Contact the folks at Newbury Street...BeoLab 5's are intended to be serviced in-home.  Don't expect 'Next-Day' service, the front line service technician will have to get the BL-5 service kit from B&O-A.

To answer your question though, no I've never heard of this issue before.

Thanks for the reply.  B&O on Newbury responded quickly and have parts on order.  Looks like a Amp module issue- repacement, with an estimated repair of $1600. 

This highlights the issue of module replacement. With the older equipment, a 50 pence component would simply be replaced by a skilled technician - now it is all complete modules. Not sure about anyone else but this depresses me.

Doctor wrote:

This highlights the issue of module replacement. With the older equipment, a 50 pence component would simply be replaced by a skilled technician - now it is all complete modules. Not sure about anyone else but this depresses me.

I'm of the same mindset! I know many modern circuits would be impossible to manufacture on a component-level basis, but a purely modular approach (with each module containing quite a lot of electronics) is easier to manufacture, but far more wasteful and expensive to repair...

I am sure there will be plenty of people willing to strip these modules in the future and they will find some replaceable off the shelf components. The main problem is that of diagnoses, custom i.c.'s and recalibration. However the same problems appear with early 80's electronics and even earlier B&O. For instance, how many restorers today have recalibrated a phono CD4 decoder to factory specs? I bet Martin is the most likely candidate here!

I suspect third party companies will eventually take care of repairs, perhaps to the extent of repairing modules to component level.

Unfortunately, this level of technical achievement would be nearly impossible using any other method!

Remember the amount of technology a BL5 contains. It is very likely to contain some ICs in BGA cases for example, and they are practically impossible to replace and/or resolder if a fault develops under them - there's nothing you can do except replace the entire PCB.

Of course these complex modules may develop more conventional faults that could be repaired, but locating them may still be far from cost effective. All we can hope is that B&O keeps the replacement module prices reasonable; I believe the $1600 estimate includes quite a bit of work you'd have to do anyway to get the module out & in, testing etc.

$1600 seems to me quite expensive. Two years ago I had a similiar problem with my BL5s. When I started a source the left BL5 either powered up with a pop sound - and then worked quite normal - or it powered up, changing the stdby light to green, but had NO sound. My dealer ordered the service kit from Struer - trying to get it for free, but Beo wanted to be payed, because the BL5s were fours years old and out of warranty. So I had to pay 250 Euro for the module. The dealer didn`t charge anything for the work - they said, this fault shouldn`t happen with a four years old BL5 ! Four days later I brought my faulty BL5 to the store, and two hours later I could take the repaired one back home. They replaced  the whole electronics with the exception of the eprom, that contains all the sound- and calibration data. The faulty electronic was sent to Struer.

Stefan