New product launch – beosound theatre?
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Sadly, the cable I was waiting on did not arrive on time for the Beogram so I ended up buying some cheapo stuff from Amazon. The Line-in volume is significanlty lower than streamed music, I have the volume way past 50. It sounds alright but I little muddy to my ears.
What Beogram are you using? It may be that you need an RIAA pre-amp before the connection to the Theatre. This would explain the low level and ‘muddiness’.
(I think that in an earlier post you said that you previously used a Beomaster 6000 with the Beogram, which would have had a pre-amp/RIAA stage built in.)
Sadly, the cable I was waiting on did not arrive on time for the Beogram so I ended up buying some cheapo stuff from Amazon. The Line-in volume is significanlty lower than streamed music, I have the volume way past 50. It sounds alright but I little muddy to my ears.
I have a Beogram 8002 connected to a SoundSmith phono preamp connected to the Theatre with the USB adapter from Sounds Heavenly. I have no complaints at all with the sound, it sounds fantastic and at the proper volume. The only issue I “might” have is once I was playing a record and it suddenly became silent. I think what happened is the Theatre changed sources, possibly on it’s own. I didn’t do the proper troubleshooting steps (because of panic) to determine if this was the case, I just restarted the Theatre and all was well again.
The Line-in volume is significanlty lower than streamed music, I have the volume way past 50.
The level of a line-level signal is dependent on the relationship between the output level of the source device and the sensitivity of the input to which it’s connected. As a wise woman I know says: “it takes two to tango.”
This assumes that the output device has a maximum output level that is lower than or equal to the expected maximum input level of the downstream device. If the source device has a higher output than the expected, then you just get distortion, independent of the volume setting of the output device (because the signal gets clipped at its input, before the gain that’s implemented by the volume control).
I wrote a much longer and geekier explanation of this here
https://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/2021/05/07/turn-it-down-half-way/
with some extra related information here
https://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/2020/06/03/beolab-3rd-party-source-with-a-high-level-output/
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.
Remember that, if you choose to do this, the Speaker Distances and Speaker Levels that you assign to multiple outputs with the same Speaker Role have a HUGE effect on the perceived result. This is also true with VERY small changes in parameters when the physical sources are close together. In other words, don’t jump to conclusions about “how things sound” without playing around with the parameters significantly.
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 hope that future development of the app will let us indicate which type of beolab speaker is connected to a Receiver 1 so that Room Sense has the information to do the proper calculations.
Is there a place where I can find what value to assign to a Beolab 2 connected via Receiver 1 for the Redirection Level? If I were to connect it to a wired socket temporarily to get the value via Room Sense, I would have to re-do everything.
Sadly, the cable I was waiting on did not arrive on time for the Beogram so I ended up buying some cheapo stuff from Amazon. The Line-in volume is significanlty lower than streamed music, I have the volume way past 50. It sounds alright but I little muddy to my ears.
What Beogram are you using? It may be that you need an RIAA pre-amp before the connection to the Theatre. This would explain the low level and ‘muddiness’. (I think that in an earlier post you said that you previously used a Beomaster 6000 with the Beogram, which would have had a pre-amp/RIAA stage built in.)
Sadly, the cable I was waiting on did not arrive on time for the Beogram so I ended up buying some cheapo stuff from Amazon. The Line-in volume is significanlty lower than streamed music, I have the volume way past 50. It sounds alright but I little muddy to my ears.
I have a Beogram 8002 connected to a SoundSmith phono preamp connected to the Theatre with the USB adapter from Sounds Heavenly. I have no complaints at all with the sound, it sounds fantastic and at the proper volume. The only issue I “might” have is once I was playing a record and it suddenly became silent. I think what happened is the Theatre changed sources, possibly on it’s own. I didn’t do the proper troubleshooting steps (because of panic) to determine if this was the case, I just restarted the Theatre and all was well again.
The Line-in volume is significanlty lower than streamed music, I have the volume way past 50.
The level of a line-level signal is dependent on the relationship between the output level of the source device and the sensitivity of the input to which it’s connected. As a wise woman I know says: “it takes two to tango.” This assumes that the output device has a maximum output level that is lower than or equal to the expected maximum input level of the downstream device. If the source device has a higher output than the expected, then you just get distortion, independent of the volume setting of the output device (because the signal gets clipped at its input, before the gain that’s implemented by the volume control). I wrote a much longer and geekier explanation of this here https://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/2021/05/07/turn-it-down-half-way/ with some extra related information here https://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/2020/06/03/beolab-3rd-party-source-with-a-high-level-output/
Sadly, the cable I was waiting on did not arrive on time for the Beogram so I ended up buying some cheapo stuff from Amazon. The Line-in volume is significanlty lower than streamed music, I have the volume way past 50. It sounds alright but I little muddy to my ears.
What Beogram are you using? It may be that you need an RIAA pre-amp before the connection to the Theatre. This would explain the low level and ‘muddiness’. (I think that in an earlier post you said that you previously used a Beomaster 6000 with the Beogram, which would have had a pre-amp/RIAA stage built in.)
Thanks Guy, Mark, Geoff,
Yes, Guy, I have a Beomaster 6000. I aim to connect the Beogram to my old Creek OBH 15 preamp. A lot of stuff has happened which makes it convoluted but I’ll summarise:
> The dealer said the adapter was USB-C to RCA (which I thought was odd since I saw Steve’s adapter), I checked with dealer twice then came the inevitable apology that the adapter was in fact 3.5mm not RCA. Too late because I had already ordered 15m of RCA to RCA cable from UK. I also have a DIN > RCA cable on order too.
> I had an old DIN >RCA cable but found that it only had 4 pins and no ground so a lot of hum. The installer had to put the beomaster back in the chain and leave the Creek out using the old DIN > DIN cable.
> The delayed cable from UK led me to order 15m of RCA to minijack on Amazon for around 20quid.
There’s no doubt the sound from the vinyl is not great and I’ll stick with airplay over the holidays and then hopefully the cables will arrive and I can get the Creek hooked up.
Is there a place where I can find what value to assign to a Beolab 2 connected via Receiver 1 for the Redirection Level?I could find this out once I get back to work after the holidays – but in order to calculate this, I/you would need to know all of the loudspeakers in the Listening Position, and their individual Speaker Roles. Send me a DM over Beoworld in the first week of January.Thank you, Geoff.
When you explain things, it really helps me understand. I’m beginning to see that maybe I had gotten too hung up on the 7.1.4 (or maybe it’s 7.3.4 now according to the new role options for subwoofers?) limitation of True Image upmixing. I had become so fascinated by the speaker placement guides on the Dolby Atmos site that I was thinking how great it would be to take advantage of True Image to extend my setup to 9.1.4 or even 11.1.6. Perhaps MORE speakers might not always be BETTER — such as in a setup where I was thinking of adding BL6000 speakers for the Wide roles when those speakers would not be able to perform as well as the 4 BL9 and 2 BL1 speakers they would be competing with.
Your comments make me wonder about my plan to add a pair of 4000s to the Theatre/28s/1s. As you say, perhaps more is not always better.
The most optimal situation is to be able to hear the mix as the mixing engineer heard it. However, this is not possible in many/most situations.
I originally designed the upmixing portion of the True Image processor with a rather simple aim:
- If you are sitting in the correct location (commonly called the “sweet spot” – although this is misleading) with a correctly-configured system, then upmixing with True Image should not change your perception of the mix, so it is redundant – or at least unnecessary.
- If you are NOT sitting in the correct location, then upmixing with True Image should help to deliver a perceived mix (primarily the spatial attributes) that is more like what you would hear in the correct location.
Note that the downmixing portion of True Image has a different purpose – but that’s not what we’re talking about. Note as well that this was my aim – real-world results may vary with different loudspeaker configurations, listening rooms, and mixes.
For example: If you play Suzanne Vega (or listen to the lead vocal in any pop tune) over a correct 2.0 stereo configuration, but you sit slightly to the right of centre, then you’ll hear the vocals on the right. If you upmix that track to a correctly-configured 5-channel output, then you’re more likely to hear the vocals in the centre loudspeaker.
The Dolby Atmos decoder in Beosound Theatre (just like all other consumer-level Dolby Atmos-compatible devices that I know of…) can decode/render a maximum of 7.1.4 channels. It is typically safe to assume (but it is an assumption) that a Dolby Atmos-encoded signal was monitored in 7.1.4 when they made the mix.* Note that this does not necessarily mean that the mix actually uses all of those channels. Some mixing engineers choose to omit some channels (by sending silence on them) for technical or artistic reasons.
Based on that assumption, it is also safe to assume that, if the mix was in 7.1.4, then upmixing it with additional output channels is unnecessary, since the reason to make any surround mix is to make the perceived spatial attributes in the mix more similar over a wider listening area. (For example, if you have one chair and no friends and a good 2.0 channel stereo system, you have no need of a centre loudspeaker because phantom imaging works very well…)
Finally, to come back to your earlier comment (maybe “complaint”? 🙂 ):
The Speaker Role options that were originally available in Beovision 11 -> Harmony were based on a master set of multichannel formats that never actually happened in consumer-level distribution. For example, in the early days of 7.1-channel signals, DTS had 7 different variants of layouts. Sony’s SDDS system supported 5 channels across the front and only 2 surround channels. Since the Speaker Roles had to be ready to support all of those channels in all possible then-future formats, the True Image upmixer was made to deliver them when they were not present at the input. For example, if you chose to build an SDDS configuration instead of a now-normal 7.x configuration, then True Image had to be compatible with that choice, and therefore it would create outputs appropriately. Since these format configurations never actually materialised in distribution media, there is no real need to continue supporting them with upmixing just for upmixing’s sake. As you said: more isn’t necessarily better – sometimes it’s just more.It’s important as well to separate the x.1.z vs. x.2.z vs. x.3.z difference from this, since that is a separate issue that is handled by bass management, not up/down-mixing.
* This may not be necessarily true for big-budget movies, since Atmos-compatible cinema systems can support up to 24.1.10 channels, which might actually be present in a large-scale re-recording theatre.
Question, please:
My Setup is BL90 front left/right … Theatre … BL18 rear surrounds. I would like to modifiy the role(s) of the Theatre speakers/chassis or even turn them on/off in this setup. With my Avant 55 this was easy in the “Speaker Role” menu. But with the Theatre/LG G2 i can’t find that option … not in the LG-TV B&O software, nor in the B&O App.
Any ideas?
Best regards
Tom
PS: Will there be a Technical Sound Guide for the Theatre, like there is for the BL90?
Beo911,
TV sound guide https://beoworld.dev.idslogic.net/forums/topic/new-product-launch-beosound-theatre/page/31/#post-12766
check out my other posts on using Listening Positions running room sense separately for centre, surround and BL90 fronts, copying the BL90 to have narrow, wide, omni presets
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.Hello everybody,
I ordered BS Theater with a pair of BL28. I will use wired PL and Ethernet to BL28. In which order should I setup my system? BL28 first then BSTH or opposite?
Is there any reason to have the BL28 online? Would it not be better to make the Theatre control everything?
And what a great buy BeoPat, nice to see so many buying the Theatre.
Good question.
My dealer recommend me to have wired network to BL28. To make use of them as stand alone when I wish. I assume as well needed for SW update?So my question remains, when all is physically setup, should I first do SW install BL28 before the SW install and calibration on BSTH?
Hello everybody, I ordered BS Theater with a pair of BL28. I will use wired PL and Ethernet to BL28. In which order should I setup my system? BL28 first then BSTH or opposite?
Good question and it depends on how you use them. I would imagine that the the BL28 and Theatre integrate together anyway for music and video. As Ive mentioned previously with my BL90s (a couple of generations behind the BL28s in terms of integration) is you set your loudspeakers up first as a standalone.
Once done, set the Theatre up as Centre only, as a Surround system (Theatre/BL28) and as BL28 on its own (within the Theatre system) using the listening positions control and room-sense.
This way, I guess that if you want to use BL28 on its own with its integrated sound (or injected 3rd party sound) for music, you can do without troubling the Theatre. If your sources come via the Theatre (DNLA/Radio/Video etc..), you can chose the sound playback based on the source. For example:-
- If I want to critically listen to music (Qobuz or my ripped library via my Auralic) I start the BL90s directly via Auralic signal trigger.
- If I watch Live TV, the source selection, plays Centre only, Custom sound mode
- If I listen to ripped music (lower quality) with LG Media player (via the Theatre), triggers BL90 wide mode, music sound mode.
- If I watch Kaleidascope video (hi-Res), Bl90/BL3/Theatre triggers in movie mode
Picked my 18s up this morning.
A few setup issues, the app recognised them but the speaker calibration for the listening position kept failing. Repeated a number of times with no luck. Eventually tried doing the calibration with just one of the 18s selected and this seemed to solve the issue.
Had a play with a couple of films (top gun maverick, no time to die) and the Atmos demo from the Dolby app on the Apple TV. Rears make a difference to the sound experience as you would expect (and hope given the money spent). It feels a much more immersive sound, not that the Theatre does not provide this on its own, but for my ears I am pleased with the addition to my setup.
Anyone knows how to mute/turn off the picture/screen on an LG/THEATRE combo using the Beoremote One?
I haven’t come across any options yet (not on remote nor in the app).MM
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