Beolink® stems from the fact that since 1985, Bang & Olufsen products have, almost entirely, been able to be controlled by way of remote control.
The idea started in the mid-1970s with Beosystem 6000 - one of the most advanced hi-fi systems ever manufactured. The hi-fi could be controlled by ultrasonic beams - allowing the user to operate the major functions by the touch of a button on a paperback book-sized 'Commander'. The culmination of the development of the range of Commanders came in 1985 when David Lewis designed a Beolink® terminal whereby a user, without using visual prompts, could control picture, sound and light sources by applying a slight pressure of the thumb. Incredibly, it could be used around the house, from room to room!
So, the idea behind Beolink® is really quite simple. It's all about getting the best out of the Bang & Olufsen products you already own and moving the experience rather than the equipment. You can play the same music throughout the house, increase or decrease the volume, change tracks, switch over to the radio or another music source or watch your favourite television programme wherever you have an extra television or a pair of loudspeakers. Beolink® can even be used to control the lights in your home. Beolink® is controlled either by touch or by the current Beo4 remote control.
So what is Beolink®?
Beolink® is a language. One that allows you to get the most out of your entertainment sources, your time, and most importantly, your pleasure. In its abstract form, the language is about a simple form of operation that most of Bang & Olufsen's products share. In its physical form Beolink® is a range of products that you decide to connect together - and live with. Beolink® is a Bang & Olufsen expression that covers:
the ability to create and operate audio-video systems.
the ability to distribute sound and picture from a Bang & Olufsen main room system to other rooms in the home, and to operate the main room system from the rooms connected by means of Beolink®.
Beolink® is not a product - it is a number of features that are the result of the intelligent interaction between products: a synergy effect.
How the idea started: Beolink® Audio product history
The idea stemmed as far back as 1974 when Beomaster 6000, as part of Beosystem 6000 was introduced. This was followed two years later by the highly successful Beomaster 1900 and closely followed the year after when its remote-controlled brother made its début on the hi-fi arena: Beomaster 2400. Both of these units had a sensi-touch display which meant that you just touched the 'buttons' with a finger (or by using the ultrasonic remote control commander in the case of Beomaster 2400) to choose your source or to alter the listening level. The idea of electronic sensi-touch controls did away with old-fashioned buttons and other mechanical ways of controlling your equipment and paved the way for the first true 'Datalink' product: Beogram 4004.
This record-player was the first of its kind in that it linked directly to a suitable Beomaster to start and stop play and to carry out other functions which otherwise had been controlled by a user effecting a control on the record deck itself. The idea was quite simple - a separate data channel was built into the DIN lead which connected the receiver to the record deck. In this way, digital information could be transferred between both units so that each could 'talk to each other' and literally tell each other what the other component was doing! Beogram 4004 went a stage further in that control could be made to the deck and receiver via its own one-way ultrasonic remote control.
In 1979 Beocenter 7000 was introduced, later upgraded to the Beocenter 7700 in 1982. The Center included drivers for the very first Bang & Olufsen link system - MCL82. This was an audio-only Beolink® system using the newly-developed MCL system. Four years later came Beosystem 5500 (developed from the two-way Beosystem 5000) which was the very first range of products to feature the current Beo4 codes, operated via the Beolink 1000 remote control. This same year MCL2 was introduced using the same 8mm passive cable but could incorporate video signals as well.
How the idea started: Beolink® Video product history
On the video side of things, Beolink® stemmed initially from the introduction of Beovision 4402 in 1977 which was Bang & Olufsen's first remote-controlled TV set using an ultrasonic remote control commander. Three years later the Beovision 8800-family of TV sets was introduced using Bang & Olufsen's Video Terminal - the oft-named 'Mars bar' remote control commander which was able to control via now-familiar infra-red signals, the various functions of suitable televisions.
Up till that time only mono sources could be played back via Bang & Olufsen TV sets and video recorders. The UK in the early 1980s had been toying with the idea of transmitting stereo signals to the nation's TV sets but NICAM was not accepted until a few years' later. However, Beovision 8902 was the company's first stereo set the be introduced which could be 'back-fitted' with the NICAM module to enable receiving of digital stereo broadcasts. Germany paved the way for NICAM broadcasts who 'got there' before the UK!
In 1986 Beovision L2802 was introduced which could control a video recorder via the TV's SCART lead. The signals were intercepted via the TV set's 'eye' and them transferred to the VCR through the SCART lead in order to control, video functions. This was achieved through pin 8 of the SCART lead (the status pin) and which generated a 12v electrical signal.
That same year full integration was achieved between a TV set and a suitable hi-fi system via a 7-pin auxiliary lead.
Simplicity itself!
Beolink® may be obtained in different ways, depending upon the products that are used: basically either the Audio Aux Link/Master Control Link (MCL) system or the current Master Link system. The latter is the most recent system with the long-term objective being that it will eventually replace the former system.
Beolink® is as simple as 1 + 1 = 3. The idea behind Beolink® is a simple one - connect your products and extend the experience. Have your audio and video sources available all around the house, on any scale you wish. Add loudspeakers and TVs as you wish and when you wish. Technically Beolink® is intelligent software on the inside of most recent B&O products - just add a length of cable to join them together!
Imagine a system that allows you to watch the rest of the video that you were half way through in the sitting room the previous night in the bedroom without having to get out of bed to organise it. Picture the system that allows you to move from the shower to the bedroom to the kitchen clearly hearing the same CD the entire time without having to move the sound system - imagine this pleasure and ease of use. That experience is the Bang & Olufsen Beolink® system.
At the push of a button, Beolink® can give you sound and pictures anywhere in the house. Based on the concept of moving the experience and not the equipment from one central location, Beolink® brings technology into the home as well as a positive addition to our modern lifestyle.
This innovative creation comes from Bang & Olufsen, the company that produced the world's first mains run radio in 1925 and recently has discovered ICEPower, a unique amplifier technology that can reduce energy demands by over 90% whilst improving the sound quality.
Bang & Olufsen has over 11 of its products on permanent display in New York's Museum of Modern Art and in 1990 it was awarded the ID Classics Prize - the first time that the prize was given to a company and not a product. These tributes are not given away lightly and stand as a symbol of Bang & Olufsen's ability to integrate design and technology and its drive to consistently challenge the boundaries of the home entertainment experience. Beolink® is another unique product that does just that.
Beolink® is based on the simple fact that all of Bang & Olufsen's products "speak the same language" and therefore can be controlled from one remote control, the Beo4, from any room in the house. The control can operate all functions on Bang & Olufsen's linked product range.
In practical terms adding Beolink® to a house means pleasure and home entertainment at its best. Even the cable for Beolink® goes through Bang & Olufsen's torturous testing procedures - it will work equally well in the heat of a desert or in the sub-zero wastelands of Greenland. It will remain unaffected and shielded from noise from antennae, television sets, coin meters or whatever it may pass on the way to the speakers. This again demonstrates Bang & Olufsen's commitment to excellence and attention to detail.
With the help of infra-red receivers Beolink® is sound and vision distributed around the modern household as naturally as electricity, water and gas.
Connections are crucial
A Beolink® cable must perform equally well inside a heating duct in Tunisia as under a timber roof in Lapland. It should withstand unfair treatment like twisting and curling around skirting boards and door frames. And it should transport CD signals over distances of up to 400 metres without losses of any kind.
Its stereo signals are balanced in twisted pairs: each channel runs differentially with a plus and a minus signal wrapped around one another, and shielded for protection against noise from antennae, TV sets, coin meters or whatever they pass on their way to the loudspeakers.
The data wire follows the same strict principle. On top of these three twisted pairs, and an earth wire for reference, there are three normal lines for power distribution. They are there to ensure the full performance in the Beolink® system, no matter how many unintentional dropouts may appear on the network.
In other words, if you happen to disconnect a loudspeaker while vacuum cleaning one room, the performance will not be affected in the rest of your home.
Beolink® has a history of two parts - the earlier Master Control Link and the present Master Link systems:
Master Control Link: you have central heating.. so why not central high fidelity?
Bang and Olufsen in the mid-1980s developed the totally unique Master Control Link system - the first and only one of its type in the world at that time - which made users of B&O equipment independent of the music system's placement. No matter which room you were in, you were able to control the music system and switch from radio to records to tapes, play, record, fast forward or rewind, and even program the system to awaken you in the morning, for example.
The secret behind the advanced but simple Link system was the discreet Master Control Link that conveyed the two-way communication between the music system and the remote control unit, be it a Master Control Panel (like Beosystem 5000's MCP5000) with visual feedback, or a Terminal. Every command which you gave the remote control unit was transformed into infra-red signals which were sent through the Link to the music system. A Link enabled you to take full advantage of your Bang & Olufsen music system. With the added advantage that you didn't have to give up space in the connected room to more than a pair of speakers and the Master Control Link, which wasn't much larger than an audio cassette. The small relay unit could be placed discreetly out of sight - under the bed, in a cupboard or by the skirting board, for example.
Compared with other 'obvious' installations in your home, central high fidelity was both simple and manageable. And it was so flexible that new rooms could become part of your system - to the extent and in the order you desired.
And in the same way that you could vary furnishings from room to room, you could vary your round-the-house-music, with large powerful speakers in large rooms, smaller speakers elsewhere, and the most compact speakers in the most modest rooms.
Master Link
Master Link perceived as an interconnection method, offers some convenient benefits not available with the MCL system.
An example is that whereas the interconnection in the main room previously had to be carried out with one type of cable (Audio Aux Link) and the interconnection between the main room and the link rooms with another type of cable (Master Control Link), the new Master Link connection offers a bus-type connection that caters for all interconnections between the main room audio and video systems as well as connections to the link rooms.
Another benefit is for completely individual volume control and tone adjustments in each link room, due to the distribution of audio signals at line level and the application of power amplifiers in each link room.
Contrary to the previous signal distribution system, Master Link signals are distributed as balanced signals, permitting distribution of CD-quality sound, even when the cable distances are fairly long.
Finally, the distribution hardware has been improved, e.g. by the introduction of a reduced signal cable diameter and new cable termination methods. The benefit of this improvement is that installation has become simpler and more elegant. The simplification is most evident in smaller installations, e.g. the installation of an intelligent kitchen loudspeaker being intuitively and more quickly accomplished, whereas larger installations still require some planning and installation skills.
Through Beolink® you may extend your choices with a range of dedicated Beolink® products. They offer the maximum convenience when it comes to moving and controlling sound and pictures around your home:
- BeoLab 2000 loudspeakers
- BeoLab 3500 loudspeakers
- Beolink® PC2 - PC Office
Beolink® distribution covers the ability to distribute both audio and video signals. In the Master Link system audio and control signals are distributed by means of one single cable, whereas the distribution of video signals requires a coaxial cable network. Only more recent Beolink®-compatible products can be fully integrated in a Beolink® system, but previous system products may be integrated to a limited extent. At the end of 2001, only the BeoSound Century and BeoSound 1 could not be linked via Beolink®. The rest of the product range could be linked up and operated around the house.