B & O BEOGRAM 1970's turntables.

seen a few of these on e bay , various different kinds.
whats the general opinion on these tt's?

cheers,
Rob.

 

They use a non standard cartridge mounting for a start

 

I have what is turning into small collection of decks and have one of these.

To be frank, its not up to much sound wise. The platter rings like a bell, the suspension is crude and the arm is also pretty unsophisticated. It sounds muddy and unrefined. That said - its pretty neat the way it detects whether you have a 7" or 12" on the platter, so that it autocues to the right place .... unless you have a 10", which would spell disaster for your stylus. Also as Graham C points out, the cartidge mount is proprietary.

All in all a bit of a novelty and they do look quite nice (in that B&O sort of way) - but not a serious contender. From the same period and similar money a Pioneer PL12D or a Trio KD1033 would blow it out of the water (though maybe not on looks). Bit of a toy really.

Hope this helps

 

I have one of these, can't remember the model number off hand, I wanted (needed) an auto deck and someone gave me it cos it didn't work (only had to reconnect the audio cables and fit an earth!) but it can't play 12" singles cos the speed is automaticly selected! (d'oh) and yes getting a new cartridge for it is a whopping £60 and that's when you can find someone who sells them, I gave that idea up and bought a Garrard Zero 100SB instead.
B&O's nice ideas, way ahead of there time, but expensive to maintain.

 

Ah. They must have realised by the time they made mine (late 70s) that selecting speed as well as the cueing position was unwise. You put the disc on and then press either 33 or 45 - it recognises the size of the disc, but not the speed - which is actually a good thing. Like I said though it thinks 10" discs are 12" so you have to physically grab hold of the arm top prevent it dropping onto the naked platter.

 

I used to use a B&O MMC1 cartridge on my old Linn Axis.
It's a tweaked Ortofon something-or-other, but it gave surprisingly good sound - better than most other £90 carts I tried!
The TTs are OKish - my folks have got one, but unless it's cheap I'd go for something more sensible, like a Garrard 301..

 

thanks for the input guys,
im trying to put together a retro/vintage system for the living room.
im looking for a pioneer reciever to use as a base then build on top of that.
my self and the other half are decorating in retro/70's gear so with an empty living room to furnish thers not much left for hi fi, just picked these up from e bay last week , http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3746328515&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT a steal i recon.
anyways back to the hi fi , il have to go with a modern cd player but the rest will be vintage.
has anyone ever had any dealings with pioneer recievers? i used to have an old sa7500 amp and although not high end hi fi it did perform quite well so im defo looking for pioneer.

cheers ,

Rob.

 

Yeah but a 301 ain't gonna come cheap - especially once you've factored in an arm.

If a 70s vintage look on a reasonable budget is the aim, I'd stand by my recommendations for a Trio or Pioneer or mebbe a Sansui SR222. All three models come up reasonably often on ebay. Given you are thinking of Pioneer, maybe the PL12D is the best bet. Here's one:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3283&item=5722256499&rd=1

Also a number of nice shiny silver 70s monster Pioneer Receivers on there at the mo.

 

The Sony direct drives late 70s -80s were also pretty good