ms_enj
Ceci n'est pas une blonde
The MMC2 cartridge on my Beogram 8002, which I resurrected from scrap about two years ago along with the rest of the 8000 system, finally died, nothing but a faint distorted mess on one channel, and the other one open circuit. The suspension was already a bit iffy when I got it (stylus canted to one side horizontally), but I figured I could still get some use out of it while I sorted out a replacement.
For those of you that don’t know, B&O turntables have always had their own proprietary cartridges with a fixed stylus. Stylus wears out, you replace the whole thing. While I appreciate the sonic benefits of the stylus and generator integrated into a neat low-mass package, this design is now fairly inconvenient now these cartridges aren't available at your corner B&O dealer.
B&O have licensed exactly one company in the US to produce replacements, and they are not cheap. AU$1500ish for the equivalent of the MMC2. Hard pass. Even the MMC4 equivalent is still about AU$500 landed here. That's more than I paid for the entire Beosystem 8000.
To my industry standard calibrated eyeball, it looked like an Ortofon OM cartridge body has a very similar height between the pins and the stylus tip as the B&O cartridges, and an identical rake angle with the cartridge base parallel to the record.
Turns out I was right. I ordered some 6mm square aluminium tube and after some measuring and careful calculation, I designed and built a complete custom replacement tonearm, with a 3D printed socket I modeled fitted on the end to hold the OM body.
I trimmed off the 1/2” mounting wing from the cartridge to keep the appropriate slender 1980s aesthetic, statically balanced the arm so it tracks at 1.75 grams (which is about ideal for a short, light arm like this and still in the correct compliance range for the OM body) and fitted it all up.
Is it a DIY job? No. The arm carriage needs to be dismantled along with the vertical part of the bearing, and it's necessary to go through all the adjustments in the service manual for the arm after reassembly, but as an electronics engineer, it was well within my abilities to perform this mod.
Sound wise? It's absolutely fine. Zero issues at all. This system is a design statement piece in my lounge that is for background music while I work around the house, and not critical listening, but there are plenty of upgraded styli available if I want to go crazy with it.
Naturally, I've irritated the purists, but I don't really care. I mean, B&O are Danish, Ortofon are Danish, so good enough for me, and this setup is absolutely preferable to a lot of money and a long wait for a replacement cartridge or rebuild job whenever the stylus wears out.
The best bit? The whole thing cost me all of $20. I have plenty of OM bodies in my stock pile, and a new in box Stylus 10, so all I needed to buy was the tube and some extra tonearm wire, and it’s completely reversible if I ever win the lottery and decide I want to run the stock arm again.
For those of you that don’t know, B&O turntables have always had their own proprietary cartridges with a fixed stylus. Stylus wears out, you replace the whole thing. While I appreciate the sonic benefits of the stylus and generator integrated into a neat low-mass package, this design is now fairly inconvenient now these cartridges aren't available at your corner B&O dealer.
B&O have licensed exactly one company in the US to produce replacements, and they are not cheap. AU$1500ish for the equivalent of the MMC2. Hard pass. Even the MMC4 equivalent is still about AU$500 landed here. That's more than I paid for the entire Beosystem 8000.
To my industry standard calibrated eyeball, it looked like an Ortofon OM cartridge body has a very similar height between the pins and the stylus tip as the B&O cartridges, and an identical rake angle with the cartridge base parallel to the record.
Turns out I was right. I ordered some 6mm square aluminium tube and after some measuring and careful calculation, I designed and built a complete custom replacement tonearm, with a 3D printed socket I modeled fitted on the end to hold the OM body.
I trimmed off the 1/2” mounting wing from the cartridge to keep the appropriate slender 1980s aesthetic, statically balanced the arm so it tracks at 1.75 grams (which is about ideal for a short, light arm like this and still in the correct compliance range for the OM body) and fitted it all up.
Is it a DIY job? No. The arm carriage needs to be dismantled along with the vertical part of the bearing, and it's necessary to go through all the adjustments in the service manual for the arm after reassembly, but as an electronics engineer, it was well within my abilities to perform this mod.
Sound wise? It's absolutely fine. Zero issues at all. This system is a design statement piece in my lounge that is for background music while I work around the house, and not critical listening, but there are plenty of upgraded styli available if I want to go crazy with it.
Naturally, I've irritated the purists, but I don't really care. I mean, B&O are Danish, Ortofon are Danish, so good enough for me, and this setup is absolutely preferable to a lot of money and a long wait for a replacement cartridge or rebuild job whenever the stylus wears out.
The best bit? The whole thing cost me all of $20. I have plenty of OM bodies in my stock pile, and a new in box Stylus 10, so all I needed to buy was the tube and some extra tonearm wire, and it’s completely reversible if I ever win the lottery and decide I want to run the stock arm again.
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very cool
