ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
@Anders, @Normann
Looking forward to read about your experiences with the S3 in your surroundings/setup.
MM
There is a tv - and there is a BV
krstec:Hi Dave So is the verdict that a pair of speakers can't be wireless linked in line in mode? I see that you been in contact with the support but is this your final conclusion also? This whole thing seams very strange and makes med sad as I just ordered a pair for this use! I wanted to use it with my Iphone, thus howver the phone does not support APTx bluetooth and the sound with bluetooth would be shitxxty to say the least. My plan was to connect my Aiport express to the back as a backpack (the airport express have a very good analog dad built in) and use airplay to get loseless audio in stereo sound. I am confused why they actually show "iphones" in the manual as an iphone connected with normal ad2p bluetooth connection would sound as good as a homemade can speaker to be frank, why no airplay?! With what you say now this is just to forget? If so I would need to return them. :-( I been reading the manual and it is not fully clear but i think the manual confirms your findings? What transmission technique do you think there is in-between the speakers? APTx or BnO own wireless protocol?
Beosystem 4 , Beoremote One, Samsung LED 65 Zoll, ATV4 PUC, BL 8000 Frontspeaker, Center BL 7.1, BeoPlay S8 black Rear Wandhalterung, Beosound Essence MK2 mit IR an Beolink passiv an Bose 161 weiß, Beomaster 3000 mit Beocord 3000 an BeoVox CX50 weiß, BeoCom 1401 mit IR Control, BeoCom 2000 weiß, Beoplay M5, Ex-Beosound Ouverture RDS, Ex-BV 10-40 MK3 mit Beo4 DTV an Dreambox 500V2, Ex - Beoplay V1-40 weiß , Ex-BV 8-26 mit Beo4 DTV an Technisat Digit S2e PUC, ex BeoSound 3, Ex-Beolit 12 Darkgrey, ex B&O A8 Earphones
x16szr:Hallo lieber Millemissen, Danke für Deine Nachricht!! Ich habe Dich nochmal angeschrieben mit einer "unverschämten" Bitte.😉 Gruß aus Dortmund, Stefan.
Danke für Deine Nachricht!!
Ich habe Dich nochmal angeschrieben mit einer "unverschämten" Bitte.😉
Gruß aus Dortmund, Stefan.
@Stefan
Sorry - Ich kann zwar eine Nachricht (über Beoworld) senden, weiss aber nicht wo ich die Antworten lesen soll
Thanks for your answer Dave!
There says a lot in the FAQ on the b&o site that is not in the manual, where it explicitly states that line in should be auto sense which you maybe have seen to :-)
From the FAQ
Dave Farr:We've gone bilingual all of a sudden. Please share. Dave.
Dave.
Yes - and I don't know why.
Anyway, it is nothing of common interest.
Just a require, if I could help, when the S3 (at DustinHome) were ordered from Germany, since the only deliever in DK.
I have written, that we will have to correspont directly on this!
So, now....back to the theme of the OP - you did not miss anything ;-)
Dave Farr:How many do they have in stock though?
I have no idea!
Hi.
I may have a single black one for sale as I orderne one at a discountet price at Telia, and 2 from Dustin at a even lower price. The one from Telia has arrived but the two from Dustin are apparently in backorder. As soon as I have a fixed delevery date from Dustin will let the other one go. My plan was to return it within 14 days but I might as well offer it here. I just have to cover my expenses 2000 kr + shipping.
Brgds Mogens
Hi everyone,
I'm new to this forum and I'm new as a B&O user :) Dave, thanks for sharing your experiences in so much detail.
What I was searching for recently, was a pair of speakers for my living room, next to my TV. I would mostly use them by connecting them to my laptop/iPad or iPhone and listen music via Spotify or Youtube. I recently went to a B&O store, just out of curiosity, and I was blown away by the amazing sound for such a small speaker. When I saw them around the corner at Telia for 2000DKK instead of 3000DKK, I was sold. I bought 2 in white today. I was almost afraid that the price was a mistake, so I haven't mentioned at the B&O store that I was going to purchase them around the corner. People who paid the full amount must be quite upset... I feel like I "saved" 2000DKK!
They are heavy and really well-build. It was a pleasure to unpack them and put them in place. Pairing them to my phone or laptop didn't take long. And after 2/3 times I also figured out how to connect them to each other. Now they are playing beautifully for a couple of hours. My first impression: I'm absolutely blown away... I listen to a lot of classical (piano) music, as well as music like live concerts of John Mayer or more bass-heavy music like Kygo (Try the track "Nothing Left" on high volume and make your friends jealous like I did haha). My music taste is quite diverse, but it all sounds amazing to me. I never had any fancy sound equipment before, so maybe it's also because I didn't have much to compare with.
I watch a lot of movies and series via chromecast to my TV, so I think it should be possible to have the speakers play the movie-sound as well. I'm going to try that tomorrow. Otherwise I will use the cables to connect my TV with both speakers. If anyone can advice me on this, it would be very welcome.
I'm not so technical and I did not have much to compare with, but I cannot believe that I ever need to upgrade this set-up... Two S3's provide a tsunami of clear sound that makes me sit in my couch with a smile on my face. I also really love the design... they look modern and subtle and in front of a white wall you almost wonder where all that sound comes from.
So far, so good! If anyway has any questions, let me know!
Hi MD and welcome to Beoworld,
glad to hear, that you enjoy these small beasts.
I Find rhem pretty amazing, too!
Please read my post on the previous page about my conversation with my dealer.
Looking forward to hear, how they work, when you connect them to your tv.
BeoNut since '75
Millemissen: epkgael:Interesting to hear what tour dealer says My dealer just shook his head and said, that he couldn't even buy them (from B&OPlay) at that price. He adviced me to buy one from DusinHome, if I need one - that is, what he would have done ;-)) It seems that a product like the S3 was not meant for the traditional Bang & Olufsen dealers, but for online resellers etc The mobilephone provider Telia (in DK) sell them for 2000 DKK three shops down the road. DustinHome must have gotten these really cheap - probably because they ordered a lot. P.S. Nothing wrong with the sound and the build-quality (at that price level) - they sound/it sounds really good. If anyone needs a stationary bluetooth speaker (for the kitchen, bath etc) - buy it! MM
epkgael:Interesting to hear what tour dealer says
My dealer just shook his head and said, that he couldn't even buy them (from B&OPlay) at that price.
He adviced me to buy one from DusinHome, if I need one - that is, what he would have done ;-))
It seems that a product like the S3 was not meant for the traditional Bang & Olufsen dealers, but for online resellers etc
The mobilephone provider Telia (in DK) sell them for 2000 DKK three shops down the road.
DustinHome must have gotten these really cheap - probably because they ordered a lot.
P.S. Nothing wrong with the sound and the build-quality (at that price level) - they sound/it sounds really good.
If anyone needs a stationary bluetooth speaker (for the kitchen, bath etc) - buy it!
I can confirm this. The S3 will be distributed differently and the price will fluctuate. The dealers normally has to have all Beoplay products in their stores, but for S3 its different. Its not mandatory for a dealer to retail them.
Livingroom: BL3, BL11, BV11-46 Kitchen: Beosound 1 GVA, Beocom 2 Bathroom: M3 Homeoffice: M3, Beocom 2 Library: Beosound Emerge, Beocom 6000 Bedroom: M5, Essence remote Travel: Beoplay E8 2.0, Beoplay EQ, Beoplay Earset
I am just finished unpacking the S3 and played some tunes on it, and i am so, so happy that i bought it!
So much rich and good sound from that tiny little box, i almost can't wait to tell the children what santa is going to bring them this year
The only problem now is that i have to much and i am out of room in my house
Hi
Ok, have tried this with my stereo pair that arrived today, and i cant connect them in true wireless with line in!
Been trying several times and resetting them and the result is zero. The only logic i can make this then into is that it needs a digital signal to be able to perform true wireless as true wireless works with bluetooth and the usb in.
While the speakers in a steropair are well suited for my living space, it is a bummer that true stero is not working on a line in.... Will try more and if i find a "bug" i will post it here as I really wished it would be possible to make these speakers to work with an airplay configuration.
Can someone explain to me what true stereo means?
Even though I am still absolutely in love with the sound quality of my two S3's, I must say I had some stability issues today... Sometimes a song plays like it's "buffering" and one time my speakers even stopped playing (disconnected) in the middle of a song I was playing on Spotify.... Does anyone have an idea what I can do about that?
Still, I enjoyed the great sound quality for hours today, but those little instability issues are annoying... you just want something like this to work steady as a rock and now I had to re-connect a bunch of times and re-pair them etc. Grrrrrr.
Thanks!
Means, that you can't pair them wirelessly, if you feed the audio with a line-in cable.
I notice, that they speak of a connection to a BV or a BS using cables - great.
Might be worth considering for my guestroom-/office-V1, which has no external speakers yet.
Dave Farr: Ina also said 'BL90? What BL90?' Yeah, right! Dave.
Ina also said 'BL90? What BL90?' Yeah, right!
You weren't really surpriced, were you ;-)
Millemissen: Dave Farr: Ina also said 'BL90? What BL90?' Yeah, right! Dave. You weren't really surpriced, were you ;-) MM
Not surprised in the least but it was said very 'tongue in cheek'!
Dave, do you mind if I ask a clarifying question? These are hard wired, bluetooth off, and still disconnect?
lupend88: Dave, do you mind if I ask a clarifying question? These are hard wired, bluetooth off, and still disconnect?
It's a bit difficult to clarify as they do different things!
I have never connected the two speakers together (daisychained) via a 3.5mm cable. I will be trying that in the next day or two. When I have connected my iPad or iPod to one speaker via the line-in 3.5mm cable, sometimes it has not played anything but mostly it does (when not in multi-speaker mode!) This was why I questioned B&O about it.
If the 3.5mm line-in input jack is occupied - the Bluetooth function is automatically turned off so you can't use Bluetooth while they are hard wired. This is a major flaw in my view but should be easy to fix via an update I hope.
I hope that's clear. As clear as mud in a way as I still think they have a mind of their own sometimes. I'm going to give my speakers the same names as my daughters!
Hi all
After waiting 5 days to get my hands on the new investment, i was truly excited to get them playing. The excitement was also amplified by the fact that this is my first B&O product, after i have been in love with B&O for years. The settings were furthermore perfect: friday night, a beer in my hand and the girlfriend watching TV.
What i ordered was 4 S3's in white, 2 in black and a Sonos Connect. My current setup is a Sonos Play:5 and a Sonos Play:1.
After unpacking a white speaker, my girlfriend was completely sold by the design. She said that they were even better than on pictures. Please mind that my girlfriend is VERY critical when it comes to speakers (and many other things...). The look of the black one is just as good.
I hooked up to S3 to the Sonos Connect (which of course installed completely painless) via line-in, put a track on and - nothing. The speaker was not playing. I tried to look in the manual, which says nothing about the line-in. Well, what to do? Try the next one of course. This one started playing immediately - great.
My plan was to compare the S3 to the Play:1, so i put on some tunes and switched between the two. The S3 really sounds great! It is impressive how much good sound can be put into this small cube. There is however one problem - the Play:1 really sounds great to! Ever since i got it, i have been impressed by the sound of it.
It is very difficult to declare a winner between the two when it comes to sound. They do play very different. I think that the S3 is more clear and nuanced while the Play:1 plays more evenly across the spectre. My guess is that most hardcore listeners would prefer the S3 while most everyday listeners would prefer the relaxed sound. All-in-all they both sound great by them selves, and most people would love listening to either each day.
I then tried to connect another S3 in daisy-chain, excited to see if this would lift them to a whole new level. I put in the cable between the two and put them in multiple speaker mode and - nothing I pushed some buttons, with no idea of the function, and at some point they started playing. I have no idea why. The sound was pretty much the same. Of course a bit of stereo-perspective but thats it. I can confirm that in order to separate left and right when using line in, you have to only feed the left speaker with the left channel and vice-versa.
To sum up:
S3
+ Very good sound, the size taken into account.
+ Very nice design.
+ Bluetooth connection seems to work well.
- Some background noise both for bluetooth and line-in connection.
- Not very good software. The behaviour seems inconsistent.
- Line-in connection does not seem to be a good option. Should be used for daisy-chain only
Play:1
+ Market leading software. Only Apple, Dropbox and a few others can make software this good.
To conclude, i would say that if you need a nice bluetooth speaker, take the S3. The wireless bluetooth setup seems to work very well in both mono and stereo, but the line-in (auto-sense) is not very good. If you would like a brilliant multiroom-setup, take the Play:1. I'm not done testing, but at this moment my feeling is that the S3's are going back.
As i side note i am thinking that if B&O had implemented the multiroom capability into the S3, it would have been a killer product which could solely boost the turnaround significantly. Furthermore this would allow people to mix-and-match S3's for bathrooms, A9's for dining room, BL18's for living room etc. For many people it would have been the perfect way into a trap which would very quickly suck the money out of you. Instead they have made a so-so bluetooth speaker, where the design is the main argument to choose this over a discount model from the nearest market.
I hope the text is readable. I'm to tired to go back and proof-read it
AndersKjergaard:My plan was to compare the S3 to the Play:1, so i put on some tunes and switched between the two. The S3 really sounds great! It is impressive how much good sound can be put into this small cube. There is however one problem - the Play:1 really sounds great to! Ever since i got it, i have been impressed by the sound of it.
Thanks for this comparaison. I'm a bit disappointed as I was expecting S3's sound to be far better than the Play:1. I hope that the A6 will be 'perfect' with no software or bluetooth issues...
benoit:Thanks for this comparaison. I'm a bit disappointed as I was expecting S3's sound to be far better than the Play:1 . I hope that the A6 will be 'perfect' with no software or bluetooth issues...
I read through some of the experiences here... good to hear that everyone likes the sound just as much as I do. The last days my problem has become bigger though:
Even when I for instance play a YouTube video on my laptop which is completely buffered, or I'm playing an mp3 file, the sound out of my speakers frequently stutters... as if the bluetooth signal can't keep up :( It also happens often that only the left speaker is playing, even though the speakers should be paired. Sometimes there comes sound out of the right one for 1 or 2 seconds before it stops again. I played the same songs before and it definitely doesn't have to do with the stereo recording of the song or so. The last 2 days I basically stopped listening music, because it frustrates me so much that they don't play stable music, even though I know the sound out of them could be so beautiful.
I've tried everything, re-pairing, reconnecting, placing my laptop closer (for the bluetooth signal?)... For some strange reason it almost surprises me now if a song plays smoothly :( It's one of the first times I bought a "high quality" tech-product and I'm not sure what to do now... any people with similar experiences? I'm considering to exchange them if that's possible at Telia, which I'm very sad about because I love the design and the potential sound quality.
Any tips? :(
Thanks both for your quick replies.
My speakers are only 1/2 meter apart from each other, on both sides of my tv. Even with my laptop (macbook pro, december 2011) right next to the master speaker it's frequently unstable. Right now it works with my iphone 4S, but only if I place it close to the speaker. If I take my phone to the couch 2/3 meters away it already stops playing...
I really expected things to be better with a brand like B&O... I was under the impression I really bought the best of the best. Would I need a new phone/laptop in order to make it stream via bluetooth better? They are not that old and work fine...
On a positive note: the pairing seems good now and when it plays stable like this I love the sound quality.
Thanks again for the feedback. It's nice that this forum exists to share experiences :)
With your (now old) Macbook Pro you probably would benefit from an external bluetooth dongle like this:
http://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/creative-bluetooth-audio-bt-w2-usb-transceiver
Older Macs does not support BT4.0 - google for finding out, if yours does.
Just a tip.
I finally got hold of my pair this weekend. Here are my initial thoughts comparing the S3 to BeoLab 4 (PC) as computer speakers.
+ Built and overall quality feel of materials are as good as the BL4's
+ Surprizingly wide and open sound with phenomenal stereo feel. The whole room is filled with sound. Here the Lab 4's are totally blown away with their very narrow and direct sound.
+ No electronic noise is carried over to the speaker from the PC connection. This was a big problem with the BL4's.
- Sound is much less punchier than BL4. The out of the box sound from the BL4's is quite flat, however when using the right EQ-tools I got them to deliver punchy and warm sound almost on par with the BeoLab 4000's. When trying out the same EQ as with the Lab 4's the S3's just sound muffled.
+/- Overall different sounding compared to BL 4 PC. I have not yet found out if I like the sound better than BL4.
BeoVision Eclipse 55, BeoPlay S8 (sub+rears), BeoPlay A9 MKII (living room), BeoVision Avant 32 DVD (retro gaming, basement), BeoLab 4000 (entertainment room, basement), BeoSound 8 (workshop), 2x BeoPlay S3 (PC), BeoPlay A1, BeoPlay H2/H3 (on the go)
@elephant
Please don't forget, that EQ setting are very much depending on the room, where the speakers are.