Hi,
Models with the bigger clamper (the cover of the disc) are more recent.
If you’re that old fashioned and you also like cassette, you may want to look at the Ouverture (last models with big clamber, pretty rare I think or oldest)
Stay away from a 3000 with small clamper, I feel it’s a doomed machine a sooner or later it will brick (again, that’s just my feeling)
3200 has a built in hard drive to save CD’s but at a very poor quality nowadays.
As for the speakers:
Foam rot is the disintegration of the internal damping material that melt and drip over the components and corrode them. On Beolab 4000 it can be avoid by selecting a pair beyond a certain serial number (15xxxxx IIRC).
Beolab 8000 are iconic indeed but first, thye’re very tall, they’re big and are floor standing so you need to think it. Second, there are various iterations of the model, MK1, MK2, MK1 early/Late… Well model with constant changes. I’ve got a pair of MK1 with cup woofer, so far it’s a dissapoinment: they have bass but it’s like if they lack attack. My 4000’s are more punchy. Seems like it’s what justify the evolution of the model. I beleive MK2 with dome woofer are more what people expect as rendering or at least me.
Finally, 8000’s are prone to foam rot and I dont know if this has been corrected over the years like it did for 4000’s.