[Dillen]

You have already achieved more than most owners could/would.
These Beograms are wonderful decks, but not easy to service as they are so different from everything else, and it’s often seen that several problems and faults are present at the same
time, which can easily confuse matters immensely and make diagnosing difficult.
I suggest you leave servicing to someone with more experience. The results will be great and the Beogram is worth it.

Whenever I have problems with my car, I try to fix as much as possible myself, – and I can
do quite a lot myself, really – but every now and then a repair is necessary for which I simply don’t have the knowledge, experience and/or tools and instruments, and in these
cases I bring it in for servicing at a pro car repairshop.
I don’t throw my car away just because a problem comes up that I cannot solve myself.

Of course your Beogram can be repaired.
If you are in – or near – Denmark, I’d happily take a look at it.

Martin

[Audionerd87]

I 2nd the non-trashing it approach (and if you still want to go that way i’m sure someone on here (myself included) would want to take dibs. Truth of the matter is you often need 2 units (one for use, one for parts) for anything in the 8000 series. Not only do you get spare parts, but they work as an in person roadmap for trouble shooting as well. I know it’s tempting to chase the dragon for the win trying to trouble shoot the individual boards/chips on these (especially a barn find) but they often cause more headaches than glory on what is already a rather idiosyncratic machine… trust me, I’ve been there- and if not me absolutely trust Martin’s post above, his opinion is the gold standard. If all of that hasn’t discouraged you I’d start looking on eBay (I know I know, but for their purposes it’s probably no harm). These have started to go from vintage to just old with an ever shrinking number of qualified service people in the last few years; the parts unit market is reflecting this situation with whole units going for $100-150 (some even with cartridges) at auction. You just have to keep an eye out. Any investment that stays under $250 and ends with a working BG 8000 will more than return its costs. Feel free to DM me if you want to walk through your current issues, there are a couple last ditch areas you can check I don’t see mentioned in your posts.

[Mark]

thomash wrote:

For many reasons I wish I were in Danmark to have someone who knows their way around it fix it but that is logistically impossible.

I purchased a Beogram 8002 from someone on eBay which is from Texas. He specializes in refurbishing Beogram 8000 and 8002. He tears down the turnable replaces all the capacitors and does everything necessary to bring it up to specs and restore it to “new” condition. For me the turntable was quite a deal price-wise, and it replaced a Beogram 8002 turntable I also bought from eBay that was nothing but trouble. I have had no trouble with the new turntable and I can play transparent disks without a mat which surprised me. I don’t know if he would refurbish turntables for other people and it probably wouldn’t be cheap. If you think your turntable is worth the effort and cost I could email him and ask him about it.

[Audionerd87]

As someone who started on the B&O bandwagon long after this generation was off the market (started frequenting this forum (on/off) in ‘07) the advice you have been given is much of the same as I was when starting out (actually in much friendlier terms, as I was a know-it all teenager then lol). Everyone so far on this thread means beyond well. The 8000 is a complicated deck both in terms of function and execution. Much like 80/81 Beomaster 8000’s they were paired with, some were simply better machines than others. The 8000 series components were effectively the hifi equivalents of automotive HALO models put into production. They pushed the technological limits of their time, implementing features that would go on to be continuously perfected and incorporated in some of their most advanced systems in the proceeding decade. However, as they transitioned from the end of the solid state era, into the digital revolution there was a bit of generational overlap unique to these pieces that may make them rather counter intuitive and not the easiest to troubleshoot without many hours of reading and practical trial and error experience.

These decks can be made functional (although longevity is not a guarantee) with a parts machine as a donor, or restored to greatness with the help of those who have done so before, but not so much brought back to life in piecemeal fashion.

[thomash]

I get that people’s intentions might be good and I hope mine are too. Words on a screen can be misinterpreted and I am sorry for mischaracterizing anyone.

Yesterday I did manage to get correct speed to go along with previously fixed power supply and arm control and muting problems. I did this piecemeal myself using only DVM and scope and general circuit advice theory from people not on this forum. A generic opto device from amazon is now in place held by a bread tie. IC3 and IC1 are new with sockets; the other ones are OK so far. My old ones might be OK; I replaced them being unsure of observed failures which turned out to have other causes. A couple dozen capacitors have been replaced as well. So I should be doing cartwheels.

The sapphire shank n stylus came to me broken with just a stub poking from cartridge. My first attempt to super glue a needle on resulted in poor sound and my second attempt to super glue a better needle on ended in disaster. My three choices are pay insane stupid money for replacement, cut this cartridge open with a dremel tool and try again to glue a stylus n cantilever on or adapt a lightweight small generic cartridge to the existing connections.

I fully expect to be talked out of two of those ideas but am all ears. Thank you.

[Mark]

What are you hoping to get out of this turntable/project? Are you looking for a really good turntable or the experience fixing it, or something else? They are all valid reasons. I don’t think I understand the idea of super gluing the cantilever on, but this isn’t my area of expertise.

I hear many complaints of vinyl reproduction, and I have to wonder how much of it could be the quality of the cartridge.

[thomash]

Mark I have multiple reasons for attacking this machine. It came to me only because owner had found it in junkpile from two generations ago deceased relatives and was ready to toss it in garbage. I stopped him and began what has now been a 2 month project. Mostly I wanted to prove a point: making an amazing old thing work again is a test of skill and analytic ability. Even if the old thing has been rendered obsolete. Right now the crude grafting of a needle to the generating member of the cartridge is working well enough to continue concept testing. It would be nice to find a OK lower end cartridge with intact needle for this at a cheap price out of dead broken machine. I would use it on one of my analog home systems as a gee whiz conversation piece.

[matador]

thomash wrote:

Thank you to the people offering ideas in a pleasant way and no thank you to the people who are going out of their way to attack me.

Thomash,

I’ve been there too. Beoworld people can sometimes look or sound harsh. I’ve felt myself excluded from a closed circle of “knowing people”. But what I learned is that sometimes when, as you did through your experiments, look able to sort it out by yourself, members won’t interfere. They let you dig and dig and dig again and find out until you’re really stuck and then they show up with respect and good willing.

Long time since I’ve seen a post from Dillen more than one line. He told you “You have already achieved more than most owners could/would.”. Trust me, its a golden badge.

Purpose of Beoworld (as I see it) is not to repair your stuff for you. It is to teach you how to repair any stuff. Sometimes it hurts, yes. But in the end its really rewarding.

Your Deck is a gem, everybody told you that. Get it up and working!

See this as an “bizutage” in French.

Welcome to Beoworld.

 

[chartz]

As regards cartridges I’ll advise Soundsmith

in the USA. They have brand new models also used by B&O nowadays.

[chartz]

I think we know the bloke from Texas pretty well here! ?

[Glitch]

Audionerd87 wrote:

These decks can be made functional (although longevity is not a guarantee) with a parts machine as a donor

This has never worked for me… Eventually, I always fix the donor machine and it becomes a spare/backup machine ;-).

thomash wrote:

It would be nice to find a OK lower end cartridge with intact needle for this at a cheap price out of dead broken machine.

This is possible, but you will need to be very, very patient while waiting for something to become available. I think that many of the old B&O turntables get taken out of service when something happens to the cartridge. For the rest of the broken machines, people seem to remove the cartridge before they sell the rest for parts.

Additionally, when something does come up for sale, you have to quickly buy it before one of the other zealots from this forum snaps it up from under you. 😉

Glitch

[thomash]

Thank you Glitch for this advice. Meantime I sliced the front off this cartridge where the cantilever had broken off. Surprise surprise it is the same structure as the old SP6 with a little X stuck on rubber block and the cantilever secured to the X. The pole pieces are in a block of green rubbery stuff but they made this as a sealed unit unlike the old SP6 where the front comes off and gets replaced. If I can make a tiny X and secure a cantilever n needle to it, I can mount the X on the rubber and this thing will still work. If I touch pole pieces with ferrous tool, the speakers thump left n right. X structure n cantilever on SP6 is much too large to cannibalize otherwise I would buy one and get it on here somehow. If somebody made it farther than I have already, thank you for tips.

[Glitch]

thomash wrote:

Meantime I sliced the front off this cartridge where the cantilever had broken off.

Pictures please. I, and likely many others, find it very interesting to see the inner workings of things that people normally don’t cut apart.

It also might be worth a search of the forum history to see if anyone has tried this before. One of the more recent similar threads is here.

Glitch

 

[chartz]

It won’t work. Completely different contexts, with incompatible characteristics.

Are you trying to save money or do you want a great deck ruined by a DIY mess?

Buy a new cartridge from Soundsmith and enjoy the music ?

[Author]

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