Sandyb
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Yes, I would tend to agree, that a meaningful set of changes to the app should be mapped out and explained to users – what those changes are in their entirety and once completed, and some rationale for moving from one state of affairs to a new one.
That perhaps is all a bit ex-post though – after all these decisions are already made, and one must presume that the app team / company more broadly has broader insight into usage patterns / usage issues and preferences than we as a smaller select group do. Of course it would be nice to be in the loop earlier in the process, but being realistic its not something I’d expect.
Personally I dont use the app much beyond checking/changing settings, as all my music listening exists outside of any B&O UI. Nevertheless, for those more embedded in the “app as experience”, I have sympathy, and perhaps a little more optimism that once these incremental updates are done, the app will land in a place where most of the control possibilities are back.
Stephen, I’ve sent you a message with an invite etc., and small explainer.
Let me know if you have any q’s.
You can enter a Feature request – in the App Feature Request thread – in Discord.
Mr.Anderson of the app dev team asked me to set up a section there (its under B&O Engagement), and there is a master list of outstanding feature requests there, for B&O to look at.
While i imagine you have provided your feedback through other means, I only mention it to you as the B&O guys have a specific place on the Discord server where they check in and look at a collated list of feature requests.
Anyway, just a passing thought.
A fair few people have reported that B&O dealers are offering 15K trade in on BL5s for BL50s.
Obviously completely ignore this if you’d never consider this (Bl50s may not be your thing etc). But they are clearly the more modern high end BL, with lots of simultaneous connection options and will allow you to do what you want cleanly.
I have 50s – connected to both my TV with powerlink, and separately to my streamer / DAC. So in the case of music, I just pick some music and the 50s just wake up / start playing. You can set input priorities for the 50s in the app But obviously, ignore if this is not appropriate.
** the other advantage is that, because of where the BL50s cabe connection panel is, you can have the cable outlet pop up essentially underneath the BL50. Thats what I did when my apartment was renovated – and both 50s appear to be cable free.
Anyway, apologies if this is unhelpful.
Re question 1 – if, as MM says (and I dont have 5s myself), you can only connect 1 device to BL5, you would need to connect the BS9000 to the BL5s in the normal way to get your CD playback, and then connect your streaming transport (Blusound, Wiim etc) to the BS9000.
Check with Steve what cable you need – but you’d need an idea of what streaming box you are going to use. Some streaming boxes will output both digital from one output, but can also output analogue (if the streaming box has its own internal DAC), from a different output. My guess is that it should be possible for the streaming box, when it wakes up to stream, will activate the BS9000 and BL5s – again check this with Steve I’d suggest.
Again, I wouldn’t lose sight of your main goal – there may well be all B&O solutions to both rooms, but you’d need to be confident / happy in using the B&O app to play your NAS music, though I’d be surprised given how rudimentary / skeletal the experience is.
As for room 2, I’ll leave others to opine on that.
Otherwise, when it comes to multi-room music, if you get the same streaming box for each room, that may well be sufficient, as (for example) the Blusound app will be able to multi-room including any room where it sees a Blusound box (similar to Sonos).
Anyway, I do think (of you havent decided already) you need to decide on what and how you want to control your NAS library (remember, the NAS library can sit hidden away, but you streaming box will see it, fold in its contents, and act as the “local to each room” conduit).
With respect to tv/movie watching – let the mic calibration setup do its thing.
It will most likely allocate only one of the BST front facings as Centre channel, and that’ll most likely be ok. The BST Technical Sound Guide mentions that those setup including large front l/r speakers attached (50s/90s etc) may want to activate all three BST front facings as centre channels, but otherwise I’d go with the mic calibration/setup suggested setup.
As for music listening, thats more a matter of preference I’d say. Personally, I’d define a music listening position of BL8s+BL19 (i.e no Theatre) – that should be ideal for music. You could, for some types of listening experience, leave the Theatre off, and just use the pair of BL8s (paired, in Beosound mode) and have a nice BL8s only time.
Of course, you can experiment with including the Theatre for music – but I’m not sure if thats really going to be worth the effort.
B&O, when it comes to control UIs, dont cater well for NAS stored music, so you’re right to look elsewhere for that part.
I can agree to some extend for the Moment. But on all other players (BS35, Essense, Shape, Harmony, Theatre, BL28, Balance) the control of NAS stored Music is heavily dependant of the DLNA server used and the ability to tweak the settings of this server.
Sure, there are dependencies in the chain.
But using the B&O app to browse a large library of NAS stored music is truly dreadful. There are much better other options.
I’d suggest you (if you havent already) speak to an installer, tell him what use case scenarios you want, and he’ll advise on the cabling etc necessary.
When I had my apartment ripped out and re-done, my B&O dealer came round in advance, and he advised me / drew up a cable map. Included some additional cables for future possible usage.
The only other thing I’d do in your case is to have a chat / sanity check with Steve (of Sounds Heavenly), especially with respect to connecting (non-B&O) TVs to BL9s or BL5s (I’m assuming you have non-B&O Tvs).
they both have loads of connectivity options wirelessly – both include Spotify yes.
Both seemingly have pretty good apps of their own, through which you should see your NAS music.
The only thing you may want to research / check beforehand is how well they handle very large NAS libraries – as yours seems to be. Roon (with a Roon server setup somewhere in the house, doesn’t matter where) is superb with massive libraries, but you may not want to go down that route.
Generally though, you’ve got pretty damn good reasonably priced options like the Blusound and Wiim (and others) – and both with good control UIs.
I ditched my Moment years ago, and have 3rd party hardware feeding my B&O speakers (I use Roon as a control UI), and its perfect – B&O, when it comes to control UIs, dont cater well for NAS stored music, so you’re right to look elsewhere for that part.
Connecting Beolab 9 to TV and Turntable
byu/MrRichardSmoker626 inBangandOlufsenA Blusound Node for each room – one connected to the BL9, one connected to the BL5.
BluOS is pretty well regarded, and can pick up your NAS music.
The Moment is not a good solution, nor a good product – I had one for a couple of years and got rid of it.
Indeed, I would just read the Technical Sound Guide, it helps give a better understanding.
With respect to wide / narrow mode – the TSG does mention that for 50/90s, put the speaker in the preferred preset (part of which is wide / narrow) before doing the mic based setup with the Theatre.
“you should ensure that the Beolab 50s or Beolab 90s are in the appropriate Preset before running the automatic setup measurement on the Theatre.”
Whether that applies to the BL28s, I dont know.
Question about this suggestion: Set the external loudspeakers to Left- and Right-Front Set the centre output on the television to Centre Front Set the Left and Right internal outputs of the television to Left- and Right-Surround when calibrating the theatre with multiple speakers some speaker roles (and I believe woofers) are left out. Does the theatre still use these woofers for other channels or not? The side firing are left out most. I could imagine the sides supporting a surround or even back speaker roll and keep the BL28 behind the sofa as surrounds for most effect/usage. With the added BL8’s should the L and R woofer group of 3 be left as L/R channels with added 8’s further out in line with BST or all configured as centre? BST gives a master control and balanced calibration but the assignment ment of channels is a bit unclear when having built in and external speakers competing the same position they are built for regards
For any of the individual speaker / drivers in the Theatre NOT given an assigned role, then yes they will be inactive.
With BL8s added as front L/R, then if you run the mic calibration then yes the Theatre SW will not assign any of its own drivers as front L/R as well. You can of course manually re-assign individual Theatre drivers as additional front L/R’s, though I dont really see the point.
Might be worth reading the BST Technical Sound Guide – its helpful understanding what is going on. But big picture, when you run the mic calibration, if the Theatre senses specific external speakers / assigns them a role (for example front l/r), then it won’t double up that role with any of the sound bars own internal drivers.
As for your suggestion at the start of your post, not sure I understand it properly – as it seems to be talking about the televisions own speaker / outputs, i.e not using the Theatre. So maybe worth clarifying /rephrasing your suggestion / question.
2. Roon / Core – Yes the Core will show up as both a Chromecast endpoint and Airplay endpoint. Enable either or both in the Roon settings.
3. Volume control – yes the B&O app has volume control for the Core. You can also use the Beoremote 1, though thats predominately a Tv remote, so might be overkill if you don’t have B&O tv. But both options are available.
4. no comment on this – high quality means many different things to different people.
6. Yes.
8. There will doubtless be alternatives. But if you use case / demands are straightforward, the Core is quite a neat solution. Non-straightforward demands being things such as having a Roon Ready endpoint as opposed to a (Roon visible) but only Airplay / CC endpoint. Or a streamer with native Tidal Connect, etc etc. Or something with a very high end DAC on board.
But for perfectly fine streaming, a bridge for your turntable, and ability to connect and setup/control 18s+19, the Core is a neat solution.
Personally I’d say one of the high end streamer/DAC units would be somewhat wasted / unnecessary for speakers like the 18s. (I had 18s and a 19 for 7 years)
I updated, and can’t see a single meaningful or noticeable difference to the previous version to be honest.
It seems to have subtly changed in 5.4.1 – tap the 3 dots still, but then you need to tap Sources (previously called Source Startup behaviour), and you can Edit and re-order there.
The option to tap Beoremote, select a paired remote, and chose “Remote List” has gone.
But no big deal, you can do all the same (with 5.4.1) under Sources, and any changes are reflected more or less immediately on your BR1.
Select the Theatre from the product main screen.
Click the 3 dots, top right corner to access settings.
Select Sources (if you are on the beta) – its called Source Startup Behaviour in the non-beta I think.
You can Edit the list there – including dragging items up and down, i.e to re-order the list. This is what is reflected / shown on your BR1.
As for the source list under the Now Playing app screen (black screen) – thats a moving beast, and whether the non-beta or the new beta version, there are no separate options to customise the list that shows there.
Guessing you are not a Theatre owner? (forgive me if I am wrong)
All the settings are done through the app, nothing on the TV itself.
So within the app, once you have paired a BR1 to your Theatre, the separate settings section on Sources allows you to pick and order your Remote List – both under the BR1 TV and Music buttons. It then syncs to the physical BR1, and works well, with changes made in the app reflected quickly on the handheld remote.
Relating back to my previous thread comments re this beta, the new app design should aim for the drop down source list ( at least for the Theatre) mirroring the Remote Lists that you have set in the app and are sync’d to the BR1, as a minimum starting point.
no cables visible!