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
Last week I sold my last Masterlink product a Beovision 9. The end of my B&O addiction !?!
As teenager I dreamed of a Beocenter 2500. I tried to convince my father to buy one, but he told me, that he never will buy a toy to listen to good music …
But I loved the design and years later with my first paycheck I bought a Beosound 3000 after finishing University. The start of my addiction. Followed by a BeoLink PC2 giving access to my first mp3 collection on an Apple Mac. My first B&O TV was a Beovision MX8000. Later a Beocenter 2 banished my Beosound 3000 into the bedroom. All integrated with Masterlink. At that time I was a regular visitor at my B&O shop with all these new exiting products and I did one to two B&O purchases every year (Beolab, Beocom, Beolink, Beotime, Beomedia, etc.). Main driver was the clear and strait design, intuitive operation and the integration of all products via Masterlink / Powerlink and the one remote concept. For me at this time B&O offered the cutting edge of easy to use integrated music and TV technology available on the market.
When I build my own house, I installed Masterlink cable to every room (today used as LAN cable). My second last B&O investment was the Beovision 9.
When my children got older and wanted to listen to their own music (analog Masterlink could only distribute one channel at a time) I looked for digital solutions and found Sonos. Instead of buying new B&O products I started to buy new Sonos and Apple products every year. My visits to B&O shop went less and new B&O products did not manage to draw my attention. Slowly exchanging my B&O equipment by Sonos products as new leading multiroom audio system and Apple products as core multiroom video connection. Everything controlled by iPhones / iPads instead of Beolink.
At one of my rare visits to my old B&O shop the dealer convinced me to buy a Beosound Moment as an exiting alternative to Sonos and backwards compatibility with my existing B&O products. That was a horrible experience, the final step to get rid of my addiction. I never bought a worse product before in my life. First I was put off by “B&O will fix it soon”, then my B&O store closed, finally B&O discontinued it. I liked the idea and design of the Moment and the possibility to connect it to my existing Beolabs / Beovision, but the software and the operating concept (MoodWheel / Beolink Converter etc.) were crap and never worked flawless. But even worse is the iOS Bang&Olufsen App (App Store: 1,9 stars). I cannot believe that a professional design company can release such a confusing App. It was not as buggy as the Moment, but it is far away from an intuitive user concept and not enjoyable to use at all (just count the clicks / scrolls necessary to get something to work / change ...). I do not understand why B&O is not able to look at competitors apps like Sonos Controller (App Store: 4,6 stars) to learn from.
Long story short, I am cured from B&O. It is really sad to see how the company loses customers by wrong software strategy(s) and overstrained software developers.
Interesting. I am a recent concert or B&O. I love how well the A9 works with my iPad and AirPlay 2. I love how good my Beolab 8000 + 6000 + BL 2 work with my Apple TV 4K and Sony TV. I never use the B&O app ever for anything. I am planning on getting a BeoSound 2 and another A9. Both are replacing Sonos systems.
B&O in my life 😊:
I can't tell about sound quality, and each time i heard a sonos speaker (mostly as background music in stores) I found it good.
But appart from the design I dont like, what's really keeping me away from anything Sonos, is their personal data gathering policy.
mm08642: I never bought a worse product before in my life. First I was put off by “B&O will fix it soon”, then my B&O store closed, finally B&O discontinued it. I liked the idea and design of the Moment and the possibility to connect it to my existing Beolabs / Beovision, but the software and the operating concept (MoodWheel / Beolink Converter etc.) were crap and never worked flawless. But even worse is the iOS Bang&Olufsen App (App Store: 1,9 stars). I cannot believe that a professional design company can release such a confusing App.
I never bought a worse product before in my life. First I was put off by “B&O will fix it soon”, then my B&O store closed, finally B&O discontinued it. I liked the idea and design of the Moment and the possibility to connect it to my existing Beolabs / Beovision, but the software and the operating concept (MoodWheel / Beolink Converter etc.) were crap and never worked flawless. But even worse is the iOS Bang&Olufsen App (App Store: 1,9 stars). I cannot believe that a professional design company can release such a confusing App.
I wonder if it was as bad as the BeoSound/Master 5 combination? That was truly awful. I won't name the dealer - they are big on this forum - where I bought this product, but they spent 4 hours trying to set it up at my home, cables everywhere (you get cables which are many metres long) and the software, which sat on Windows XP) simply kept crashing. Kept it for about 3 weeks and told the dealer to take it all back.
Since then, I realised it's wiser just to keep things...simple. Now I limit myself to Spotify and you can't really go wrong. I can control my account from my iMac, MBP, iPad or iPhone and it will connect directly to my Bang & Olufsen speaker (BeoSound 2 etc) which I can move around. Spotify will also pick up your own tunes stored on your devices, so you have the best of both worlds!
Leave the software to the professionals, like Spotify. Let B&O focus on what they do best: produce the speaker hardware.
I aggree
As i have some more B&O product the best for me is..
BS5 or BS9000+ music server with top HI-END DA convrter and all candy's with it..3tb music on SSD, spotify+ tidal, interent radio, FM radio, CD, all you wish and it's still looking like Mio$ all the time :)
Did try BS moment ..and return it in 2 month..
now i just keep looking for BL5 or BL50 in the future..maybe :)
matador43:But appart from the design I dont like, what's really keeping me away from anything Sonos, is their personal data gathering policy.
(Adding any new speaker -- or even merely allowing a guest with a newer App on their phone to control the music -- forces your entire system to insist on upgrading itself, to match whatever was just connected. Enforced-update is how they intentionally bricked their own CR100 controllers forever. For example, if you want to update your iPhone's iOS (for whatever reason, be it security or some other new app requires), be prepared to have to update the Sonos App. And if you update the Sonos App, you *must* update your system to match. There is no backward compatibility. It's like a virus, very hard to avoid. All this inconvenience just because forced update keeps their customer service costs down: everybody has to be running the latest. New features are great -- well, with the exception of their current user interface bletch -- but I want to choose when and whether...)
On the other hand, their newer speakers support AirPlay2, so one could register with totally fake account ID info and use it as a generic AirPlay speaker.
Yes, I will keep my various speakers and Masterlink setup but have changed the audio master from BS3000 to a Yamaha Receiver hidden away - internet radio, spotify, deezer, bluetooth, airplay etc CD and an input for a Turntable all controlled by a lintronic box - works the same, sounds great and much cheaper and easier to upgrade. Plus I still get to use everything with a Beo4 as if it were a B&O Audio Master. My main listening anyway is either Vinyl or Internet Radio
What has surpised me is just how good the Beolink Actives are - in one room I have a BL Active feeding a Linn Power Amp and then M100-2's - sounds as good as anything else I have heard such as Valve Amps, BM6500, BM4400 etc
trackbeo: What should also keep you away from Sonos is their fascist forced-update policy.
What should also keep you away from Sonos is their fascist forced-update policy.
I personally do not mind, the “forced-update policy” as long as all products are supported (since 2005 Sonos still supports all products besides the CR100 with regular firmware updates, B&O supports only current sold product lines not older than 2015) and when this keeps Sonos customer service costs down even better.
Because in my experience the Sonos Support is highly competent and really really helpful. The best of class support I ever experienced.
The total opposite of B&O support. My experience was that B&O support does not have any technical experience at all giving you totally wrong answers. When you spend some minutes on this forum searching for your problem, you get more knowledge and better answers than B&O support is ever able to provide. Besides their not existing knowledge, one of their preferred answer is, that you should contact your local dealer (probably that is the way B&O tries to keep their service cost down - I personally prefer the Sonos way). But with the not thought through software strategy at least my dealer was totally overstrained and was as helpless as the Bang & Olufsen support.
But if you buy a new BeoRemote One (BT) and use IR mode to control your BeoCenter 9500, it doesn't suddenly prevent your BeoLink 1000 from working! (Oh, and then try to connect via MCL to the ML Gateway to prevent your BeoSound 9000 & your BeoVision from responding to your old remote, too. And obsolete your old iPhone app too!)
Yes, B&O supports only currently sold products, but the old ones keep working just as they were supplied to you, until they die. Agreed, Sonos telephone support is decent, and its personnel are, generally, useful and not a waste of space. But their company policies stink and no exceptions are made, period. Certainly they are not the best ever, but are perfectly fine. In no small part this is because they know that their dealers are nothing but multi-brand "distribution points." (Ever open one of those tools or appliances that has the piece of paper inside saying, "Problems? DO NOT return this <widget> to your retailer -- just call <tollfree>, we can help"? That's why...) The B&O dealerships are supposed -- in theory -- to be better than mere box-pushers. Alas, not all are... Agreed, in contrast to B&O, Sonos wrote good quality software originally, with only a few mis-steps along the way. Also at least Sonos actually *provides the forums* for people to get answers from other users when tech support is swamped or insufficient!
But I opted out of the upgrade hamster-wheel and hooked up Airport Express'es to Aux-in on my B&O equipment. Yes, I must use an iThing to drive it, but it still works fine running iOS 8, and an old version of iTunes on a leftover Mac serves without any hiccups.
Connect everything to Sonos Connect and you’ll have excellent multi room with your B&O gear. AirPlay 2 with Sonos is superb. It’s what I use now. I have 4 rooms all with B&O speakers and all using Sonos Connect now with AirPlay 2. Sonos software implementation is excellent.
Ikea is lauching a multiroom speaker range based on Sonos technology. like to see how it performs…
mm08642: I never bought a worse product before in my life. First I was put off by “B&O will fix it soon”, then my B&O store closed, finally B&O discontinued it.
I never bought a worse product before in my life. First I was put off by “B&O will fix it soon”, then my B&O store closed, finally B&O discontinued it.
moxxey: I wonder if it was as bad as the BeoSound/Master 5 combination? That was truly awful.
I wonder if it was as bad as the BeoSound/Master 5 combination? That was truly awful.
There seems to be no learning curve at B&O at all. What a pity, and what does that mean for the future of Bang&Olufsen?