I grew up with decent speakers, but never had a real "connection" to them. They just ran the radio and occasionally my mother put on a CD for background music at dinners.

I got my relationship to B&O from my mother´s fiance who had a B&O/AV Store at the time. When he moved in, i was probably around 16, he brought a pair of Penta 2 and an Ouverture with him. First of all the design and glass door movement amazed me, but as soon as he asked me if i even listened to music "properly", in the meaning of active listening, a whole new cosmos unfolded for me. From there on I went through many many CDs of his collection and started buying albums myself. Visits at newer B&O flagship stores, reading about audio followed and sooner or later made me buy his pair of pentas, since he switched to BL3 and BL11. I experimented so much, bought and sold B&O products, educated myself with the brand and audio (geoff martin´s blog 

My love with B&O started with a pair of Beolab 9 connected to a BeoSound 4. I was blown away by the sleek design and the sound. Recently B&O reappeared on my radar when they introduced BeoSound 1 and 2. Last Christmas I bought a BeoSound 2 and could not be happier. 

It was 2001.  I was working from home and had a very good year.  Wanted to upgrade my office sound system to burn off some excess $$$.  In my hunt for the best sounding, cost no object, office sound system (needed to be self-contained since I thought I might move back to a regular office some day and would want to bring it along), I stumbled across the original BS1.  Loved the sound, the look, the magic antenna.  Sold.  Then I bought a BS9000 + BL8000, and a whole lot more...  

My love for B&O started in the late nineties when I was 18 or so. My girlfriend's father replaced his BeoMaster & -Gram 1900 + S45s for a complete 5500 pizzabox system with BeoVox Pentas and the MCP. What a system! I think he first got a BeoGram CD50 with it (with the cd upside-down), as the 5500 was not available yet. Latrer the 5500 came. It was really magical: the tapedeck moving out of its housing so elegantly, the super thin cd drawer, the tangentially moving tone-arm. Although he never used the system a lot, he does actually now a lot more. The music of the TV is played over the AUX of the Master. We both still like to go through the catalogue together as we did then!

I did not only stick with some of the music I listened to in those days, but even with the music sytem 🙂, I now use a BeoMaster 6500 everyday.

This year I gave my daughters both a H6 headphone (no empty batteries and easy wire replacement). But it is Interesting to see that the virus does not automatically spread - my brothers do not care for B&O and think I am a bit nerdy with it haha.

I still remember the day i visited a B&O store in 1997 as a student. And the magic got me captivated when i saw a stunning Beosound 9000 CD change. Oh it locked me up on the brand. 8 years later my first purchase a BV7 and a big list of others till today...but strangely i never owned my first love... Maybe in future...

Year 1975.

Sitting with the catalogues, mouth water running.
What incredibly nice things. I never saw radios and record players in designs like this before.
Mouth wide open. I was blown away. Absolutely fantastic.
I got the chance to do a little work on units owned by family members, neighbours, my parents work colleagues and
others, replacing lamps and such, I remember studying every little detail, both in the design, the general build and the electronics.
Nine years old I sat down with the schematics and the units, and I found out that if I put my mind to it and gave it my best shot I could
understand quite a bit of the circuitry, and I got encouraged to read more about the circuits I didn't fully understand.

Year 1977

I got a Beomaster 1900. The most beautiful radio in the world. Nothing in the world came even close to
this futuristic slim-line wonder. I could gaze at it for hours. It's lights. It looked like something from outer space.
And the way it was operated. Touch-controlled. Impossible, it seemed at the time and in my mind, to operate anything
without pressing buttons or turning dials, - but still it was right there in front of me. How did they do that? How does it work?
It had some problems initially, and I believe it was a returned item sold out the back door to my father from a local dealer, but
I fixed it and I had it for a couple of years.
I then discovered more B&O units, found them here, there and everywhere,
and I started collecting.
Seriously collecting.

Martin

Dillen wrote:

Year 1975. Sitting with the catalogues, mouth water running. What incredibly nice things. I never saw radios and record players in designs like this before. Mouth wide open. I was blown away. Absolutely fantastic. I got the chance to do a little work on units owned by family members, neighbours, my parents work colleagues and others, replacing lamps and such, I remember studying every little detail, both in the design, the general build and the electronics. Nine years old I sat down with the schematics and the units, and I found out that if I put my mind to it and gave it my best shot I could understand quite a bit of the circuitry, and I got encouraged to read more about the circuits I didn't fully understand.

Year 1977 I got a Beomaster 1900. The most beautiful radio in the world. Nothing in the world came even close to this futuristic slim-line wonder. I could gaze at it for hours. It's lights. It looked like something from outer space. And the way it was operated. Touch-controlled. Impossible, it seemed at the time and in my mind, to operate anything without pressing buttons or turning dials, - but still it was right there in front of me. How did they do that? How does it work? It had some problems initially, and I believe it was a returned item sold out the back door to my father from a local dealer, but I fixed it and I had it for a couple of years. I then discovered more B&O units, found them here, there and everywhere, and I started collecting. Seriously collecting.

Martin

So nicely put. Yes, I think you get to what makes B&O special. I don't think there is any brand that has the same level of emotional connection with their buyers. If there is a brand that needs their own dealer network and stores it is B&O to showcase the. craftsmanship that goes into their products. Unfortunately, in the current world economically that is really hard to do for any company. 

Every piece of B&O gear, even the simple M5, I can see the attention to detail. I see a lot of Dynaudio DSP/Active speakers around me, they sound amazing. But when you see a Beolab 18 the craftsmanship and design is just at another level. The passion of the people who designed and built it just shows. I just hope there is a place for such companies today. Unfortunately B&O is a publicly traded company and they will have to adjust to what their investors want...

Your story of the beomaster 1900 reminded me of when I got my BL 6000 with the remote and CD/Tape player with the moving glass etc. It was both beautiful and amazing 🙂