cozza wrote:

Hi Jeff.

I don't know if this is pertinent to your fault, but I had a beolab 3500 with a similar problem. At power on it made a horrible wailing sound at full volume, and before it could be disconnected destroyed it's drivers. I suspect either faulty STK modules, or the I2C tone control volume chip was faulty. I never investigated this further due to the cost, but hearing about the symptom jogged my memory.

Colin.

Hi Colin,

Thank you for the information.

My repair shop said they expected, prior to seeing the 4500, that the repair would be simple and easy anticipating an IF failure, which apparently was not the case.

Bad capacitors and a few fried resistors should not be horrible, IF that is all it is.

My understanding was something failed causing the 4500 to produce “white noise” at FULL volume. I don’t know about the white noise, but the FULL volume I can attest to. Point of pact I didn’t think that amp could produce anything THAT loud!

I am in a waiting pattern to see what the final verdict is.

Jeff

I wonder how much you gonna spend to have this thing repaired. I have about 25 of those BM4500's....

Leslie wrote:

I wonder how much you gonna spend to have this thing repaired. I have about 25 of those BM4500's....

Are you saving them until the market price goes back up??

Leslie wrote:

I wonder how much you gonna spend to have this thing repaired. I have about 25 of those BM4500's....

Hi Leslie,

It’s worse than that. Aside from the internal problems some idiot chopped the power cord to about 4 inches and there is a moderate scratch on the polished cover.

However until I had problems with my Beomaster 4500 it was by FAR my favourite amplifier.

In hindsight, from what I have “learned” about amplifiers on this forum I now believe what I had was a very marvelous and beneficial partial failure of various components that gave it such a rich, mellow, and outstandingly REAL sound.

I expect that if it can be fixed with everything back to specs it won’t sound anything like it did, which is a shame.

I say this because I have been told here on this forum that the amplifier in the Beomaster 4500 and my BeoCenter 9000 are EXACTLY the same amplifier….. and while it sounds perfectly fine, it is not remotely like the soft intoxicating sound my Beomaster 4500 used to deliver.

So back to your question, I don’t know as Benny hasn’t given me an estimate yet. Benny said it would be a really inexpensive repair as he assumed the IF had gone bad, which was not the case. Now he finds bad caps and some fried resistors….. but no white noise at FULL volume.

So I don’t know how much this is gonna cost.

Then there is the shipping issue. I don’t know what is going on but it cost me something like $500 including duty to ship one way to Denmark. I paid UNDER $50 to ship it to Benny in Georgia and that was priority WITH tracking.

Perhaps the Netherlands is a lot less costly as compared to Denmark, but in any case, we are not there yet. I need to have an estimate.

Jeff

If weight stays below 10kg WW shipping will cost you 59 euro and that includes insurance, tracking and sign-for. PM me if you're interested. On the other hand, have to check first if BM4500 can be modified to 110VAC

Btw, in my case it's just one way shipping :-) and you have a donor left for spare parts..

Leslie wrote:

if BM4500 can be modified to 110VAC

Last time I checked this is possible, just required jumper/lead change at the transformer.

But, that was a while ago and I could be imagining things. Best check again.

joeyboygolf wrote:

Are you saving them until the market price goes back up??

Not really, most of the cases you can buy them here for peanuts and as you might know the glasspanels can be more worth than the whole unit specially if the topplate is damaged...

Piaf,

I'm very sorry to hear your BM4500 is giving you trouble. I know if the same quirks were coming from my 4.5K, I would panic.

I'm not convinced your particular 4500 was "one of one" having a pleasant fault causing a better sound. Of the two (small sample size, I know) 4500's I have heard, I can safely say the BM4500 deserves some credit - these amps are truly great.