[AdamS]

What makes you think they need re-capping?

I’ve owned dozens of B&O cassette decks over 30 years or so, and not one of them has required re-capping.

[AdamS]

Well, I take it back. Not seen one of those before!

[AdamS]

This deck would have an MMC1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 in it – are you sure some of the writing hasn’t rubbed off?!

Alternatively, can you post a picture?

[AdamS]

Excellent news – enjoy!

[AdamS]

I didn’t actually need to do mine as the foam was fine – as above, it was the crossover damaging them!

As to the capacitors, I have absolutely no doubt that the capacitors in the Danish Sound Parts kit will be correct – my question was whether they were right before this? Like I said, someone had been at mine before I owned them, and one of the capacitors in each crossover was wrong – I only found this out when I fitted the new capacitor kit.

[AdamS]

If you’re lucky, it may just be the foam behind the driver. There’s a sheet of foam that is pressed by the plastic cover behind the midrange and tweeter to provide pressure form the rear to hold it in place. This foam can age and deteriorate, so the midrange isn’t being held in firmly, and can rattle. Change the foam or add a bit more in, and this may well fix it.

If you’re unlucky, it may be the same problem i had with both my MS150 midranges, where some idiot re-capped the crossovers in the past and put the wrong capacitor values in the midrange circuit, allowing too much low frequency to get to the driver, and eventually causing the voice coils to overheat and fall off the formers. When you re-capped, were all the new capacitors the same value as the ones you took out?

[AdamS]

Beocenter 9500 every time.

Beocentral explains it, and isn’t very complimentary about the 9300! – https://beocentral.com/beocenter9300

 

[AdamS]

Sorry for the obvious question, but your 45rpm LP isn’t a version made of clear or see-through vinyl is it?

[AdamS]

Quality Dream Audio have an excellent reputation and I have no doubt that they’ll sort everything out for you, but you’re also only just down the A3 from Tim Jarman in Farnborough. To say that Tim has an “encyclopaedic” knowledge of B&O would be to under-state the amount of information in a encyclopaedia!

You can contact him through his website here if you’d like him to take a look: https://beocentral.com/contact

[AdamS]

Personally I wouldn’t dream of ruining a pair of Pentas by adding the Beolab 2 unless you particularly like boom, thump and appalling timing!

Is a Beolab 19 out of your price range, as this is a far better unit?

As an aside, Peter, I didn’t know Multicare could service Penta amplifiers. I may have to speak to them as both of mine are completely knackered…

[AdamS]

There’s a gear in the centre section of the mechanism that crumbles with age and fails – this is usually what causes this.

Search “Beosound Century gear” on eBay for a selection of newly-made reproductions that will fix the issue.

[AdamS]

Did you order the belt from Danish Sound Parts (formerly Beoparts)?

If not, then I wouldn’t necessarily trust it to be correct!

[AdamS]

Wonderful – I’ll have a look at that later!

Mind you I’m still sulking that my B&O room from last year was so comprehensively out-done! 😉

(and I still want to know where I can buy a B&O rug!)

[AdamS]

As above, dismantle the switch and clean both the PCB contact and the underside of the tactile dome as they can give problems.

I had a Beogram 5000 come my way a few years back where so much dust and muck had got under the switch dome, when you pressed Play, the deck would start but then immediately stop again, then re-start itself and keep doing this over and over again until I pulled the plug!

[AdamS]

Yes, sadly your tweeters have had it – bad luck!

A low resistance reading suggests that the coil has probably overheated and individual turns of the coil wires have melted together (which would also cause the rattling you’re hearing), so they won’t be salvageable, sadly.

[AdamS]

My experience with those supposedly “correct” replacement tweeter diaphragms has been very poor. They are usually poor quality and the last ones I bought had the wrong diameter voice coil and had the lead-out wires in completely the wrong place for the dome they were supposed to be replacing.

To cap it all, when I returned them for a refund, they allegedly “got lost” in the post.

I would buy a complete correct replacement tweeter. The S75s are very good so definitely worth it.

[AdamS]

Peter wrote:

I had my MS150s repaired some years ago by Richard Allen speakers – they serviced them but were so impressed with their sound that they tested them properly and presented me with the frequency chart saying they had some of the flattest frequency responses they had come across in a pair of speakers and were very impressed. I actually sold them as this series of speakers had tweeters that seemed to shriek to me at higher volumes – I preferred the older M100.2s which I still have though I doubt they actually perform as well. I also prefer the finish of the earlier speakers – B&O seemed to be using slightly poorer materials though the electronics performed probably better. I seem to remember these Yamaha speakers were very bright and needed very good sources or could be shrill. But excellent speakers they seem to be in need of a slight polish though 😀

I know, Peter, I know, I’m working on it! Sadly both tweeters are dead and beyond repair, so I need to source a set from Japan before work can continue. And, of course, in the meantime, I’ve bought another pair of speakers that need some work…

Interestingly, I know the NS-1000Ms have a reputation as being ‘bright’, but i f you look at their frequency response, there is a bit of a lift in level at the 15-16kHz region, but they actually tail off above this, and are around 3dB down from nominal at 20kHz.

As to NS-1000M versus MS150.2, I know where my money will still go…

[AdamS]

I have only ever heard one pair of loudspeakers that, to my ears, were better than Beolab 90s. However there are three main issues that prevent me from having them:

(1) They were £215,000 per pair around 14 years ago

(2) Each speaker consists of four towers of drive units, with the largest being around 2m tall.

(3) They were a proof of concept of what the company could do and so they only ever made one pair!!!! I suspect this single pair no longer exists either, which makes me very sad.

For anyone interested, they were the ADAM Audio OSS (Olympus Sound System). I heard them at the Munich High End show one year and just sat in front of them for over an hour, absolutely slack-jawed in amazement. They were truly incredible – I still cannot explain how speakers so huge could completely ‘disappear’ in sonic terms.

Some details here: https://www.soundandvision.com/content/adam-audio-olympus-sound-system

Amusingly, they used B&O ICEpower amplifiers!

[AdamS]

You’ve got the first component in a Beosystem 5500 – a logical next step would be to buy the rest of it!

[AdamS]

I’ve been inside my Beovox MS150.2s in the last day or two.

A few years back, one of the midrange domes started distorting and, on taking it apart, it turned out that the voice coil had become partially detached from the former and was rattling around in the gap. Odd, but a replacement driver from Beoparts fixed it.

Then, about six months ago, I realised the other speaker was making similar noises. I took it apart on Monday and, yes, you’ve guessed it:

Well, another replacement unit is on its way to me, but I was initially taking this personally and wondering what the universe has against my MS150.2s in particular! However, lying in bed last night I had a sudden realisation. When I took the speakers apart to replace the first failed midrange, I noticed that in the past, someone had obviously re-capped the speakers and done a pretty shoddy job of it. Consequently, when I was ordering a Beoparts capacitor kit for some other B&O speakers, I ordered a kit for these and fitted it last year.

During this process, I found that whoever had done the crap job had fitted a 33uF capacitor where there should have been a 3.3uF in the same place in both crossovers. Checking the circuit today, it turns out that this capacitor is in the high pass section of that very unit, so it would have dropped the crossover frequency drastically, and sent bass frequencies to the dome. No wonder the flippin’ coils keep cooking themselves and falling off!

Hopefully, it’s not a fix I’ll have to repeat again.

Meanwhile the next loudspeaker job awaits, but this isn’t a B&O one – sorry!

[Author]

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