R. Mark Clayton wrote:
"Severian" wrote in message
m...
R. Mark Clayton wrote:
"Severian" wrote in message
Other parts of this thread talked about "5 pin Beolink", which defintiely
sounds proprietary, even if they do use DIN connectors.
B&O have their own, proprietary connector topology for reasons they
obviously think are valid.

Get real. They have proprietary connections for the same reason Apple do -
to tie you to their designs, charge $$$ for simple things (like connections)
and make high, high high profits.

No, they use DIN connectors because they are a European company, and for
the same reasons companies like Tandberg and Revox and Armstrong and
Naim use them, they are the standard in Europe, and they allow for a
compact, single connector/single wire bundle approach. They have many
advantages over the traditional US RCA connector, and the US is not the
primary market for any of the aforementioned companies.



In the future I suppose speakers will just plug into cat5e or cat 6
cabling (or wireless) like everything else and simply be told what they
are (e.g. left rear surround), link up and play that.
That would be an ideal way of doing it, going digital would eliminate a
lot of problems with ground loops, noise, shielding and such. We can hope
it'll get here someday, and there will be Luddite audio companies
resisting it even though it is logical and high performance. They'll also
try and sell you special digital interconnects for this that have all the
electrons aligned precisely so as not to interfere with the digital signal
bits.



The problem is getting the power to the speakers. Power over Ethernet is
not up to delivering the amount of energy required, so each speaker would
require a discrete [mains] PSU - not very elegant.



You may not think it's "elegant" but it's the way all self powered,
active loudspeakers are implemented, power supplies at each speaker with
a "mains" plug. Fortunately there are engineers who aren't as prejudiced
with respect to design constraints. The only thing you need to get to
the speakers is the signal, by IR, WiFi, BlueTooth, Cat5, whatever. It's
a lot easier to send line level signals over long distances without
degradation than it is higher power signals, the interface has higher
impedance and is a known, stable, and unvarying as opposed to the
impedance fluctuations you see at the speaker terminal of most any
loudspeaker.