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
I have now received and installed my brand new BS5 Encore. A really nice device!
Here are my first thoughts :
- The table stand is made in an extraterrestrial material : I have never seen something so small wheighting so much!
- As there is only one powerlink out, remember to be sure you have a long enough Powerlink Y splitter (or that your Beolabs are daisy-chained). My Y cable is a bit too short...
- The "fuzzy effect" while turning the wheel is not as annoying as I thought initially, you get a smooth response to the wheel turning at low speed
- My current NAS is a LaCie 2Big Network 2, and everything works flawlessly (I had previously made a very clean library with flac files, and a folder.jpg image in each album directory.
- My folder.jpg images are in 600px resolution. As the Encore displays them in 500px, there is an ugly downsacling with a lot of aliasing. Use 500px covers for best result.
- Sound quality is very good (that's a basic at this price and for this brand!!)
- No gapless playback is a nightmare on classical and mixed albums. PLEASE B&O, hurry up!!!
- Why is there no "Genre" choice in the library? That would help me!
- The Encore has run the MOTS calculations all night long, and it has only done something like 25% of the library (if the full analysis is at the end of the wheel). My library is approx. 6000 FLAC and 500 lossy files.
- The radio list is marketed as "high quality", but it's usually highly compressed streams (that's also the radio's fault...)
- The radio display is a bit poor : no logo, no schedule displayed on that big screen. (I like how TuneIn displays infos in a clean way on the iPad/iPhone)
- It communicates via the wired connection at a rate of 100Mbit/s, not 1000Mbit/s. So don't worry about network speed.
- I hope that a new software for 2-ways Beo6 and an iPad app will be released soon, to widen the use of the Encore.
- I hope that a Qobuz/Spotify/Deezer streaming functionality is planned. Every network players start to be compatible, a high end player should be!
- Labels says "country of origin : Denmark". Doesn't seem to be outsourced in China, that's sad, because that could have started a very popular thread on the new Beoworld
I will add new things here when I discover them!
Initial conclusion : nice device, but some flows (gapless, image resizing, 2ways) should need to be corrected soon, for a high end device it's a bit lacking in functionality.
diisign.com
mbee:Initial conclusion : nice device, but some flows (gapless, image resizing, 2ways) should need to be corrected soon, for a high end device it's a bit lacking in functionality.
Thanks for that, very interesting. For such a high cost device (subjective I know), that the product is flawed and lacking in functionality is disappointing to say the least.
In terms of functionality, you currently get less than a Sonos (Sonos can play ALAC, gapless, Spotify+Deezer, play in sync in multiroom, can be used as a alarm clock with different hours for each day), but you also get some things that Sonos can't offer : MOTS, and a nice display with a cool way to browse your library (the Sonos interface on the iPad touchscreen is not so nice to play with)... It seems to be nothing, but it adds a lot when you have a big library.
I've found that the Encore doesn't understand the disc number information... So if you have multiple disc albums and don't want to have as many covers as discs in the same album, you have to number the disc 2 and next ones with the chronology of the previous disc.
Not a big issue, but something I shouldn't have to care about...
I think that as long as the tag info says disc one and disc two in the title, the Encore is fine recognising the different discs. Its just that some of the databases don't label the discs as one and two no?
Also, wasn't ALAC added to the BS5 functionality about a couple of months ago?
Nice review! I too am longing for streaming and two way to come to this product asap!
@Newcastle : there are 3 ways of taging multiple disc albums :
1. Tag the title, for example : "Britney Spears compilation CD1", "Britney Spears compilation CD2"... (artist name chosen as an example). It will work without problem with the Encore, but you will get 2 albums displayed with identical covers, and I don't like that, I prefer to have only one cover.
2. Tag the disc using the discnumber tag. That's what I did, it worked with the Sonos... But not with the encore
3. Number tracks as if there was only one disc : if disc 1 ends at number 12, start disc 2 at number 13... That's what I will do. And I think that's the best way, because who cares about disc numbers anyway??? Disc is dead, and the 80min limit too! (you can see that Qobuz sells multiple discs albums with that same numbering scheme)
A quick note to say that I started to test MOTS yesterday night (it has scanned almost 1/3 of my library) : the result is interesting, as it only uses song characteristics and no "genre" information, I got results which can be said to have some parameters in common musically, but of totally different styles...
I was used to Apple Genius : it's totally different, and I already start to discover hidden songs of my library (iTunes Genius is too much playing the same songs, I think...)
I will see what it does when there will be more songs analysed...
Maybe a MAC mini with itunes were a better choice... If you except the look... ???
Some would prefer a Mac, I prefer something with a user interface that differs from what I'm using all the day at work. Plus I don't like to listen to always the same songs... mOTS was a key feature for choosing an Encore
Is there already a way to connect the Encore to a ML network?
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BV 11-46 / Beoplay V1 -40 / Apple TV 1+3 / Beosound Essence MK2 / BL3 / 2* BL11 / BL 6000 / BL 12-1 / BL 2000 / 3 * Beo4 /BL Converter 1611
Could you also post some photos? Display, menu etc..
Beovision 10-32, Beolab 2500, Beosound Ouverture, Serenata, Beomaster 2000, Sony BDP-S550, Apple TV 2, MX 7000 & MX 6000, XBOX 360 HALO 4 Bundle.
The best things in life have always been those that last.
We are still waiting for the BeoNet to ML converter... I hope it will come soon!!!!
Here is the first image I took : the little new thing replacing my good old CD player. More will come later!
The BeoSound 2300 (or 3000) seems very "out of age" next to the BeoSound 5 Encore.
Very good choice, and... I too love my BeoSound 5 .
I currently use a PC and iTunes, connected via the aux input on my BS9000 thru an outboard DAC. I find Genius very useful, though certainly iTunes has other annoying anomalies in how it handles things. Sounds like the Beo has some issues too, wish there was a better solution but it seems all have faults.
I'd be really interested in comments about how MOTS differs from Genius. Always thought it'd be fascinating to have the same music collection on both, start with the same seed song, and then see how they compared.
Jeff
I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus.
Jeff:I'd be really interested in comments about how MOTS differs from Genius. Always thought it'd be fascinating to have the same music collection on both, start with the same seed song, and then see how they compared.
The theory/engineering behind both of them is completely different. I am sure that from a common seed there would be many similarities, but I would expect MOTS to throw out very personalised exceptions that Genius would never come up with.
There was once a bit of a discussion on this in the old forum http://archivedarchivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/t/28750.aspx
BeoNut since '75
mbee: Some would prefer a Mac, I prefer something with a user interface that differs from what I'm using all the day at work.
Some would prefer a Mac, I prefer something with a user interface that differs from what I'm using all the day at work.
Hide the MAC; you don't need the user interface...
Perhaps its just my library but does anyone else when using MOTS get duplicate, triplicate or more of the same song after seeding a song? I hope B&O come to their senses and make the BS5 Encore 2 way compatible with the Beo6.
BL90, BL5 x 2, BL9, BL8000 x 2, Penta III x 2, Penta II, BL2, BL4, BL2500, RL6000 x 3, MS150, MS150.2, A9, A1, A2, P2, Beolit 12/17, S70, CX50, CX100, Beovox 2500, BS9000 x 2, BS3000, BS4, BC2, BS1, Moment, Essence MkII x 2, BS5 Encore, BG8002, BC8002, BM8002, BG5500, BV7-40 MkIII, BV11-55, BV Avant 85", BC5, H8, E8, Form 2, A8...Serene
Luke: Perhaps its just my library but does anyone else when using MOTS get duplicate, triplicate or more of the same song after seeding a song? I hope B&O come to their senses and make the BS5 Encore 2 way compatible with the Beo6.
Luke, it isn't just you, or your library. It is how MOTS 'thinks'. Best/worst example: Our library at the shop. When we got our first BS-5 everyone in the shop started bringing in CD's. Then one of us simply brought his hard-drive from home and dumped everything into it. So, we have about a dozen Andrea Bocelli albums, and more Sting and Phil Collins than ought to be allowed by law. If you choose "The Prayer" (or if MOTS runs across it on its own), then you are certainly going to get every copy of the original (original CD, Greatest Hits, Best Of, etc...), as well as every version he's recorded with various different Female partners, oh, and of course the one on Celine's CD's as well. It's because all of these versions are so very similar in structure (not to mention the identical ones.)
A lot of us have favorite artists, and al lot of those have songs on several CD's. The best solution is to put all of the Dupes on the 'Exclude' list.
Hope this helps, gotta run!
Russ
We kid because we love.
@Silou : if you're happy with the Mac Mini solution, I'm happy for you... But I've tried this, and I've also tried the Sonos solution, and I was not so happy with them... So now I try the BS5 way, it's a totally different approach, less geek, more "audiophile"... I don't know how to explain, but the Encore is a very interesting thing.
New discoveries :
-As already stated on the old forum, there is a delay (almost 1s) if you use the A.Aux input. That means that the Encore, like a Sonos, is NOT suitable as an audio center connected to a non-B&O TV. But it seems to be the sign that the Encore doesn't simply output the analog input, but digitalises it, so that it could, I hope in a near future, diffuse the A.Aux in other "BeoNet-linked" devices, like a Sonos.
-I've seen in the old forum that there was a problem with the BS5 and compilations : there is no problem on the Encore (and I hope on the latest BS5 firmware) : at first, you see the compilations multiplied in the "cover" view for as many artists as there are in the compilations. But after the Encore has finished computing the library, you see only one cover under "various" as artist. The artist information is not lost, it's still displayed in the fullscreen view, under the cover : various / artist / title
- duplicate post -
"But it seems to be the sign that the Encore doesn't simply output the analog input, but digitalises it, "
You are perfectly correct - the Encore uses an Analog Devices codec chip which performs both A/D and D/A conversions using onboard clocks.