Sandyb
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Note I said risky. Some amongst the existing community assume the strategy of targeting VHNWI’s is doomed to failure, but I’ve counselled caution against that doom. (since they embarked on this re-targeting 18-24 months ago, I’ve always described it as a survival strategy).
After all there is a certain logic is shifting more of your customer base to where the vast pools of money are concentrated, those who are unaffected by global economic cycles.
The risk comes, to me at least, from holding onto customers you have targeted with scarcity / super luxury / halo status type marketing, in that they may well be more fickle and less sticky as long term customers than before.
And generally, VHWNIs (or even those who stretch to buy 20k+ speakers) have pretty high expectations of both service and performance. In both of these areas we all know B&O, for all their attractive designs, can test the boundaries of acceptability.
If one wanted to set aside these concerns, then yes there is nothing inherently wrong with making current revenues with 30% lower volumes, and their gross margin is improving. But the size of the customer base you have left then becomes both super important and your existence a bit fragile.
yes, that 5% is probably accurate is some weird sense / by some highly specific calculation and assumption. How do they know or define customer base? Some estimate of existing customers +/- new purchasers? Seems a bit tenuous.
Bigger picture though, I prefer my value vs volume inference – broadly flat revenue (over recent years) adjusted buy 30% higher prices must mean volumes down by approximately 30%.
They wanted to be leaner, so I guess they’re succeeding in that at least.
Lowering guidance out of reporting cycle is not great news.
I know they have done this before (last March) on occasion, but still.
Smoothing out the (modest) pandemic era bump in revenue, overall company revenue is broadly unchanged over the last few years, despite price 30% (at least) higher. Logic suggests volume must be down a similar 30%!
I know they are ok with transitioning to a “leaner” model, but selling less and less at higher and higher prices is awfully risky.
have a play – though from my tinkering, this new Volume Gain isn’t making too much difference.
Your observation of alot of bass may need some separate bass tweaking in the settings.
The easiest way to judge (the q you are essentially asking) is by listening to music (2.0) with sound mode Music (set to Direct) – that will only use 2 drivers of the Theatre (thats what Direct does).
I do that for my standalone bedroom Theatre – and it’s fine for my purpose, and in only a 4.5m by 4m bedroom. A bigger space, and 2.o music in Music/Direct (only 2 front Theatre drivers) and I might feel differently.
An easier way to judge how it sounds than by defining a 2.0 speaker group / listening position. The above will do it for you more quickly.
not sure what speaker group / listening position you are using for music? And what sound mode?
If you using sound mode = Music, then if your input signal is stereo (2.0), then the Music sound mode already is set to Direct – i.e it will just play from 2 of the Theatre drivers.
If you have been doing the above, all that is left to do then is to listen to music with True Image on, and then play around with the various front / back, left /right, height settings until you find something you perhaps prefer.
personally, I wouldn’t bother – there’s only so much you can really do if you want to not twist the image too much, and stay somewhat true to the recording.
a bit too yes.
They do keep tweaking the sound processing with successive major SW updates.
Remember, with the newer 3.4.1(8) SW, there is the ability for users to add a default volume gain (or reduction) for individual sources.
Go to Sources / Source Startup behaviour / scroll down and you’ll see the vol gain for that source etc.
This was supposed to be their cure for the processing producing quite varied loudness outcomes, which is what had been fed back to them.
I’ve played around with this default volume gain setting – for my Sky set top box – though the results are not obvious to my ears.
But anyway, something you may not be aware of, and something perhaps to play around with.
The rationale that I’ve seen – this was posted (albeit caveat’ed by his not being involved) was that the vast majority of users nowadays just use internal sources plus perhaps one peripheral (a set top box, or Apple TV).
Given this rationale, and the fact that my installer had spoke to Denmark a few times around release time, and was told to forget about matrix integration, that it would never happen – all lead me to forget about it.
I’d have been more upset by this if my setup was more complex, as it would be a real impediment. In my simple case, its ok – moving my secondary / tertiary sources to my main living room cabinet was ok. I primarily have the matrix to avoid having any perhperhals in my bedroom, and I can survive with the matrix passing through the still matrix connected SKY Q straight through to my bedroom. Anything else in my bedroom, I just use the internal LG streaming apps.
But it is a pain still – not sure where you are based, but SKY won’t give you two UHD capable boxes, as the Mini secondary box is not UHD – so a matrix was the only way to get SKY in UHD to all rooms. All a bit of a mess really.
Your way out may be (ask your dealer) to get a BeoLiving Intellingece (the Gateway replacement), as this may be programmed to speak to the Atlona and change the connected source it sends to each Theatre room. I have a feeling that that may work – but check with your dealer. As such, the BLI could have defined scenes to get the matrix to input select for you, and those may well show up on your Beoremotes,
yes, the Theatre has no HDMI Matrix integration.
And I dont believe it will ever be added, from what my dealer and installer have told me.
I was / am in the same situation, albeit a simpler setup with one matrix serving two rooms.
You can leave the matrix in place, and it will pass on whatever input to whatever output. But you will need to select the output (for a specific room) using a different control – I have a different brand matrix so I dont quite know, but if there is an Atlona app / web UI you can use that to change what is received in a room.
It’s not great I’d admit – I manage with it, but my situation is more simple. I left my Sky set top box connected to the matrix, and being what I watch the most, I leave the matrix passing that through to my two rooms (living room and principal bedroom, which also has a Theatre).
And I moved an ATV 4K and a UHD BR player locally to my main room / Theatre.
so yes, if you want to leave multiple sources connected to the matrix and do the manual / app driven source selection, its probably a bit painful / not too user friendly.
But they are never going to add matrix integration to the Theatre.
Mr.Anderson from the app team has posted on Discord – the removal etc of the volume control was not intended, a mistake and the app team are on the case (ASAP in his words).
So I imagine, thankfully, that this will be rectified relatively soon.
dont have a list of what’s changed – but you can now see the Battery Level / status – under List / Settings / Advanced / System Info……
I’ve sent them a message / feedback through the app.
Suggest others do the same too.
Ridiculous.
Yep, no processing (from a TV) of anything more than plain old 2.0.
Wasn’t expecting much more, but shame it doesnt do some surround processing nor have WISA to allow connecting more than one pair of BL’s.
The volume gain for individual sources is accessible under “… / Sources / Source Behaviour /”.
The select a source, scroll down the resulting page and there is a Volume Gain setting.
I’ve tried it, and it’s not obviously making much difference (I’ve set gain to +4 for one specific source so far).
From what I understand, they have closed the business.
Was mentioned on the podcast a few weeks ago.
Yikes – re having to crank up the volume, my understanding with the new 3.4 SW was that it should have improved this issue, not made it worse.
With 3.4, under Source Startup behaviour, you can now set a volume gain (or loss I guess!) as a default for each source. Not sure if you have tried this added feature yet, and whether it helps. Also be useful to know what signal inputs (2.0, 5.1 etc etc) produce this v low volume issue?
According to one of the B&O guys posts a few months back (on Discord), this volume adjustment was being added to deal with the “excessively quiet” volume that some users were reporting, especially for DD 5.1 signals.
I’ve updated my bedroom standalone BST to 3.4, and have not had quiet volume issues as yet. Not updated by larger living room BST setup as yet.
As someone with 2 BSTs, my feeling is that any signal processing issues are much more noticeable on larger setups as opposed to standalone ones.
What exactly are your issues with your 50s?
I have had a pair for 3 years now, the last year of which connected to a Theatre.
My general experience is that they have been fine.
sounds awesome – I have a Theatre set as Centre-Centre-Centre, 50s as FL/FR and 17s as surround/rears. Even without dedicated heights, its super impressive.
Remember, 28s/50s/90s are a few weeks away from a 15-20% price rise – so if you are in the market for any of those, I’d get in quick!
and yes, 15-20%!
Not sure it / the app knows anything about your/our setup to be honest.
I have 2 Theatres, both separately wall mounted from their respective LGs.
The app shows one BST (on 3.2.3) as a BV, despite it being separate pieces.
The app shows the other BST (on older 2.5.5) as just a sound bar.
And the one shown as a complete BV is a 55 inch (both pieces), so I think the app for the moment is just defaulting to 65 inch.
