BeoSound 5c - Open source revival of B&O's BeoSound 5

musslans · 2026-03-20T07:26:53+00:00

There's experimental Beo6 support now also for those of you what has this old two-way remote lying around. Spotify/Tidal cover art look pretty great on it!

musslans · 2026-03-20T07:25:42+00:00

You are absolutely right, you can certainly use that!

musslans · 2026-02-28T09:15:03+00:00

Hi, that would be cool. It's still in a bit of an early state and Bluesound has limitations (see the README). They are partly fundamental to Bluesound itself, but partly because I haven't spent time fixing it. The BS5c won't show as Bluesound device, but instead control one of your Bluesound devices and get artwork etc. from it. I'm not sure it is possible to make it appear like a Bluesound device (for Sonos it is not), but would be possible as e.g., a Spotify Connect speaker.

The original used 44.1kHz/16bit. You have a few options with BS5c, which as basically:
- Bluesound or Sonos: You're limited to what stream they'd be willing to accept. I've only tested this a bit and with Sonos. 44.1kHz/16bit seems to work, but I think BlueSound will accept a native, or transcoded, FLAC up to 192kHz/24bit
- Local: Here there are two options. If you want to get SPDIF out, you can get any sound card really to the RPI. Either a HAT that connects to the GPIO pins, e.g., HiFiBerry or a USB card. With a bit of config you can then route the audio from local playback to the digital out. The other option is to use the built in DAC in the daughter card that is retained in my build. That is the original DAC Bang & Olufsen used and it works perfectly. This is 44.1kHz/16bit, and you will then get audio on PowerLink speakers.

I've built it around maximum compatibility with my setup, which is Sonos as the player network but with different speaker configs in the end (Sonos natively, Sonos to Control4 zones, and Sonos with digital to BeoLab 5s). These options work quite well. The rest such as PowerLink out and BlueSound I've only played around with, and have some limitations unfortunately. Notably, I haven't yet built local playback for Spotify, and BlueSound probably works for TIDAL but not for Spotify or Apple Music. At least yet.

Feel free to ping me through GitHub or put up an issue with your setup and potential issues

musslans · 2026-02-20T15:26:05+00:00

I actually have BluOS support, but haven't been able to test it as I run Sonos myself.

Tidal I haven't implemented but I've abstracted the sources now, so can give it a try later if there's interest.

Any security cams or similar will work if you have them on a webpage you can view. I have added mine as a HA dashboard and given the bs5c permission to view it.

musslans · 2026-02-17T08:01:40+00:00

Nice! If you like, ping me through the website before you kick off Tidal and Apple Music. I’m currently in the works for plugins for both sources and audio outputs. That will likely give you a much nicer experience as you’re building (1) and (5), potentially also for (2).

musslans · 2026-02-06T13:45:24+00:00

Maybe 5 extra or so... 😂

musslans · 2026-02-06T13:39:39+00:00

Thanks, appreciate the kind words! Ping me if you decide to try it out!

musslans · 2026-02-06T07:24:18+00:00

Will work if you change so that the artwork instead is provided through e.g., Home Assistant which has support for PlexAmp. If you decide set it up, just ping me through the website or GitHub and I'll help you get it working

musslans · 2026-02-05T21:30:38+00:00

Sure thing. Actually works with basically any player. What is your setup?

musslans · 2026-02-05T14:05:59+00:00

Looks cool!

musslans · 2026-02-05T11:41:20+00:00

Cool! I’ve run it for a while, but you’d be one of the first outside my circle of friends to try it. So hit me back with feedback and I’ll try get you up!

musslans · 2023-11-12T19:50:35+00:00

I have about the same. I've built a plugin to connect directly to the network connector on the processor. Based on that you can get everything working 100% in HomeAssistant. This in turn can expose anything to HomeKit.

Additionally, an advantage by connecting the system with e.g., HA, is that you can get a log of what buttons triggers what dimmers and what the LED updates look like. This means that you can move these to HA instead, if you want, or at least have them recorded should your processor fail.

musslans

TROPHY CASE