Any experience with Bang & Olufsen?

Saw a Beomaster 8000 a couple of weeks ago when my wife and I were on vacation in Door County WI. He was driving some Vandersteens with it. I pulled some pics off the internet for reference. 150 WPC
https://www.beoworld.org/prod_details.asp?pid=377
347964179_2-b-o-beomaster-8000-tuner-amplifier.jpg

347964179_2-b-o-beomaster-8000-tuner-amplifier.jpg

That is a beautiful piece. The feel of the heavy machined rotary controls was incredible and they had some pretty serious power and good SQ. The matching 8002 tape deck was the first with Dolby HX Pro which was actually developed by B&O.
 
I've got a B&O Beogram RX2 turntable with an MCC1 cartridge that sounds fantastic. Very low profile and very attractive. Some have said this turntable was the pinnacle of automatic turntable design on the eve of CDs. I've never heard their electronics ...
Mike
 
It looks like the receivers are kind of 'double wide', aren't they? Or are they just low profile?
 
Some of the B&O were very much oversized. They did not stick to standard sizing which is why they often had specific furniture for given systems.
 
The 4400 isn't exactly ugly, but when it was first introduced it already looked dated. This is uncharacteristic for B&O, but it was the last model in its line.
I have a quad Beomaster 3400, which I really like. Sounds great and looks both good and unusual. It's bigger than the 4000 (11 cm wider). I also used to have both versions of Beomaster 1900.
 
It looks like the receivers are kind of 'double wide', aren't they? Or are they just low profile?
Bang & Olufsen very much went for the low profile look, generally. It wasn't intended for stacking; rather, they expected you to place each component side-by-side on the top of a long cabinet or shelf. The zenith (or nadir, if you prefer stacking) were the aforementioned Beolab 8000 and 6000 series components, which take up a lot of room (matching cabinets were offered).

With the popularity of Japanese-made component stacks, B&O management asked Jacob Jensen to design a series of components which could be stacked, and he wasn't happy with the idea. In fact, according to this page, while he was presenting his initial prototypes to management, he got so incensed that he started stomping on top of them! :yikes: Nevertheless, they were able to come to a compromise, which resulted in the Beosystem 5000 and its drawer-load cassette deck.
-Adam
 
I've had a few opportunities to play with some older B&O stuff. namely, a tape player, record player and a receiver. Don't remember the specific version - but, eh.

Sound quality wise? I'd easily put my Denon 365R over the Receiver (both running through a E10K off my laptop.) The BO receiver was decent, but didn't quite have the depth the 365R had, and the lows got a little muddy. (driving some high-end sony speakers, don't remember which model.)

As for the tape player, no way to compare it. It played, it ran. My dad was happy.

The Record player....well, it feels like a tank, runs decent - cartridges are expensive and sounds just as well as much cheaper Technic stuff does.

But the repair costs, oh boy. Luckily there's a guy in the cities that does repair for BO stuff - but good lord, is it not worth it.

Also, the RL-35 speakers are some of the must sub-par junk I've ever heard. They sound like $10 Walmart speakers. KLH 22's > RL-35's for anything but looks.
 
B and O people in my experience were always professionals who lived in modern houses and usually drove a nice Saab turbo or Volvo family barge....all good stuff
 
We sold and installed B&O back in the 70's, 80's and possibly to 1990. I liked their turntables, they measured well, tracked well, were fantastic with warped records and though a little bright on the high end those linear trackers were fantastic till they broke. We finally sent one of our techs to a seminar about repair the TT's and really didn't have any issues after that. Keeping them clean, hard to do in the Southwest, and lubricated properly was the key. The TT with semi automatic arms were ok, and I enjoyed the sound of the SP series cartridges. Their cassette machines and integrated recievers were different but sounded great. Speakers could range from so so to state of the art. I particularly like 5700/02 with Celestion mids and tweeters and Phillips woofers and PR's. The M series and S series had similar sounds but none of them matched the 5700. The idea of the suck-out fill driver never really impressed me. Late B&O towers with built in amps were a big disappointment to e though folks who loved modern furniture and some women thought they were last word in sound and appearance.
 
My only experience is with a pair of Beovox S75's. They are one of my favorite speakers with their quality Seas, Philips and Peerless drivers and rosewood veneer. They sound nice to me, but I agree with those who say they lack dynamics. My Marantz Imperial Six's outshine them in that respect, but they are super clear with really tight low bass.

I'd like to pair them with other B&O equipment but I've yet to find some cheap enough for my thin wallet.
 
We sold and installed B&O back in the 70's, 80's and possibly to 1990. I liked their turntables, they measured well, tracked well, were fantastic with warped records and though a little bright on the high end those linear trackers were fantastic till they broke. We finally sent one of our techs to a seminar about repair the TT's and really didn't have any issues after that. Keeping them clean, hard to do in the Southwest, and lubricated properly was the key. The TT with semi automatic arms were ok, and I enjoyed the sound of the SP series cartridges. Their cassette machines and integrated recievers were different but sounded great. Speakers could range from so so to state of the art. I particularly like 5700/02 with Celestion mids and tweeters and Phillips woofers and PR's. The M series and S series had similar sounds but none of them matched the 5700. The idea of the suck-out fill driver never really impressed me. Late B&O towers with built in amps were a big disappointment to e though folks who loved modern furniture and some women thought they were last word in sound and appearance.

I think the late tower speakers you are thinking of were the Penta series. We sold more of those than all speakers at similar prices from all our audiophile manufacturers combined, by a large margin!

I never cared for their sound either.
 
I guess I ought to figure out how to lube my linear tracker TT, the RX2 (or is it TX2?) Anyway it is indeed very low profile - at one point the only place I could fit a TT in my main system was on a shelf with a very short vertical spacing, and the B&O was the only TT of the half dozen I had that would fit. Downside is that the tonearm doesn't lift very high, so if you get a very warped record or don't push one all the way down onto the (rather generously sized) spindle, you can bend the stylus during the auto play sequence (there is no manual play of course on a linear tracker). And the B&O carts are proprietary so the stylus is expensive and getting rare. So I'm careful with it, but it's a nice TT in general.
 
I guess I ought to figure out how to lube my linear tracker TT, the RX2 (or is it TX2?) Anyway it is indeed very low profile - at one point the only place I could fit a TT in my main system was on a shelf with a very short vertical spacing, and the B&O was the only TT of the half dozen I had that would fit. Downside is that the tonearm doesn't lift very high, so if you get a very warped record or don't push one all the way down onto the (rather generously sized) spindle, you can bend the stylus during the auto play sequence (there is no manual play of course on a linear tracker). And the B&O carts are proprietary so the stylus is expensive and getting rare. So I'm careful with it, but it's a nice TT in general.
The TX2 is the linear tracker (aka 'tangential'), while the RX2 was its radial-tracking equivalent. The TX2/RX2 weren't meant to be matched with any specific system (AFAIK, they were all set up with RCA/ground cables from the factory, rather than the DIN cables seen on B&O's numbered components), but it's essentially equivalent to the Beogram 5005/5500/etc. otherwise. I'm not sure exactly what the lubrication procedure is (I haven't felt the need to do so with my own TX2), but the service manual for it or the other models I mentioned should be sufficient when it comes to servicing them.

Low-riding tonearms are a common thing with linear-tracking turntables, particularly ones which use plug-in cartridges (either P-mount or proprietary). That being said, the TX2 is the best turntable I have when it comes to tracking extremely-warped records (I have a badly-warped 45RPM single of The Cowsills - Hair which none of my other turntables can properly track; my Beogram 8000 comes close, but the tonearm repeatedly hits its vertical limit while attempting to track the outer edge). Placing records on the spindle can be a bit tricky, particularly when it comes to large-hole 45s, but it generally isn't too hard to get right. And just to clarify things, the stylus on most B&O cartridges isn't replaceable, but SoundSmith makes replacement cartridges, and there are companies out there who will retip old ones.
-Adam
 
I'd guess the superior tracking ability might be related to the very low mass of that little tonearm. Which is a great thing.

Thanks for clarifying on the stylus and cart. I know I bought a new one when I got the TT from my dad but it's been about 8 years now so the details are fuzzy.
 
Back
Top Bottom