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
Thanks for the add, first time post .
There is an auction for a pair of 9's and I'm reasonably confident I can win them, however I won't be able to listen to them first. Having no other BO equipment, I'm looking for advice on hooking them up to a pc with an external dac. I've seen the rca to din cable. Is that all I need? Are there any issues I should be aware of once I get them home? I'm truly excited to own these as I've yet to find a single poor review of these.
You will need an RCA to Powerlink adapter for each speaker to go from what I assume are RCA outs on the DAC to the Beolab 9. On the back of the 9 are two PL sockets, either works, they're daisy chained. Also there are two three way switches, one for position of the speaker (corner, along a wall, free standing) and the other to select L, R, or Line input. Select line, PL carries both L and R signals, so you need to tell the speaker which side it is for a B&O setup, your PL to RCA will only carry one signal, and you set Line to let it know this and to let it use autosense to turn the speaker on when it detects an audio signal rather than be turned on via the PL power on discrete command.
Also, you will need a way to control volume upstream of the DAC, with the computer as the BL9 is just a speaker, it has no way to control volume. I assume you'll be using your computer to change volume settings?
I think you'll like them, I love mine.
Jeff
I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus.
you will then need a 3.5mm to rca socket adapter as the rca plug ends on the din to rca cable would go the sockets on the adapter which you then connect into the headphone socket on your computer.
From there you would use the volume on your computer to output sound to the lab9s not forgetting to set the switches on both speakers to line.
Beoplay A2
Sorry what i was supposed to say was if using the din to rca cables for the beolab9 you would need a 3.5mm female y adapter which you would connect the rca plug ends into with the jack end going into headphone socket on the computer using the computers volume to output sound to the lab9s.
He said he's using an outboard DAC, but he'd need the 3.5mm mini plug if he was going right out of the computer audio out jack. For an outboard DAC I'm assuming it has RCA outs.
right you are jeff overlooked the dac part.
Thanks guys, yeh I'm using a A Maverick Auditor D2 DAC via usb. I control it with a Griffin Power Mate, playing mostly flac files via Fubar. The D2 has two outputs (one tube, one chip) so I'm thinking about trying to get the Beolab 2 sub for sale as well and running it from the second set of outputs so I could controll it independently and only use as needed. I assume I'd do this with another din to rca cable? Would you happen to know a fair price for a used BL 2 sub?
If you use a BL2 you need to run the cable to the BL2 and then from the BL2s output to the BL9s to take advantage of the high/low pass filters/xover in the sub. But, I wouldn't say you need a sub, the BL9 can put out plenty of accurate bass, Geoff Martin pointed out in one thread that the bass output capability of one BL9 woofer is equal to a BL2. You could set the BL2 higher in output or put it in a corner to boost bass but I'm betting that would not be as accurate as just using the BL9s.
I listen to reggae, rap, electronic music quite a bit so I thought I'd just use it what I wanted to bother the neighbors or for a future surround sound system.
trust me if i was in a position to own beolab9s i can assure you that you wouldn't need a sub i listen to raggae hiphop drum and bass and from demos i've heard with that speaker they handled that genre of music with ease.
Just to reinforce what others have said - I have a pair of BL9s as front speakers in a surround sound setup, and whilst I also own a BL2 I have configured this to only operate when I switch to cinema mode (ie when using my projector).
The BL2 adds some extra low down 'room shaking' rumble for explosions and the like during movies, but in my option is detrimental to the sound quality for music (of any genre). The BL9s produce wonderful, tight bass (and sub-bass) on their own whereas the BL2 can be a bit slow and muddy sounding in comparison.
I'd recommend holding off on the BL2 purchase until you've heard what the BL9s are capable of on their own..
Martin.
How the BL9 and the BL2 behaves depends (amongst other things) on the bass management of the setup.
The BSys4 allows for some 'tweaking' (if you really want both) - a BSys3-based setup again behaves different.....
Since there is no bass management (other than the volumen controls of the pre-amp) in the setup of the op, he could run both....if that is really, what he wants.
He will get a lot of bas then ;-)
Not that it is needed with the BL9's, but some people don't seem to get enough bass!
I'd save the money (for the BL2) for a rainy day.
MM
There is a tv - and there is a BV
Thank you guys so much for the information. If I'm lucky enough to get the 9's I'm sure I will be be picking your brains on a continuing basis. I get that the BL2 is not up to the same standards as the 9's however, if I can get it cheap enough I will buy it on it's looks alone. I've collected the mid-century modern thing for going on 20 years. So excited to have something Modern Danish instead of Danish Modern.
So to put a tack in the BL2- is it a worthwhile investment at >$500 USD? I have a 1 year old so it will probably spend the next few years in a closet, but BO stuff of this caliber is so rare on the used market in this area, I think I would regret not getting it. The 9's are definitely the goal, but I'd hate to go to pick them up and have to walk out of that room without the little boomer...
Anyway some more questions if you guys will continue to humor me. I've heard of some reliability issues. How hard are these to work on? Is this a 'back to the factory' for repair piece? Are there any issues I should be aware of initially?
Also should I get them, do you guys recommend I eventually get a BO head unit? How do most of you run your powerlink setups?
With those caveats and if you can get it for a good price, no reason not to go for a BL2. That'll give you the option if you ever go video sound as well for a dedicated .1 setup. And also as you say it's an intriguing modern design piece.
No idea about service but they are new enough they should be serviceable by B&O, at least the BL9s.
As for how I use mine, I have a Playmaker that runs into the aux port of my Beosound 9000, with a Beogram 3000 into the aux in on the Playmaker, and the BL9s connected to the BS9000 of course.
The Playmaker looks like an interesting product. I could use this exclusively to control the 9's. Is this a dealer only item. I see many of their products on Amazon, but not the Playmaker.
Godataloss:The Playmaker looks like an interesting product. I could use this exclusively to control the 9's. Is this a dealer only item. I see many of their products on Amazon, but not the Playmaker.
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 see some on Ebay pretty reasonably priced. Was it not a good product? It looks like a Styrofoam take out box. I don't need a disc player- all of my digital music is on a home server. Since this also has a phono input, it looks like it might suit my needs quite nicely.
Anyone want to share their experience with the Playmaker?
People's experiences with the Playmaker are highly variable, mainly due to networking and Apple AirPlay instability issues. I'm fortunate in that I don't live in an area saturated with wifi signals, I can sometimes just barely even detect one of my neighbors. That being said, I have had very good luck with my Playmaker...I have it setup with a fixed IP address (recommended) and the only problems I had were early on before I found out that an application on my PC was stepping on the network. I had this Netgear Genie app that ran in the background and monitored the health of the router, but when it wanted to ping the router and get status info it just stomped on the other network traffic from the PC. I removed it and my streaming is fine to the Playmaker. It will sometimes drop and need to be restarted, the PM, but that seems to happen every 3 or 4 months.
Some people here will swear at rather than by the Playmaker though, but if you can find one cheap it'd do everything you need. When I first got my PM and my 9s I had them setup without the other B&O gear, and it worked fine and sounded very good. I ran the Playmaker Powerlink outs via the RJ to PL cables to the BL9s. A very simple and efficient setup,even if the Playmaker is not the most stunningly attractive looking piece of B&O gear out there, it also doesn't attract much attention to itself at all it's so benign looking (aka boring).
Now I run my Beogram thru a phono preamp into the aux in on the Playmaker, and run the Playmaker output, set to a fixed level, to my aux in on the BS9000. Oh, and with the PM not only will the Beo4 remote turn it on and turn volume up and down, it will also skip forward and back on whatever playlist or album you're streaming.
p.s. I still absolutely love my BL9s, to my ears the only real thing you sacrifice compared to the BL5s is the deepest bass, but since I don't listen to organ music (about the only thing other than movie special effects that goes that low) I'm not complaining! Stunning imaging, depth, and midrange, smooth but not harsh treble, great dispersion, you can sit over a wide area and still get a good stereo separation.
Thanks for the info Jeff. I won't be using it as airplay. I'm an android guy. My server supports DNLA though so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Have you used the apps to control it?
The auction continues to edge up and the wife's getting nervous. Gonna have to put some toys on CL I guess...
I have been an advocate for the Playmaker since day one.
Nowadays it is pretty much the center of my music listening.
I have hooked it up similar to how Jeff does it.
And have had no issues, as long as I have had it (being one of the first to buy it).
Originally I wanted to run a network cable to it, but tried it wirelessly for a start.
It worked flawlessly in my network, so I skipped the hustle of getting a cable to where it is located.
I mostly use AirPlay with it (and the line-in connection).
DLNA works well, but only works for 'your' own collection. AirPlay is much more convinient - playing netradio (TuneIN app) and everything from my (i)device.
There are several DLNA apps, that works well as control point for it - just pick it in the list of DLNA players on your network.
I recently purchased a Playmaker on eBay, it was supposed to be "New Other", which meant a store demo. I have this on my BeoLab 4000 & BeoLab 11 (silver!). It works well, but occasionally it just stops working, usually in the middle of a song. I have to power it down and up again to get it to reset. It started doing this about once a week, but lately I have been getting a little longer usage before I have to recycle the power.
My Essence's work well, except for the one in my bedroom that looses the remote occasionally and needs to be re-paired.
I've never used DLNA with it, just AirPlay from iTunes on my PC (Win 7) or Spotify via Airplay from my iPad or iPhone. In fact that's how I first came to diagnose the problem with the app on the PC, it worked fine from the iPad but dropped out from the PC. After dumping the genie app on the PC the PC worked too.
I see an android app that is compatible with the Playmaker, but it looks like it's just for network utility and firmware updates. I've had a PC in my systems for years. This only having a single input might be a deal breaker. Not sure I'm ready to give it up. I mostly listen to my own files, but there are occasions when I listen to google music or npr online.
What is the least expensive 'head unit' besides this that would be compatible with the 9's? Maybe I stick with my DAC and conversion cables until I can find something different.
BuppleUPnP is the most used DLNA app for Android devices.
Of course you will have to have a DLNA server running on your pc as well - just accessing a (music) file structure is not possible.