Beosystem 5000 and the Beocord 5000 Dilemma

[ryan.nicholson]

So, on Saturday I picked up a lovely Beosystem 5000, and the seller also threw in an extra MCP 5000, another Beomaster 5000, a pair of Beovox S75s, and some S45-2 speakers. The whole system is in really nice cosmetic condition and has cleaned up beautifully.

The turntable needed a little fettling. Even though the transit screws had been locked down, the tonearm string had come off during transport. Thankfully that was an easy fix, and it’s now working perfectly with the MMC4 cartridge.

The Beocord 5000 had the usual perished belts, which wasn’t unexpected. I bought a belt kit and replaced them Tuesday evening. The job itself was actually quite straightforward, and afterwards the transport was operating flawlessly. It was nice and quiet, with all of the mechanical functions—play, fast-forward and rewind—working smoothly.

However, after replacing the belts I noticed a problem with the playback output. Both VU meters immediately pinned into the red, and all I got through the Beomaster 5000 was a constant 50Hz electrical hum. The Beomaster itself works perfectly on both the radio and turntable, so I’m confident the amplifier isn’t at fault. Despite the hum, all of the Beocord’s functions continued to operate correctly (rewind, fast forward play, stop , and system control via the Beomaster also worked as expected. The Beomaster could switch the Beocord on and off, and vice versa.

Yesterday evening I went back to investigate further, only to discover that the Beocord 5000 was now completely dead. There are no lights, no signs of life, and no power whatsoever. I’ve heard that the power supply can be a weak point on these machines, so I’m wondering whether the original 50Hz hum was the PSU beginning to fail before it finally gave up, or whether I’m actually dealing with two separate fauls here a bad PSU and some sort of issue within the playback circuitry?

I’ve checked that everything is plugged in correctly, and all of the internal connectors appear to be fully seated, but unfortunately the deck remains completely lifeless.

Needless to say, I’m pretty disappointed, especially as everything had been going so well up to this point. The belt replacement itself was far easier than the recent Beocenter 8000 belt change I did a few months ago. Although that machine is working great.

A friend of mine who is very good with hi-fi and electronics is going to have a look at it in a couple of weeks, but I’d love to narrow down the likely cause beforehand if possible if anyone here as had similar. There isn’t much online about anyone having anything similar with this model. Only a bit of chat about swapping the caps in the PSU if it powers on and then turns off after a few seconds, but mines totally dead.

One thing I’m struggling with is locating any fuses. I was expecting to find the usual glass fuses on either the main PCB or the PSU board, but I can’t seem to identify any. Are there fuses fitted to the Beocord 5000, and if so, where are they located?

Does the 50Hz hum followed by the unit going completely dead point towards a known power supply failure, or is there somewhere else I should be looking first?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

• This topic was modified 8 hours, 11 minutes ago by ryan.nicholson.
• This topic was modified 8 hours, 9 minutes ago by ryan.nicholson.
• This topic was modified 8 hours, 1 minute ago by ryan.nicholson.

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[AdamS]

I would say that the buzz was simply a symptom of the PSU in its death throes! It shouldn’t be too difficult to track down the problem as these aren’t unduly complicated machines and are easy enough to work on – not something that can be said of a lot of B&O!

They are also truly excellent performers and well worth fixing, so do let us know how your friend gets on.

[pepps]

I found a broken wire on the windings of the PSU in my BG6500 when I first brought it home from a dodgy eBay exchange. Your friend should be able to check the power supply easily enough.
As Adam said these are fantastic tape recorders and players so it’s worth Sherlocking this out to conclusion.

Location: Kent, UK

Favourite Product: Beosystem 6500

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