[Sandyb]

oh no, and oh really?!

Part of my upcoming instal involves swapping my wired BL3s for BL17s to e used wirelessly (the hidden PL cable to my BL3 has gone bad).

I am assuming the 17s will work happily with the Theatre over WISA.

will be very unhappy if they dont.

[Mark]

I read a post I think on this thread that someone said their BL17’s were rock solid on WISA. It was their BL19 they had daily night problems with. So I’m not giving up yet!

I haven’t used the system much except for tv, but every time I “Play sound” today it worked.

 

[Mark]

Wow, it seems that it is widely regarded that the WISA standard isn’t very good, or at least usable under certain circumstances. B&O relies heavily on it for its products it seems. Is that wise?

I am going to conduct a test. I created a new listening position with just the BeoLab 17’s and the BeoLab 19 as “Rear Stereo”. At the beginning of the calibration the BeoLab 17’s “were there”, after finishing the 17’s seemed to go offline and needed to be unplugged. Could this be a Theatre issue and not WISA? I can now play music to them and I can hopefully get an idea how stable the wireless is.

 

[Yossi]

Mine (BL 17) were always on and off (green dot red dot green dot red dot and so on and so on ) until I wired them. A scan performed by the B&O tech showed too much 5 GHz networks around …

[Severed_hand_of_skywalker]

I would strongly suggest you move away from wireless if you can. Its sketchy, the speaker uses more power and the quality is lowered a bit.

Wire should always work.

[MaxH]

Severed_hand_of_skywalker wrote:

Wow, it seems that it is widely regarded that the WISA standard isn’t very good, or at least usable under certain circumstances. B&O relies heavily on it for its products it seems. Is that wise?

My 17s have operated in wireless mode faultlessly for about two years as have my 18s.

[Severed_hand_of_skywalker]

Nothing new in video but here it is:

[Razlaw]

I have a pair of 18s ordered to use with my Theatre. Planned to use wisa to connect them. Reading this makes me wonder if I should use one of my older pair of speakers as rears with my in wall PL cables. (In wall cables are old and do not work with ice powered speakers. I have 4000s, 6000s, and 1s I could use with the PL cable)

[Sandyb]

Think this all comes down to how many 5ghz networks are in / around your space in question.

As Mike I think has said numerous times, lots of such congestion and WISA may be sketchy, very few of them and it seems all fine.

[Razlaw]

I ordered a receiver to experiment with. Will help me decide if I want the 18s or not.

[Razlaw]

Glad to hear the 18s described as amazing! Have also considered using my 9s as rears, but think they are too short.

[Mark]

I guess I am not one of the lucky ones that can use my BL 17’s wirelessly. My test started out well and they played for about an hour, then I had to go somewhere. When I got back they played for about 10 seconds and then shutdown. The BL18’s are more stable wirelessly but not 100%. It’s dissapointing that I can’t benefit from the wireless features of the Theatre.

 

[Razlaw]

Call me a pessimist but I am guessing wireless won’t work well for me either. That is why I decided to spend the money on a receiver to test how it works in my house before taking delivery of 18s.

[Severed_hand_of_skywalker]

Razlaw wrote:

I ordered a receiver to experiment with. Will help me decide if I want the 18s or not.

The 18’s are amazing they just don’t have much bass. The 17’s have more bass.

[Mark]

I have two listening positions, one with just the Theatre and the other with all 5 connected speakers. While listening to music I have been switching between the 2 positions. There is a 2 to 3 second gap when selecting the new position, but I prefer the sound with the 18’s acting as front left and right. It “feels” slightly more bassy with just the Theatre. Not a huge difference, but just a subtle difference as it feels more open with the 18’s, which would make sense. Once the music is playing just on the Theatre after a little while I forget which position it is in and does sound very pleasing. I am glad I have the 18’s up front though!

 

[BeoTool]

Mark wrote:

I prefer the sound with the 18’s acting as front left and right. ….I am glad I have the 18’s up front though!

Do the 18’s up front widen the width of the soundstage?

[Mark]

BeoTool wrote:

Do the 18’s up front widen the width of the soundstage?

Yes they do. Now I don’t have them that far from the Theatre, probably about 18″ away, but it does improve the soundstage, and along with the BL 19 I think the bass is more pleasing. The bass is definately noticable coming from the Theatre alone, but I think it blends better and not so noticable with the 19’s. All settings are from the calibration.

Edit: Loudness on the Theatre is turned off.

 

[Mark]

My speakers are now all wired to the Theatre and I feel like I can now give it a serious listen.

I like it… a lot!

While I said before, the Theatre sounds fine on it’s own, the addition of the 18’s and 19 up front improves the bass and treble and gives it a more enveloping 3 dimensional feel to it. I watched the first hour of Top Gun Maverick from the 4K blu-ray and it sounds fantastic! While I did not notice the rear 17’s activity on their own I did feel like I was in the center of it all. Dialog was crisp and clear as was everything else. I stopped the movie short because it was getting late and I wanted to move on to some music.

It was a little problematic going from TV to Airplay. While my iPad showed that the song was being Airplayed to the Theatre no sound was coming out. I had to reboot the Theatre in order to Airplay to it. This is not the first time this happened, switching sources on its own can be an issue. I really wish you could change the source on the B&O app. I know Airplay is a different beast but I shouldn’t have to reboot between sources. I can change the source easily on the Halo and I had to do so many times.

All the music I played sounded wonderful. The system provides a beautiful soundstage with the 18’s. The bass is strong but not overpowering and the treble is nice and crisp. It will be a joy to listen to music! I can hardly wait until I get my usb adapter from Steve so I can listen to some records. Tomorrow maybe?

I fretted a little in purchasing the 18’s and 19 over the BL28. My reasoning was since they are being used with the Theatre I didn’t need another very complex system, and that I might be better served in the long-term with basic speakers that don’t need software updates and there are no moving parts! I also prefer the looks of the BL 18’s. It turned out to be a good decision as I really like the 18’s and 19.

There are still bumps in the road with the software especially when changing sources I hope are worked out quickly. I also had to calibrate my speakers twice with a reboot in between because something didn’t go right the first time and without the reboot there was no sound when doing the calibration.

Now for the BIG job of doing cable management and cleaning up the cable mess.

 

[Sandyb]

same from my listening experiences too – spent a fair bit of time flicking between 2 speaker groups : (A) Theatre with rear 28s (the triangle), and (B) Theatre, rear 28s, and front 18s (triangle plus front l/r)…..and while there is little doubt that the triangle on its own (A) is really really good, and will be plenty immersive for many modest living rooms, when it changed to (B) with the added front l/r’s, I did prefer the wider soundstage.

Adding the front 18s to the triangle was not a binary, black / white, night and day difference though, and hence I can see why B&O are suggesting the triangle (with 28s rears) as a more than enough immersive setup for many.

But for those a bit soundstage width sensitive (I’m in that camp), adding fronts does make an appreciable width improvement.

[Mark]

I did not adjust the bass and treble on the Theatre but I did turn loudness off. With this setting the addition of the 18’s and 19 in the front are much more noticable, and pleasing.

[Author]

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