Beocenter 5000 – record deck issues

[turricaned]

Hi all, newbie here so please bear with me…

So I bought a Beocenter 5000 via eBay the other day, and spent a fair while playing LPs of varying age and conditions before I agreed to take it; everything sounded fine as far as I could tell.

We taped the tone arm in place for the drive home, wrapped the unit in bubble-wrap to within an inch of its life, secured it on the rear seat of my car with multiple straps and two of the seatbelts – then drove home so gingerly that I suspect even the old grannies behind me were wishing I’d get a move on… 😉

Anyways, I get it home, unpack and set it up and I’m sure something’s not right with either the record deck itself or possibly the preamp circuits.  The arm and stylus seem to track fine, but in terms of audio the top end seems OK, but the bass appears to be somewhat attenuated and the midrange (particularly vocals) seems oddly distorted.

I checked the fidelity of the FM radio and that sounds as I’d expect from a B&O unit, so I’m reasonably sure neither the speakers nor the main integrated amp is the issue.

The strangest bugbear is that when I press Stop/Turn, there seems to be a pop and a brief burst of continued audio in the left channel as (or fractionally after) the tone arm lifts.

I appreciate it’s a bit of a conundrum, but might anyone have experienced something similar before or have any idea what the issue might be?

Thanks ever so much,

J.

[Mark-sf]

Did you tighten the turntable transport screws and remove the platter for your transport. If not its bouncing could have caused issues. The mute switch may have been damaged. Have you tried the tape deck?

[Dillen]

Failing cantilever suspension perhaps.
While playing a record, try (carefully) to add a little finger-weight onto the cartridge – just enough to see the stylus change its tracking angle.
If it snaps down and starts playing clean and right, the suspension is failing (can be repaired by experts).

Martin

[turricaned]

Mark-sf wrote:

Did you tighten the turntable transport screws and remove the platter for your transport. If not its bouncing could have caused issues. The mute switch may have been damaged. Have you tried the tape deck?

Hi Mark, thanks for the reply. Alas I didn’t know there were screws that needed to be tightened. Admittedly I didn’t check the electronic reject mechanism when I tested it at the previous owner’s because, again, I’m unfamiliar with the unit and wasn’t sure how to go about it. My bad, and I hope it’s sortable.

Dillen wrote:

Failing cantilever suspension perhaps.
While playing a record, try (carefully) to add a little finger-weight onto the cartridge – just enough to see the stylus change its tracking angle.
If it snaps down and starts playing clean and right, the suspension is failing (can be repaired by experts).

And thank you for your reply, Martin. I’ll definitely give it a go – do you have any more info on how I should check the tracking angle? I grew up with mainly digital audio equipment, so I’m a bit of a newbie with turntables.

All the best,
J.

[turricaned]

PS. Is removing the cartridge a case of supporting the tone arm behind and gently pulling? I’ve seen this method described for other units, but not sure if it’s the same with mine.

OK, so I’ve figured that out (carefully!)

Martin – I tried your finger-pressure test (very gingerly, I promise) and lo-and-behold, the fidelity improved dramatically. I also spent about 6 hours doing some research online regarding balancing the tone arm and discovered that the previous owner seems to have set the tracking force quite a bit heavier than spec, which might explain why the cartridge is now misbehaving.

[turricaned]

Replacement cartridge sorted things – at extra expense, alas… But thank you for helping me troubleshoot it!

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