Hi and welcome to Beoworld.

Yes, the symptoms you are experiencing are pretty common to Beogram 800x turntables at this point in their life. When people buy these units on Ebay that is also quite common. It isn't really a fault of the sellers. Many people dealing in vintage audio components don't really know how to evaluate them. If power is applied and lights come on then it is assumed the units work good. 

The truth is that audio equipment thirty years or older are bound to have some things beginning to fail. Those things could be very small and undetectable at first but believe me will occur.  Aging electrolytic capacitors are a well known culprit so are always a must. There are many other things though. Connections between components inside can fail whether it is physical connectors, relays or bad solder joints. 

Another cause is non-use. Many of these vintage components are coming out of long term storage. They may have worked when the owner stopped using them but without use corrosion has set in. The conditions of storage are a big problem as well.

Unless someone is willing to guarantee that the vintage audio gear has already been fully restored you can expect there to be problems that will have to be repaired. 

In your case the problem sounds like possible failures in some of the optical sensors but it could also be due to the capacitors or a bad connection. There are hundreds of possibilities in these units. 

The Beogram 8002 is a wonderful turntable though and I would recommend investing more money into getting it back to full operation.

One other thing is the MMC cartridge is also likely to have suspension problems by now. That is another item that could require a repair or a new cartridge.

There are numerous repair projects in the Workbench Forum on Beoworld and at the Beolover Blog that document Beogram 800x restorations. You can get a good idea of what is involved in the restoration process when reading through those.

-sonavor

sonavor wrote:

The Beogram 8002 is a wonderful turntable though and I would recommend investing more money into getting it back to full operation.

So would I, but at the seller's expense.  For $835 USD I would expect a perfectly functioning 8002.  The seller - 'idealaudio_uk' -  *should* know how to test turntables and described it as "fully operational". (auction here).  It clearly isn't.  I'd either return it under his 30-day return policy or negotiate that he pay for the full cost of the repairs.  Dillen (Martin) is the name of person you inquired about for the cap kit (or to do the repair). 

Good Luck..

Hi sonavor,

Thank you for your welcome and for your helpful comments - much appreciated.

As a lover of vintage audio equipment (and classic cars, which I would indulge if I could afford it and had the garaging space), I am well aware of age-related issues. It is always a gamble buying such things, whether from a dealer or a private seller on eBay or otherwise, but one does as much research as possible (including asking questions of the seller), weighs up the pros and cons and takes the price into consideration before committing or not. To be a "Keeper of the Flame" (as a friend of mine puts it) in respect of old equipment, you must be prepared to commit (as all members of this forum clearly do).

I have two Nakamichi cassette decks, a Dragon and a 680 (the one with the half-speed capability, which at half-speed eats iPods and MP3 players for breakfast). The 680 will celebrate its 40th birthday this year. I have owned them for a good few years (the Dragon since 2000) and both have recently been serviced by Bowers & Wilkins (from whom I bought the Dragon); neither service was cheap, although not unreasonable, and I am confident that both decks should give me many more years of service. You see what good condition, properly serviced examples of these decks sell for on eBay and it brings a smile to your face, knowing that getting the decks serviced was a wise investment.

I also have two Tascam DAT recorders, a DA-20 MkII and a DA-30 MkII, a Sony EL-7 Elcaset, three Minidisc recorders and two Pioneer laserdisc players, so you can understand the level of vintage audio lunacy that exists in yours truly :) The speakers currently in use are Celestion DL10 Series 2's, which I picked up at a local auction for £5.00! (nobody else bid). Okay, the tweeters were shot, but I picked up a replacement pair from Wilmslow Audio in the UK for around £80.00. I shall try to post a photo of my equipment in due course.

So, yes, you can rest assured that time and money will be invested in the 8002 and the cartridge to bring it back to full health. As it is now, it is giving a good idea of its potential (the lack of distortion is very noticeable). It would be nice to improve certain aspects of its build quality (but I was aware of this before I bought it).

It is nice to have one of B & O's finest in my hi-fi after not having had an example for many years (not quite true - I did buy a Beolit 505 about a year ago - wonderful radio) and I have always fancied the tangentials. Years ago, I bought new a Beomaster 4000, a Beocord 2200 (still toy with the notion of getting one of those again) and a Beogram 1200 (if memory serves).

And just to confirm the idiocy referred to above, I have also just bought a Beogram 4002 (5514) from the same dealer who sold me the 8002 (is that the men in white coats I hear arriving...). Due to the issues with the 8002, he gave me a decent discount on the price he was asking for the 4002. I don't expect it to be problem free, or if it is at the moment, not to remain that way... I shall report on it once it arrives :)

Thanks again for responding and your advice :)

Hi,

Yes, you have a very good point. But as you will have seen from my reply to sonavor, I decided to take a gamble, keep the 8002 and beat him down on the 4002. The gamble of course being how much the 8002 will cost me to get fixed. 

If the 4002 turns out to be not as described, it will be sent back. I haven't left him any feedback yet. 

The Beogram 8002 could easily have been fine when shipped.
But if not restored properly, vibrations will cause solder joints to crack and connections to become unstabile.
It's all very common.

Don't hold the seller in a squeeze.
Give him a chance to correct the situation or take the item back.

Martin

Hi Martin,

The seller in fact suggested that. He certainly packed it well and there was no evidence of mishandling showing on the box. I think that record decks, possible more than other items of hi-fi, are more susceptible to transit problems, especially when old.

I am happy with the agreed reduction on the 4002, but know I am taking a gamble.

I know this is a "how long is a piece of string question", but could you give me a ballpark figure regarding the cost of refurbishing the 8002? Where are you based? I have to factor in return shipping costs, which from here in the Channel Islands are usually nasty. But I think it would be worth it for the results (the engineer I use here is good, but has no experience with the 8002, although he is keen to assist, so an alternative would be to buy the relevant parts, capacitors etc from you).

Many thanks for your input.

Update: The DIN to Phono interconnect with grounding wire arrived from Steve this morning. Happy to report that the hum issue has been banished 🙂

On reflection, I am very nervous about shipping the 8002, and will probably get my engineer here to look at it. When we know what it needs, I can contact you if that okay.

Update, some 11 months later!

Today, I got my Beogram 8002 back from my local hi-fi guru/engineer serviced and repaired. It turned out to be a pretty major undertaking and cost me almost as much as I paid for the deck in the first place (would have cost a lot more if he'd charged me all his time). But all very worthwhile as I now have a  fine, fully functioning 8002 which looks and sounds wonderful!

As well as the work done to the tracking, which involved replacing the optical sensor amongst other things, and other fun and games with the electronics, it has been fully recapped and the cost accountant double-sided tape replaced.

I shall post some pics when I work out how to...

When I picked up the 8002, I left him my 4002 to work his magic on...

how is the 8002 12 months later - what MMC do you have ?

and how does it compare with the 4002 ?