When I moved home a couple of years ago and acquired a sitting room that could really do a high-end system justice (being 42 feet x 18) I decided to create the B&O system of my dreams. I wanted to incorporate the best available B&O speakers and to be able to play almost any kind of source, from quadraphonic vinyl to DVD-A, from cassette to SACD, from reel-to-reel to HDCD.
The final system, pictured here, uses the following components:
TV: BeoVision 4-103 with BeoLab 10 centre speaker
Front speakers: BeoLab 90
Rear speakers: BeoLab 50
Turntable: Beogram 6000 (quadraphonic) with MMC6000 cartridge
Amplifier: Beomaster 6000 (quadraphonic)
CD player: Beocord CD 5500 (I also have a BeoSound 9000 in the system, partly for its stunning looks and partly because it makes it easy to compare masterings on different versions of a CD, but the 5500 is my main CD player due to its superior sound quality)
Cassette deck: Beocord 5500 (I tried a 1970s Beocord 5000, which matched my turntable and amplifier and offered superior sound quality, but lived up to its reputation for mangling tapes)
Reel-to-reel deck: Beocord 1200
Universal disk player (Blu-ray/DVD/DVD-A/SACD/HDCD): Cambridge CXU
Video cassette recorder: Beocord V8000 (but may upgrade to a VX7000 at some point)
Remote control: Beo 5 and BeoRemote One
To make these components work, we needed some unusual wiring. The Beogram 6000 feeds into the Beomaster 6000 (which is needed to assign the correct channels for quadraphonic LPs); the signals are then attenuated back to line level and fed to the line inputs of the Lab 90s and Lab 50s.
The cassette and reel-to-reel decks also feed into the Beomaster 6000, with the latter using the AUX input.
The CD5500 is connected directly to the Lab 90s via S/PDIF, but is also connected to a Beomaster 5500 (not connected to anything else) to provide remote control.
The BeoSound 9000 connects to the Lab 90s via Masterlink, giving me a backup CD player.
Finally, the CXU and the V8000 connect directly to the BeoSystem 3 driving the TV.
My dealer, Dan Armstrong, and I have had a lot of fun putting this system together, and were earlier enjoying the quadraphonic version of Jefferson Starship's "Dragonfly" (the moment when the violin kicks in in the right-hand rear channel during "Ride The Tiger" is breathtaking) and Sly & The Family Stone's "Stand!" on reel-to-reel. I'd also like to thank my former dealer Jonathan Kinrade for his help, Mike Sparkes at B&O of Brighton and Morten Kristensen at Bremdal Radio for supplying some of the components, Steve at Sounds Heavenly for the attenuators and cabling, and Geoff Martin for his advice and support.
Together, we created something genuinely unique!
