I ordered some bass drivers for Lab 8000 recently - sure it was an 8 part number, but I also have a service engineer on the books

w5bno123 wrote:

I believe that Paul Davey who's based near you has to order his spare parts from BeoService.

Yeah, I do know Paul (although not very well) - he's carried out work on some of my equipment in the past and we've both been involved in the same projects at times so our paths have crossed on more than one occasion. He's a nice guy.

w5bno123 wrote:

I understand that B&O are trying to streamline the service side of the business and ensure that parts are fitted properly. We've seen some bodge jobs by dealers that are thankfully no longer dealers, but this has taken away another revenue stream for the small dealer that is capable of doing frontline repairs and ensuring that it is a swift process 😁

I can understand the thinking behind this (although I think it is flawed). Are they also imposing restrictions on the service centres as to who they can supply these parts to, or is it just going to be a case of people ordering from a service centre rather than their local dealer?

The problem I see is that very quickly you end up in a situation not dissimilar to how the automotive industry was operating with regard to parts and technical documentation some years ago, and it took EU legislation to sort that mess out and allow independent garages to operate on a reasonably level playing field again.

I don't begrudge paying a service technician to fix a problem when it's appropriate, but there are many instances, particularly with older equipment (even where parts are still available) where many of the current technicians lack the skills required to carry out repairs at a component level, or where it is simply not cost effective to go down this route.

Martin.

Well I started this thread a few weeks ago in the hope of finding an answer so from the various replies, a few from dealers it would seem, then looks like B&O have decided that they want more of their classic systems to end up in 'Land-fill'  which I would say doesn't look like a very good sustainability or 'green' policy.  Maybe it is a safety issue which is fine.  But I only service repair the easy stuff, belts, laser units, speaker (dreaded foams) etc.  All I'm looking for right now is any spare or new black plastic display covers for Penta 3s or PentaVox.   Has anyone got a scrap pair of Pentas I could use / purchase. Jack.