some sort of audio to come out in the mornings, which is satisfactory enough.

I’ll  report again in a few weeks.

[XavierItzmann]

Thank you gentlemen, Carolpa and Mr10Percent.  I’d like to offer two additional data points to help determine whether this is “new” behaviour in light of the fact this is now a discontinued product or if this is “original” behaviour from when the product was current:

1.  Beosound Essence manual.  Mind you, this manual is for the Essence streamer, and the Remote is an incidental.  Perhaps the hardware platform of the A6 is very different from that of the Essence streamer.  In any event, please consider the underlined text:

 

2.  Bang and Olufsen app.  I happen to have set up an iPad in one room and an Android tablet in another room as B&O app instances.  These work as B&O remotes full time and do nothing else.  They are awake (screen on) 24 x 7  and run only one app (the B&O): so you need to do nothing but depress the “play” button on the screen.  And here is the behaviour:

Last night, I was playing Deezer.  I “paused” play with the Beoremote Essence.  The tablets displayed the album art cover for about 1/2 hr, and afterwards displayed the image below all night until this morning.  As already explained, the Beoremote Essence does nothing, except, if I hold on to “play” the A6 double-tones, as if it were changing sources, but remains quiet.  Now, hit on the “play” on the tablet… and the Deezer playlist immediately re-starts on the A6!

The bottom line on this is that “play” on the Beoremote Essence doesn’t activate any sources, whereas the “play” on the B&O app does.

A mistery?

Cheers,

 

[XavierItzmann]

Thanks matteventu and chartz.

It is good to know no tablet version of the B&O app will turn to landscape: that is clearly a defect.

I forced mine to go to landscape using a program called “Rotation Control”, available on the Google Play store at no charge.  This program is a little spy: it will capture every keystroke, including passwords, and whatever you do on the device.  So I used the spy to force-rotate the device, turned off all privileges to the spy program, and terminated the spy.  The rotation held.

Now, this device is set up to never sleep (it is on 24×7 since a few weeks ago), has its own exclusive fake Google account, has all possible “privacy” restrictions turned on, and has no software installed other than B&O: it is simply a remote control.

What’s nice is that the tablet sits on a wireless charger stand immediately to the right of my reading chair, at arm’s length, so if I want to select other music, I simply grab the tablet.   My other purpose was to be able to see what’s playing and to favorite any song playing.

I understand this series of Amazon products are the only wireless recharging tablet/stand combos.

There are also other means of forcing the B&O app to appear landscape.  The best appears to be to hook up the tablet to a computer and to use software to force landscape.  Maybe I’ll get around to it someday, but for the time being the current solution appears to be stable.

[XavierItzmann]

Woah,

Just a second there.

There is a battery inside the BM5? My BM5 is over a decade old.  If there is a battery inside, that’s an acid leak waiting to happen (may have started, for all I know) and BM5 destruction should be imminent.

So, is this a maintenance item, what is the battery model?

Any other maintenance items?

Thanks!

 

[XavierItzmann]

Thank you matador for posting the photo.  B&O online service had earlier replied that «there is no software update available for Beoplay A3», implying that my version 1.0.0.0 is the current one, which as we knew was false.

So when I, at the time, sent the photo in my reply to B&O, their answer was rather more open: «Unfortunately, the Server to which the BeoSetup app is trying to connect is no longer available, and we do not have any alternative option to upgrade the product. Therefore, we are sorry to inform you that we are not able to provide any solution to upgrade the product.»

I thanked the fellow for his frankness.  It happens, especially for companies that have gone through crises or that have relied on external agencies for software development, that server address control can be irretrievably lost.  Hopefully B&O has now matured beyond these sorts of risks.

Truth be told, the device has now been in continuous operation for weeks (always on) and I have no complains about v. 1.0.0.0

[XavierItzmann]

Wow!

Thank you petermc and Guy.  I’m happy to report that both my Beo4’s have CD2 and that both activate the JOIN command on a JOIN-button IR Eye connected to BLC NL/ML:

(1) “Go” 1997 Beo4 (AV Key, no N.MUSIC, no N.RADIO) has CD2
(2) “Go” 2000 or later Beo4 (DVD Key, N.MUSIC and N.RADIO) has CD2

What an amazing forum.

Alright, new question: why is it that I go into the U.S. B&O website and only see the Beoremote One IR for sale and not the one with BT?  Newer products have no IR… right?

[XavierItzmann]

Thanks Carolpa, trackbeo, and Stan for your comments.

On further research prompted by Carolpa’s comments, I need to revise my statement “The sources remote to the A6, such as N.RADIO or N.MUSIC, are very unreliable when called up directly from the A6”

It turns out that the unreliability I had perceived is limited to only N.RADIO and N.MUSIC, and it has nothing to do with the A6.  In fact, the unreliability originates directly on the BLC NL/ML segment.  To wit:

From standby or from some other source playing, such as Deezer,
(1) select N.MUSIC.  N.MUSIC plays.
(2) Press N.RADIO.  N.RADIO plays.
(3) Press N.MUSIC.  N.RADIO keeps playing.
This is true both using a Beo4 or the B&O app or a mix of both.  The workaround is to standby the system, or to briefly play CD;  N.MUSIC then plays again.

I had thought this problem occurred only when calling these sources from the A6 on the app, but I was wrong.  Apologies for the confusion.

With regard to the AirPort Express 3rd Gen., I find it exceedingly reliable, but I also recognize it is obsolete; if anyone has an up-to-date alternative from a dependable manufacturer, please post.

[XavierItzmann]

Hello Millemisen,

I have just read the BeoRemote One – BT manual on the B&O website.  I wasn’t quite able to identify or understand the switching of modes… from what I could see, if I set up the A6 on the BR1-BT, all commands issued to it will automatically be sent via BT, whereas any commands sent to the BLC will be on IR.

I see how that target switching can be cumbersome, compared to the old IR-only systems, where if you depressed the volume button, any and all devices within IR range would accept the volume command.

When you say it is inconvenient to switch between IR and BT, do you mean this act of having to tell the remote which device you wish to control?  Or do you mean some other action that must be taken so the command can be issued?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

[XavierItzmann]

Thank you Guy and Millemisen!

My oldest Beo4 is ancient enough that it doesn’t even have N.MUSIC nor N.RADIO (A.TAPE2 does N.MUSIC and PHONO does N.RADIO).  No JOIN on that one!

My newest Beo4, modern enough for N.MUSIC, etc., doesn’t have JOIN either.

So it looks like I am in the market for a new remote control.  From Millemisen’s photo I see I might consider a Beo4 Mk III, with the joystick, but I observe that Beo4 can only control the devices on the right-hand side of the picture below, and not on the left.

Is there a remote able to control both the left and the right on the picture?  Perhaps a Beoremote 1 with BT?

[XavierItzmann]

Looking today at the logs on my BLC, it continues to write thousands of entries a day.

Hopefully the memory won’t fail due to abuse, like bnousr suggested above.

[XavierItzmann]

On my NL network I have an A6, like so:

From the B&O app, while the A6 is selected, I can depress the three dots on the lower right hand side and I get the following options, plus CD, A.AUX, LINE IN, N.RADIO, Open Spotify App, and Standby.

The sources local to the A6, such as B&O Radio, are reliable.  The sources remote to the A6, such as N.RADIO or N.MUSIC, are very unreliable when called up directly from the A6.

To make the system behave reliably, I activate sources that are local —such as CD on the wired Master Link, or Deezer on the A6— and then JOIN from or to the other environment.

Yeah, the BLC is a bit wonky, apparently.

[XavierItzmann]

On eBay, ensure you get Apple original adapters.  I finished the mod using the original compact Apple adapter A1468 (which can also be found as a MD823AM/A but it may be easier to find it as A1468).

I do not recommend getting an MD824AM/A cable adapter.  I also got one and it works but doesn’t facilitate the installation of the iPad.

Adapters not made by Apple will not have the necessary Digital-to-analog circuitry and this is why these other adapters only charge the iPad but are unable to convey sound.

For detailed instructions on installing a modern iPad, see this link.

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