Hi Cleve

yes many vintage products from 1960 to 1990 sounds much better and that is not only b&o many japanese products from that period do the same.I think it's due to the fact that they were fitted to pure analog sound and the lack of using chip's and processors to cope with digital devices(eks MP3).About speakers its more difficult because two different persons don't hear the sound from a speaker the same way and also the room(acustic) and the placement of speakers has great influence to the sound

regards

ja

I have an 80's Beomaster 6000 with a CDX playing through some recapped and refoamed MC120.2's and in my opinion it sounds much nicer than, say an ouverture and either BL6000's or BL8000's. I would even say that at normal listening levels I prefer the MC120's over pentas although the pentas get better the higher the volume.

I am sure if I splashed out and got some BL5s or BL9's it would sound nicer but as a system that has cost me about £200 all in it would, I expect, knock the socks off of a lot of more modern systems, B&O or otherwise.

I would recommend recapping the speakers as it does make a noticable improvement and is an easy and rewarding little job.

Modern equipment can be very good - The BL5 is wonderful. However good old equipment was very good and remains so. Pick the right equipment and you will match most modern equipment and often beat it. Remember the 2500 was definitely a mid-range product when released so you cannot expect it to match something which was top of the line. A well known B&O lover recently took his CDX along to a Hi-Fi magazine editor and compared it to a number of modern products - analogue and digital. It was felt that it matched or outperformed almost anything else. The Beomaster 2200 on which your BC4000 is based is a real jewel of an amplifier and the tuner is excellent as well. Get some decent speakers - S45-2s are good but do lack ultimate bass - S120s or MC120.2s are superb and I love my M100s though you need a decent sized room. That set up will make you realise what BL6000s and 8000s lack. They also show that Pentas cannot match the bass in accuracy. You do however lose convenience, remote control and design. I wish that the CD player in the present range had as good a DAC as the TDA1541in the CD5500 or even the TDA1540 in the CDX! Sound now can often be harsh and bright as if they are searching for detail. In my view, sometimes this makes sounds that are not true to the original recording. But it is what 'people' want these days!

Nice post. I can't call myself competent at comparing amplifiers - and I haven't really listened to anything less than 15 years old from the B&O repertoire - but I can second your opinion in radios in general. There has been a lot of work on tuners in the recent decade or two, but it has mostly gone into integrating them further and making them cheaper. For many of the youngsters the tuner is just a side effect they mostly don't use anyway.

Making a modern integrated tuner with RDS and everything requires pretty complicated mixed-mode IC design, and involves a lot of compromises. I'm afraid the people competent in designing a well performing discrete radio front-end are going away, as well! If you go to the literature part of the site and read the document on the design of Beomaster 4400, you get some idea what it required. And the result is still excellent today - I would expect the 60's Beomaster 5000 to hold its own quite well against most any modern tuner as well!

But there are some misses in the vintage radios as well. I have two Beolit 707's, and while they sound absolutely brilliant in good conditions, they suffer badly from cross modulation in the presence of strong signals, which usually means a front-end of limited capability (well there were a lot of design constraints in battery operation those days). Could be that they have drifted out of spec, though; I haven't really started restoration work on them yet.

Hi Cleve

You are far from alone in your thoughts! I have had similar thoughts to you ever since I read this thread a while ago

/forum/general-discussion-and-questions/redline-60-versus-beolab-8000-speakers---and-the-winner-worries-me#post-1815266

For those without the time to read through the whole thread, essentially nobody on the thread suggests that an expensive pair of Beolab 8000s  matches up to the sound quality of a pair of redline 60's from 20 years go, which certainly surprised me!

When I started acquiring second hand B&O a couple of years ago I assumed I would progress in time to the newer active speakers. I currently have a Beosystem 5000 playing through a pair of S45-2's and it is becoming clear to me that if I want to secure a significant increase in sound quality from the current rage I would have to buy a set of Lab 9's which are way out of my reach financially and probably not suitable for a house with small children in it, so I don't see myself upgrading for the foreseeable future.

Used Pentas are an option but as almost all of my listening is at low/medium volume levels (never been above 3.4 on by Beomaster 5000) I am still not sure how much improvement I would see on a day to day basis.

I am becoming increasingly convinced that vintage B&O represents the best value Hi-fi you can get anywhere. I definetely agree that recapping your S45-2s would be a good idea, they made a huge difference to mine!

Simon

in short, i would say yes, but... i think it is simply a different sound.

IMHO...

bm4400 + mc120.2 =  WARMTH

bs9000 + actives (discounting bl5 or 9) = CLINICAL

i like both!

Most A/V these days are assembled chip-sets, with different modules from off-the-shelf suppliers being combined - very few companies do in-house development.

From the 60s to the early 90s, B&O and other quality companies spent a crazy amount of resources developing turntables, tuners, amp's. B&O realized they had let their engineers go completely overboard with the Beogram 4000, and took a hard look at the parts catalogue before letting them build the 4002, for instance.

My Beolab 5000/Beomaster 5000 separate amp and tuner are solid from here to Pluto (no longer a planet!) Excellent construction and sound. The Beogram 5000-7000 CD-players have been built to platinum standards. The Beomaster amp's in the same series likewise.

In fact, some of the finest bargains to be found are in vintage HiFi, because people think it's junk, unaware of the exceptional quality. You just have to be on the look-out. For instance, a lot of people will connect their iPods to cheap, plastic speakers, and retire their Marantz or Tandberg super-amp's because they think they can't connect the iPod to them ... (sigh!)

Consider this Marantz tuner, for instance, with an oscilloscope for the precise acquisition of an FM-signal!

Or just the sheer beaty and joy of a Beomaster 1200, with a Beogram 1200 (and if you can find the Beocord 1200 tape-deck that goes with it, you're in heaven). Well, I just found a white, Beocord 1200 tape deck, in good order, for DKK 900. Hurry!
link

I listen to my Beolab 5000 nearly every day - very happy - and thinking of getting Classic-Audio to refurbish the original speaker-set that goes with it. The Dynaudio speakers I'm using now would pay for that, if I sell them second-hand, and I would get something that would be one-of-a-kind -- and which has great sound, to boot.

Unfortunately, people think these items are worthless, so they'll often throw them away, not even bothering to offer it through net classifieds , etc.
A friend of mine in Stockholm responded to an ad in blocket.se, someone who were practically giving away a Beomaster 1200, Beogram 1200, with speakers. Went to pick them up - one owner, had treated them with reverence, but were moving, and wondered if my friend would like to have his LPs for the effort it would take to carry them down to his car? 800 LPs later ...

Just look at this, in Denmark. For DKK 800, you get a Beomaster 4400, recently serviced, with two speakers.

link

Here's someone selling a 4400, a Beogram 4004, a pair of speakers, as well as the original B&O console table for DKK 3.800.

link

This post has really inspired me to get out my Beomaster 8000, Beogram 8002 and Beocord 8002.  I've had them for years but haven't really spent time with them...they're so darn heavy to move around though and finding a nice place for them without my partner screaming at me will be hard to avoid!

I've got a few sets of different passive speakers but am not sure which would be the best for the system.  Is the system worth dusting off? 

Are you kidding???

The Beomaster 8000 is the most powerfull reciver B&O has ever done and it's still a flagship.

I enjoy mine on a daily basis and it's a very dynamic, powerfull, neutral reciver that really is not dated anyway.

It's simple to use and still a king of a system. If it's a complete working system it will still keep you smile as it will keep it's value.

What kind of speakers do you got?