9_LEE
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May I wish Mark and his team my sincere best wishes taking this site forwards into the future. It’s in good hands, which makes me genuinely happy. 🙂
Lee
Apologies for not being too vocal lately. It’s a sad time for me saying goodbye to BeoWorld after all these years but Mark and Multicare are very well respected in the industry.
In my opinion they’ll be an excellent custodian for BeoWorld going forwards and I’m excited to see where BeoWorld will be taken in the future. I will always remain a fan of B&O and also an advocate for BeoWorld of course. 🙂
Three cheers for Mark, Multicare and BeoWorld!
Lee
Such a shame that yet another B&O related business goes under. Here’s to B&O turning it all around and creating many complimentary businesses in the future which will thrive.
It needs a software update to the latest Google Play Store. You have the old one on your TV which no longer works.
I take the ones I sell to an official B&O Service Center to do, but I’m not sure if there’s a work-around?
Lee
As I understand…
9671 is the original ‘1st Gen’ with the 1st Gen panel.
8642 contains the later NG panel, but retains the 1st Gen internals.
Apparently they ran out of 1st Gen screens before they ran out of internals, so to get rid of the final stock of parts on the 1st Gen they put the ‘new’ panel into the 1st Gen but changed the type number.
A number of very credible people interested in the site, so please don’t lose hope 🙂
Let’s wait and see.
J0han is of course correct. Left, Left, Stop works on quite a few products. Usually when highlighting over the Options tab on the TV’s.
Lee
Okay, I have the answer here.
B&O released the update software to their service partners, and the only way to be able to update to the new Google platform (and update everything) is to take it to them. They can then connect to the TV and upload the software which will then enable everything to be updated.
Absolute pain, I know – but I take all my Android TV’s to my local Service Center to have them updated before sale.
Lee
Thanks to all who have replied to this thread, and certainly no offence has been taken by myself at least.
First and foremost, the Mod Team must support each other – and in this instance I’m inclined to leave the post deleted. I have a difference of opinion here, that said. Here are my thoughts.
Did it contain vital information which could ruin a product release? In my opinion, No.
Did it offer competitors an advantage? In my opinion, No.. And in fairness I don’t actually think competitors are that far behind they need half-snippets of information to base their future product lines on…
Bang & Olufsen have, on countless occasions, been utterly useless at keeping sensitive information under wraps. Why this is I have no idea, and surely they can at least look at companies who can do this and learn something..
One point I’d like to make : Is BeoWorld ‘close’ to Bang & Olufsen as a company right now? Well, aside from Geoff Martin (a legend, an enthusiast, and a genuinely decent human being) and a reply to a ‘Hello’ email from Jette Nygaard (who organised our B&O Trips – another genuinely lovely and hard working person at B&O) I have heard absolutely nothing of any substance from B&O for some years now.
As far as a legal perspective, I’m pretty sure we are not legally responsible for ‘leaked’ information by a third party. If this happens, then of course we can look at it – but unless it’s going to destroy a new product, a new genre of product, or completely ruin a product launch, then to be honest I’m going to be inclined to let it roll.
I genuinely wish B&O well but having been involved with the products for a living on a daily basis for the last 20+ years, I have seen a decline based on hubris and stupid decisions which has cost me my business and my future pension. I had a great business, great staff, and a great future. All of this evaporated, as did the livelihoods of many other B&O Dealers who genuinely loved the brand and all it stood for.
An American term I think is appropriate would be saying I’m ‘butt hurt’ by the way the brand has declined, and I really do need to be more positive in my frame of mind. That’s my own problem, though. I’ll get over it.
Thank you again to everyone on here. There are some genuinely decent people around, and I feel fortunate to know them through BeoWorld. I wish you all the best, and will keep my fingers crossed for B&O going forwards.
Lee
A common mistake here is plugging the HDMI from the SoundCenter into the wrong socket on the screen…
I also seem to remember the RJ cable can be a problem and B&O have a ‘Mk2’ version of it. I’m also not sure if it’s ‘directional’ – so try swapping that around.
Pretty sure you can just feed it with a DVI signal but from memory the switching on might be an issue..
I also seem to remember there being passive speaker outputs on there which Panasonic used, and I’m sure someone got sound from them!
MaxH
- The site still serves the purpose of the B&O enthusiast and collector. There are a lot less of them around these days though, and anyone who denies that is lying. People have defected from the brand to others in a constant stream for at least the last 10 years. I see it in my daily business dealing in pre-owned B&O. All I see is people leaving the brand and ‘selling up’ their products. Rarely, if ever, do they come back. We now see a huge uptick in people looking to restore and use classic products, so this seems to be the buzz area. As so few people are now buying the very latest products there’s just not the buzz around. Also, the ‘High Net Worth’ buyers get their dealer to install it, and that’s it. They’re far too busy being rich and making money to mess around on internet forums. They are cash rich and time poor.
- Appropriate vehicle? Well.. perhaps Discord and the like for the younger, more dynamic members who want fast-paced chat and lots of noise. It’s all a bit more calm and sedate here. Maybe we’re the ‘oldies’ now. Who knows. If you have any suggestions?
- Growing or Declining? Good question. I think the new product chat is declining. Of course it would do – less people are buying the stuff. However, the classic and vintage seems to be growing and growing.
- I see all your other points, of course. Will BeoWorld eventually become irrelevant and die completely? I genuinely don’t think so. We have a hard-core of members who, as the site stands, will make it financially viable and enable the site to exist. Could it change? Of course. When? Who knows. If B&O goes bust, or gets bought out and becomes largely irrelevant, then BeoWorld will no doubt be a ‘specialist repair and restoration’ forum I suppose. However, if B&O turn a financial corner and start being world-beaters again then the talk will ramp up for the new products and that previous enthusiasm will return.
I’ve always compared B&O to being ‘your football team’. When they’re doing badly you don’t go to as many games, you don’t watch them on TV as much, and you’re not that interested in talking about them. However, when they’re top of the league you go to all the games, you talk about them, you watch them on TV , you wear the branded clothing and so on. It’s a chicken and egg thing. The success of the forum has a lot to do with the success of the company.
As it stands, B&O are trying their hardest to turn that corner. There’s no way we can help them apart from buying lots of products, and sadly a lot of them aren’t what we want – or are at a price we can no longer afford (or justify)….
Thank you to all who contributed to this thread thus far. I’ve desperately been trying to make time to sit down, digest it properly, then give my thoughts to what has been said.
I’ll try to offer my responses on key points :
Mr10Percent
- Unappealing interface. Yes, I actually agree. This is what the standard, slightly stylised ‘look and feel’ is. It’s customisable, and this is my next job along with Keith to sort. We may need to pay a web developer to do it, but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Essentially though, I agree it looks pretty dull.
- Control/Moderation. – Being a site which supports B&O as a company and a brand there have been a couple of times where B&O have asked me to delete something so it doesn’t completely ruin a product launch they’ve spent many thousands of hours, and many hundreds of thousands of DKK on. I have respected their request and deleted whatever article was leaked – and for this they have been grateful for (at the time). However, official contact from B&O has been non-existent for the past few years – so do I feel I owe them anything? Well, you guess. Geoff Martin is our only link to the company at present, and he does keep in regular contact. He is far too professional to ‘blab’ secrets, so he basically chimes in with help, opinions and facts – for which we are all grateful.
- As above – our ‘position’ with regards B&O officially is currently, well… nothing. Obviously it goes without saying that the fantastic trips to Struer, previous prizes for the draw (many years ago) and product launch reviews they took me on are all very special memories and ones we are grateful for. In fairness, I don’t feel aggrieved in any way. B&O as a business is struggling – and keeping some fans happy will be rather low on their list of priorities.
- Manuals. You’re wrong on this one. We have plenty of manuals (uploaded and not uploaded yet) which all the other sites don’t have. We even have some which B&O don’t have! I think we can offer some value there.
- ‘We are the product’. Okay, this is something we are very much against. We don’t collect data, we don’t use data, we’d never sell any info or data we have. If other sites wish to do that, then hey – whatever. We are absolutely focused on security and privacy.
- Discord/Mikipedia : I haven’t visited his Discord for a long time, but I genuinely wish him every success! The more exposure B&O gets as a brand, the better. Some people find Discord cluttered and confusing as the group grows (I have dropped out of quite a few Crypto discord groups as they just descended into a shouty mess) – but I’m sure Mikipedia will be up to the task. We do get less interest in the ‘latest’ products here now, and most of the traffic is directed at classic and legacy products. Maybe that’s our new ‘Niche’ – who knows…
- Working directly with B&O on a Forum. Well, in the past we’ve mooted it – but they have always said they’d rather have a completely independent element here, without any ‘big stick’ over it in the form of B&O. Was that a polite way of saying they weren’t interested? Who knows.. Either way I think that’s the last thing on their minds at the moment. They’re managing a chip-pan fire, and the last thing they want to be doing is chopping salad.
- BeoWorld ‘withering away’. I think perhaps from an ‘enthusiasm for the brand’ way you may be correct. The company isn’t setting the world alight with regular product launches of world-class products, but when money is tight you can’t. Withering away with regards traffic, the answer is no. Traffic is the same as it always has been. No decline.
- BeoWorld ‘Merch’… A complete waste of money and effort. Last year I sent about 150 BeoWorld t-shirts to a homeless charity. I bought these and had them all embroidered in around 2004. Almost 20 years sat in boxes, unsold. Also, what we did sell we made next to nothing on. Futile, and a complete waste of my time. I won’t be doing that again..
- Prize Draw. I think once a year is perfect now. It says ‘Thank You’ to the paying members, gives a bit of a unique spin to the site, and brings genuine happiness to the winners. I don’t mind putting in the leg-work if it’s once a year, and with current revenues we can now afford it.
Condolences to Peter’s friends and family, and thank you to Millemissen for such a great post enlightening us on him as a person.
B&O has lost a great advocate and a true enthusiast. He truly appreciated what the brand stood for and appreciated the great (legacy) products we all love.
RIP Peter Pan, from all of us at BeoWorld.
Hello Everyone, and thank you for your input. Some extremely valid points and some surprising insights which I genuinely didn’t expect.
I left it as long as possible to get everyone’s thoughts, then had a short last-minute holiday followed by a very busy work schedule which has pushed this reply out a little further than I’d hoped for – but.. here we are.
I met with Keith yesterday and we discussed the finances of the site going forwards, and also took into account the input here to come to the conclusion that the Prize Draw is an appreciated ‘Bonus’ which brings happiness and good feeling to individuals – and also the site as a whole.
As a result, we have decided to keep the Prize Draw – but make it Annual, at a time where we all love a good present.. Christmas.
I was actually surprised to see so many people simply favoured the survival of BeoWorld over the Prize Draw as I thought this was a pretty pivotal thing when deciding to upgrade to Gold. I was clearly pretty wrong, which actually points to the fact that you’re all selfless and simple want to support the site. I found this quite heartwarming and am actually embarrassed at how wrong I was.
So, the Spring Draw will go ahead this evening as usual – and the next one will be in December. After that, the next one will be Christmas 2024. Taking this into account we will increase the values of the Prizes slightly. Nothing silly-expensive, but it’ll give us a whole year to pick up bargains and the really rare collectibles which we all appreciate as B&O enthusiasts.
So, in conclusion – if revenues stay the same we can keep the draw. The next obstacle is to try to increase revenue which will pay for site improvements, software licences, power and hardware upgrades and servicing, and so on. I’ll do a separate post for this, again to garner input and ideas – and we also came up with some ideas yesterday which I’ll put to you.
Thank you all once again for your valuable input – and Good Luck in the Draw this evening!
Just a quick post to say a big thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread, and to the small number of people who have given some generous donations immediately after posting. You know who you are – and it’s incredibly appreciated.
Some very interesting comments and ideas, which gives Keith and I plenty to go on. I plan to meet with Keith soon and we can dissect them all.
For now, the Spring Draw will be going ahead – and then maybe the next one being the Christmas Draw. After that, perhaps just one in Summer and one at Christmas – or just Christmas. Either way I’ve always really enjoyed giving lovely B&O away to true enthusiasts. It’s been a pleasure over the years to see so many genuinely happy and grateful winners of prizes I’ve always done my best to source.
So, once again, thank you all. I’ll take notes of all responses and when I meet with Keith we can work our way through them.
Please don’t stop with your thoughts though. Keep adding to this thread 🙂
All i can say is ‘Wow’. Really.
The Avant 32 is one of the finest and most iconic TV’s ever made – and bringing it up to 2023 is like making an E-Type Jaguar into a fully compliant Euro6 spec car.
So impressive. Well done.
Lee
Price sounds about right. The Horizon does have a bit of a following and I never have one in stock for long if it’s priced sensibly.
Can’t believe the 11-46 is more expensive than the Horizon 48 in France! The 11’s here in the UK are crazy cheap now…
I do quite like the Horizon. Very good image quality, decent sound – but they just don’t scream “premium'” like the 11 does, in my opinion.
Lee
