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This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Today I went to the official Bang & Olufsen website. The BS 5 isn´t listed anymore under audio systems. Is it discontinued? So there is only the BS Moment as a "real" system?
regards, Adrian
The BS Essence (2nd gen) is a 'real' system too - and also the A9 (2nd gen) and the A6.
To a high degree I would count in the NL-BV's too.
Unless you have a specific definition of a 'real' system ;-)
MM
There is a tv - and there is a BV
MM you are being awkward here. AdiS is talking about HiFi I guess like in HiFi separates. A9 is definitely not HiFi the horrible ugly brut of a thing. Please don't confuse real sound with an A9 or cheaply made A6.
AdiS, I recommend that you look elsewhere.
Akward on not - it all depends on how you define 'real' system.
I don't know, what 'HiFi' is - apart from being something, that was used as a definition for audio components way back, before you were even born ;-)
Agreed - if he doesn't like, what B&O makes today, he should look elsewhere...
...or keep his old B&O.
Plug a set of the BL90's into the BSEssence (2nd gen) and you are good to go.
That is stereo (if the source is) ----- and HiFi ;-)
Perhaps it's good to understand that not everybody is an early adopter. A bit of understanding makes it more of a pleasure to read these threads. Besides, the Essence may be a 'real' music system, I can very well understand someone who doesn't think it looks like one...
Paul W:HiFi I guess like in HiFi separates. A9 is definitely not HiFi the horrible ugly brut of a thing.
"HiFi" means square boxes?
Don't think so, its all about the sound quality: High Fidelity
What about the BL90 - design is out of the ordinary (especial in the Emperors clothes).......... but no HiFi ?
I see a great deal of merit of the point the original poster is making. I think of the music system as the heart of the audio in the home -- such as the BeoSound 5 or the Moment. I just can't think of the Essence in the same way. I think of the Essence more as a replacement of a BeoLink Active box for connecting a set of BeoLabs to the system.
I can see how the lines are getting blurred these days with a younger generation using their phones as the source of their music. I for one still prefer the ritual of approaching the music system and selecting the music without using an iOS device.
Paul W: MM you are being awkward here. AdiS is talking about HiFi I guess like in HiFi separates. A9 is definitely not HiFi the horrible ugly brut of a thing. Please don't confuse real sound with an A9 or cheaply made A6. AdiS, I recommend that you look elsewhere.
HiFi? How very old school. You must be closer than we thought to the pipe and slippers image you like to mention.
Graham
beojeff:I see a great deal of merit of the point the original poster is making. I think of the music system as the heart of the audio in the home -- such as the BeoSound 5 or the Moment. I just can't think of the Essence in the same way. I think of the Essence more as a replacement of a BeoLink Active box for connecting a set of BeoLabs to the system. I can see how the lines are getting blurred these days with a younger generation using their phones as the source of their music. I for one still prefer the ritual of approaching the music system and selecting the music without using an iOS device.
Beolab 28s Beolab 9s Beolab 12-3s Beolab 1s Beolab 6000s 2 pairs Beolab 4000s Beovision 7-55 Beovision 10-40 Beoplay V1 32 inch Beovision Avant 32 inch Beosound 1 (CD player) Beosound 3000 Beosound 5 Core Essence MKII Beoplay M5
I have to admit that the current BeoSound range is very limited and not actually my definition of a sound system, because there is no internal source! A BeoSound or BeoPlay A something is just an interface, there is no built-in radio, no built-in drive, unless you plug a storage device or connect it to your home network, it won't play anything..I think that's what the first post meant.
In this respect, I wonder why B&O labels the A8 or A9 as "audio" products, they could have called them S8 or S9, because they are just active speakers with basic control functions.
Christophe :I have to admit that the current BeoSound range is very limited and not actually my definition of a sound system, because there is no internal source! A BeoSound or BeoPlay A something is just an interface, there is no built-in radio, no built-in drive, unless you plug a storage device or connect it to your home network, it won't play anything..I think that's what the first post meant. In this respect, I wonder why B&O labels the A8 or A9 as "audio" products, they could have called them S8 or S9, because they are just active speakers with basic control functions.
Razlaw: I had a dealer make exactly the same comment to me that you make, think of the Essence as a replacement for BeoLink Active.
I had a dealer make exactly the same comment to me that you make, think of the Essence as a replacement for BeoLink Active.
Maybe he should reconsider, if selling B&O products is the right thing for him.
That isn't correct :-) all the "new" products (A9 MKII and assence MKII is in that group) has built in sources.
You can setup eg. TuneIn (radio) and deezer on them, and play without an app.
I'm using essence MKII at home, and I'm very happy about the TuneIn part especially, because it's so easy to turn on and listen to radio :-)
Raeuber: I think the question is: Can a streaming solution be a music system? I have to say this is hard to accept for me (because I'm an old guy who still knows what 'HiFi' means), but nowadays it is.
I think the question is: Can a streaming solution be a music system? I have to say this is hard to accept for me (because I'm an old guy who still knows what 'HiFi' means), but nowadays it is.
That is exactly the point.
B&O as a company is not making stuff for past generations - they have to look at now and, what is in the future.
To guys like you seeing a disc spinning in a 6 CD changer probably is happiness.
But that is not, what is going to sell today (and tomorrow).
To me the important thing is: how can I achieve, what I want in the best way.
Sure I have and use a 'real' cd player and even a 'real' vinyl player.
But much more important to me is - how can I stream (yes you know, what that is) the music (= albums), that I want to listen to and how can I access the radio stations, I like to listen to/need for information.
Honestly - all I need is some excellent speakers (in different sizes for different listening purposes) with either built-in (!) streaming and radio possibilities or as a combo of speakers and a minimal control unit/tablet unit.
That is, what B&O tries to offer - and if I should start from scratch today this would be, what I'd buy.
kaliffen: That isn't correct :-) all the "new" products (A9 MKII and assence MKII is in that group) has built in sources. You can setup eg. TuneIn (radio) and deezer on them, and play without an app. I'm using essence MKII at home, and I'm very happy about the TuneIn part especially, because it's so easy to turn on and listen to radio :-)
Well said - and with far fewer words, than I tend to use ;-))
vikinger: HiFi? How very old school. You must be closer than we thought to the pipe and slippers image you like to mention. Graham
2011 marks an end of an era to me, in which we see the disappearance from sound systems in a way I use to know them for many years from B&O. And I'm referring here mostly to the lost of terrestrial radio in sound systems. Newer sound products became expressed in a simple way as a computer terminal or Internet platform.
It was thrilling to me, finally getting the opportunity to listen to the world, in a way I could never dreamed of when I was a young kid. Free of any noise, interference… crystal clear, exactly like the announcer was next to my house.
2015, the year I fully embraced the digital world by removing my old BS3200 to the basement and opting for the last digital link in my home. The BS Moment, it is my brain on the Internet, the device brings high mass of musical experience with "the love ... ..”. Its my musical climax. It is also the year I completely switched to be dependent on a coax cable entering my house for all my needs of entertainment as: television, radio, phone, reading papers, being in contact with the outside world. Feels a bit frightening, solely being dependable on coax cable, a fiber or copper pair for all your needs, even my heating system is connected to that little plastic looking cable to get information for an ‘ideal’ heating curve in my house. This process also has its mirror. We are also listening to strangers all the time. Nothing that takes place anywhere in the world and is communicated on the Internet is at a remove any longer. Just as everyone on the Internet is a potential recipient and transmitter of our signals, we too are stations for the reception and relay of other people's messages. This constancy of connection to the nervous systems of billions of others comes with its own consequences.
No one can be immune to the storms that shake the world today. What happens down our streets becomes as present in our lives as what happens down our modems. This makes us present in vital and existential ways to what might be happening at great distance, but it also brings with it the possibility of a disconnect with what is happening around us, or near us, if they happen not to be online.
I grew up with my mother who came from Poland, married to my Belgian father after WW2 and was frightened by the postwar era in her birth country. A government that spied on its citizens; this is what she had fled. In Eastern Europe, my mother explained, you assumed that other people read your mail. This never led to good. When someone knows everything, everyone can be turned into an informer. She was proud to be in the West where things were different. Every morning, we went together to the mailbox of our house. And many days, she would tell me as if it had never come up before, "In Western Europe, no one can look at your mail. It's a federal offense. That's the beauty of this countrys.” For me, and from the earliest age, this civics lessons at the mailbox joined together privacy and civil liberties. I think of how different things are for today's teenagers who accommodate to the idea that their e-mail might be scanned by school authorities and that their online identities might be tampered with. Not a few sum up their position on all of this by saying in one way or another: "The way to deal is to just be good."
But sometimes a citizenry should not "be good." You have to leave room for this, space for dissent, real dissent. You need to leave technical space (a sacrosanct mailbox) and mental space. The two are intertwined. We make our technologies and they, in turn, make and shape us. My mother made me an Belgian citizen and a civil libertarian in front of a row of mailboxes in my home town. I am not sure what to tell and 18-year-old who thinks that Loopt (the application that uses the GPS capability of the iPhone to show you where your friends are) seems creepy but notes that it would be hard to keep it off her phone if all her friends had it. "They would think I had something to hide."
In democracy, perhaps we all need to begin with the assumption that everyone has something to hide, a zone of private action and reflection, a zone that needs to be protected. Life with an electronic shadow provokes anxieties that lead today's teenagers to look toward a past they never knew. This nostalgia of the young looks forward because it may remind us of things that are worth protecting. So, for example, teens talk longingly about the "full attention" that is implicit when someone sends you a letter or meets with you in a face-to-face meeting. And poignantly, they talk about seeking out a pay phone when they really want to have a private conversation.
The Internet teaches us to rethink nostalgia and give it a good name. I learned to be a citizen at the mailbox. To me, opening up a conversation about rethinking the Net, privacy, and civil society is not backward-looking nostalgia or Luddite in the least. It seems like part of a healthy process of democracy defining its sacred spaces.
The Internet hasn't, so far, changed how I think. The Internet is brain candy to me and, I suspect, to most of us, it slakes our appetite to keep our brain occupied. That moment when Deezer’s search engine pops up its search results to my query is a moment of pure injection of glucose into my brain. I love it.
Some think that this is why the Internet is going to make us lazy, less-literate, and less-numerate, that we will forget what lovely things books an CD’s are, and so on. But even as brain candy I think the Internet's influence on these sorts of capabilities and pleasures is probably not as serious as the curmudgeons and troglodytes would have you believe. They will be the same people who grumbled about the telegraph, trains, the motorcar, the wireless, and television.
"Believe nothing you read and only half of what you see, let your ears tell you the truth."
Millemissen:That is exactly the point. B&O as a company is not making stuff for past generations - they have to look at now and, what is in the future. To guys like you seeing a disc spinning in a 6 CD changer probably is happiness. But that is not, what is going to sell today (and tomorrow). To me the important thing is: how can I achieve, what I want in the best way. Sure I have and use a 'real' cd player and even a 'real' vinyl player. But much more important to me is - how can I stream (yes you know, what that is) the music (= albums), that I want to listen to and how can I access the radio stations, I like to listen to/need for information. Honestly - all I need is some excellent speakers (in different sizes for different listening purposes) with either built-in (!) streaming and radio possibilities or as a combo of speakers and a minimal control unit/tablet unit. That is, what B&O tries to offer - and if I should start from scratch today this would be, what I'd buy. MM There is a tv - and there is a BV.
Chris: But sometimes a citizenry should not "be good." You have to leave room for this, space for dissent, real dissent. You need to leave technical space (a sacrosanct mailbox) and mental space. The two are intertwined.
But sometimes a citizenry should not "be good." You have to leave room for this, space for dissent, real dissent. You need to leave technical space (a sacrosanct mailbox) and mental space. The two are intertwined.
Thanks to these words and to the marvellous rest of your statement. We should learn the children's bitter lessons on the game "Pflicht oder Wahrheit" / "Truth or Dare" which always ended in tears as far as I witnessed.
I hope that I don't pay a too high price either for the plethora of chances the means of communication of this decade offer.
I also agree that home entertainment future has already changed and access to media today, audio or video, is a notion that is far different from what we were used to. As Millemissen mentions, quality of speakers will perhaps be the most important issue for a high end “media”, wich probably is bad news for many as we are used to all fancy, highly polished toys B&O offers. Also all lively discussions on fix and tricks and smart by-passes will most likely change to short error reportings. Since a majority of us don’t have a very deep insight in digital networks and software issues, Beoworld might become a rather “quiet” place.
We could however continue to contribute, at least for now, by discussing our view and expectations on user experience part of the deal. Since the hard devices (beside speakers) are more or less becoming obsolete, the natural path for B&O would probably be to try to integrate the wow-factor with their software solutions. After all once all media is on wifi or NL, the only communicable ways left for us users are speakers and despite B&O speakers being beautiful and all the rest of it, we will need better, smarter and more natural interfaces with all available digital media. I would for instant gladly pay for the smart mood recognition system Beosound Moment has, in an updated Beomusic app for ipad or iphone. Another solution that might be interesting is to develop applications that could in a smart way recognize other devices, a kind of plug and play solution for devices within reach for NL or home-wifi such as NAS drives or digital Cameras, light control-devices, etc.
Raeuber: So '25' will be a christmas gift for my wife on CD. And that's why my BS 9000 is still a necessary device.
So '25' will be a christmas gift for my wife on CD. And that's why my BS 9000 is still a necessary device.
As you know, our beloved company has put quite an efford in making it possible to integrate things/devices like the BS9000 to the new NL setup, which is fine.
And there is alway the line-in connection as a possibility to integrate a cd player or a vinyl player in the network.
But it would not be wise - thinking forwards - to make e.g. a cd player a part of a new audiodevice.
He, who wants to listen to the new album from Adele, will find his way.
If I did not have a cd player in my setup (which I still have), I would rip it and play it from my NAS....
.....or simply pop it into my Bluray player.
No need to go shopping for a BS9000 for a couple of not-streaming-released albums 😻
To me, the experience of a sound system is all about the interface I don't like the idea of needing to open a phone and open an app to access my music. The Essence remote is just too minimalist for me with too basic control. I absolutely love my BeoSound 5! I feel that the Beo6 gave us the control that we needed to select what music to hear. It's a shame to see the Beo6 discontinued. It would have been nice to see the album/artist interface of the Beo6 expanded to B&O system such as the Moment and the Essence. Now we are left with that gap.
I do think that Apple's Siri remote for the Apple TV is a perfect example of the direction B&O needs to be taking: having a microphone built in to the remote with voice recognition that can be used to call up the album/artist/song that we want. This gives the ultimate minimalist simplicity of a user interface with the greatest control. I could also envision something akin to the Essence Wall Remote that would have a button to press for us to use voice commands to select our music. Of course, there are ways to take advantage of what Apple currently offers to achieve this, but it would be nice to have this with an actual Bang & Olufsen remote.
BeoNut since '75
In the November 2015 pricelist they have only Moment and Essence in the audio systems category. And I noticed as well that the Beoplay V1-40 and Beovision 10-32 left as well...
benoit: In the November 2015 pricelist they have only Moment and Essence in the audio systems category. And I noticed as well that the Beoplay V1-40 and Beovision 10-32 left as well...
The BV10-32 has been gone for quite a while as I sold mine to a dealer/installer as he couldn't get hold of one. That was months ago.
I know some people comment that the BeoPlay products are available everywhere, but without them B&O dealer showrooms would be very threadbare, in my opinion.
maybe we know somehow get the chance to get a copy of all the required service software to service the Beosound 5 for the next years if something's broken... I'm looking at you, my lovely dealers!