B&O TT Purchase

[SoundTowne]

OK guys tell me what you think. After alot of looking and asking I settle on a vintage Bang & Olufsen 4002 (1974-1979). I found the little baby on the bay and got it for $115 bucks. I have to buy a cartridge which I can find used for about $100 bucks. We sold B&O back in the day and Bruce told me the linear tracking B&O's were very good. He also told me he sold Thorens with Rabco arms and they were hard to beat. Do any of you guys have experience with these B&O's? What do I need to do to it to insure it is working at it's best? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Todd

[Cal Blacksmith]

I have not been keeping up with the prices of B&O tables but I have a 1600 that I bought new and has served me well since 1977. From what I remember about the prices of these tables in the last several years, you might have paid a little much for it considering that it needs a cart. If I remember right, it was less expensive to buy a table for it's cart than to buy a new cart, that being said however, in my opinion, the B&O cart is a very good one and you are not really limited by the exclusive use of a B&O cart, limited from the use of other carts for sure but B&O made a good unit.

The linear tracking tables were good but if I remember, they were a little finickey about staying in good operating trim.

Enjoy your table, it should provide you with many years of good service, mine is still faithfully serving backup duty in my "family" system as opposed to my 2ch "listening" system, Enjoy!

[artto]

B&O made some nice turntables and pickups too.

That being said, the B&O turntables tended to "lock-you-in" to using their pickup. This has its advantages ~ if exploited to the max ~ which IMHO B&O never did. I used a B&O SP12 on a Thorens TD160/TP16 arm in my first "good" component system. The straightline tracking arms have their own set of problems which are exuberated by the problems inherent in LP manufacture and reproduction. The "straightline tracking" is never really achievable. The stylus is always skewing back & forth in the groove. Most do not allow you to adjust vertical tracking angle which IMO is required. When things get "dialed-in" with the correct vertical tracking angle magic happens ~ the groove noise, ticks and pops etc tend to disapprear. Straightline tracking is a great idea but never realizes its potential in actual practice. Probably the Goldmund units are the most refined in this repect ($$$$$$).

I also have an old Rabco arm. The things are "contraptions" at best. They need to be extensively modified to get the best out of them ~ essentially a different arm when your done.

Last but not least ~ I often wonder why so many people nowadays are buying these old used phono pickups. Even if the pickup wasn't used much ~ or at all ~ the cantilever gromet/suspension compliance changes over time, gradually hardening, losing compliance. I used to change the pickup stylus once a year regardless of the condition of the stylus tip for this very reason. After 20-30 years or more................I'm sure u get the idea. The only pickup I know of that does not experience this phenomena is the cantileverless London/Decca which is a phenomenal pain-in-the-@$$ to set up & very tone arm sensitive.

[thebes]

In case he doesn't pick up on this thread, do email or PM PaulN, our local authority on all things B&O. I have one and enjoy it thorughly but it's not a linear tracker. Prices on newly made replacments carts are abusrdly pricey. Lots of info at Beoworld UK.

Good luck and don't forget to report back on your experiences.

[SoundTowne]

Thank you very much for the info guys. I am watching a couple of cartridges on the bay now. Missed a good buy on one today. I will keep you posted. Thanks again, Todd

[pauln]

Todd,

I have a 4002 that is not in service. I bought it on ebay because it came with THREE cartridges, all of which met my high standards for my collection (I have a bunch of B&O cartridges I cycle through my other B&O table).

For best results:

Start building a cartridge collection. The way I did it was ebay, originals are no longer made, replacement new ones are not as good as the originals and extremely expensive. Best strategy is to commit a few hundred dollars buying a few on ebay and hoping you get a couple of great ones.

Measure and evaluate what you find. With a volt ohm meter, a microscope, and some comparative playing you can rank them by condition and quality. All my stylus guards are numbered to keep track.

Look on the various B&O sites and forums for details about maintenance and adjustments.

My 4002 came with a problem in the optical sensor that detects arm displacement and converts that to drive the repositioning motor to move the arm across the record. The adjustment is off and pretty impossible to get back - I've spent hours with it to no success - either too fast or too slow. I don't have the shop instruments to make the adjustment fine enough. But I bought it for the cartridges anyway...

If you have trouble finding a cartridge let me know.

[SoundTowne]

Thanks Paul, will do. From what I have researched looks like a mmc20en was the factory installed cart. Which ones will work best on the linear tracking models?

[pauln]

You can join the B&O Beolist on Yahoo Groups to exchange questions and answers here

You can find out more about your turntable here

In my opinion, the very best cartridge for it is the original MMC6000, but these are hard to find. Best of the best ever made by B&O, contact line Pramanik diamond stylus, berylium cantilever, flat response up to 40KHz. See all about it here

Here is a perfect example of the kind of MMC6000 that I would look for: new old stock and hopefully perfect and unused: MMC6000 on ebay

The best very expensive replacements made by another company now are not even close to the quality of the B&O original MMC6000, primarily because of lessor cantilever quality material (ruby) and less enlightened stylus geometry.

The next best would be the original MMC4000 which is similar, easier to find, and maybe just slightly better than the later MMC20EN, depending on the condition.

All of the original MMCX000 series work fine on both tangential and radial tracking tables that have the arm made to receive them.

The MMC20xx series are the same conformation and connection to the arm, but are engineered "down" in quality a little bit.

The later tables used arms made for the smaller series of cartridges with the MMCXxx designation; MMC1, MMC2, MMC3...The better of these with the smaller numbers are a return to higher quality like the originals, but they don't fit the old classic tables. Strangely, the later tables for which these later cartidges were designed to fit were of inferior quality compared to the old classic tables from the seventies.

My approach is to use the high quality classic tables with the original highest quality MMCX000 series cartridges, especially the MMC6000.

[pauln]

Well, I mentioned that this is a perfect example of the kind of MMC6000 that I would look for, but I waited until the end of the auction to see if you might be going for it...I was the only bid and won what I hope is a very excellent MMC6000 for a very low price.

Funny, I would not have known about the auction except that I did a search to see if I could show you one. Worried a little that others might see it but I guess it was meant for me this time.

So how is your 4002 sounding and behaving, all OK?

[pauln]

I waited until the end of the auction to jump in, no other bids. I think I'm going to like this one.