Does anyone know anything about Bang & Olufsen stereo equipment? *Update post#15*

[tlawler]

I've only seen three of these in my life and two were in movies(NL's Christmas Vacation and original Dawn of the Dead). The other was at a rich high school friends house whose dad was a doctor.

Anyway I've been gifted a vintage set(no turntable, unfortunately), but it has the receiver, cassette deck, single CD player and the wireless control center. I haven't plugged it in yet, just finished cleaning it up a bit. All the connections are pretty straightforward, DIN between the components and RCA in/out. The only difference I see is the speaker outputs. Instead of the traditional bayonet connectors, it has what looks like a proprietary polarized plug. I'm doing some research on the web, but I was just wondering if anyone had a B&O setup and could tell me anything about the speakers and connectors, like if they are standard 8 ohm and if I can only use B&O speakers.

 

[wood714]

You can use any speakers.

My Phase Linear stereo amp uses banana plugs.

 

[pasound]

Might be a version of the Neutrik connector.

 

[s&wchad]

B&O made good stuff!
Don't regret not having the turntable. I gave up on one and it's now stashed in the basement. The cover hinges fail and they're not easily replaceable. They also take special cartridges that limit your choices and are getting expensive.

 

[magmag]

Sorry I'm no help but that name is premium and expensive, that's all i know.

 

[Rustyt1953]

They are uber high-end audiophile stuff. There are lots of folks who collect B&O.

This is their store here in downtown Cincy.

 

[Czechvar]

I knew I could never afford it…my cutoff was Sony…and B&O was way past Sony.

 

[Muss Muggins]

I know that the ice missile launched from Clark Griswold's gutter destroyed Julia Louis-Dreyfuss's B&O system . . .

 

[tlawler]

I know that the ice missile launched from Clark Griswold's gutter destroyed Julia Louis-Dreyfuss's B&O system . . .

I DON'T KNOW, MARGO! Lol

Actually, I found something on it. It's a DIN connector also, just a 2 or 3 conductor pin. Here's a pic of the male and female ends. They are readily available on ebay and elsewhere. I'll pick up some of those and I'll be back in business.

 

[lihpster]

Now to get a turntable and some of those B&O speakers. I saw some on their website for only $40,000! Such a deal!

 

[Imissedagain]

Here's some stereo gear for deep pockets.

Audioarts | New York City | Hi-End Audio

 

[quikdraw67]

B&O had a store way BITD at the Stamford CT Mall before it turned ghetto.

Nice stuff, but way above my pay grade.

I've had Onkyo stuff starting in 1985 (still have my cassette deck), and Pioneer speakers.

Good enough for me.

What ever happened to Kenwood? I had some of their receivers and they were quality, but they seem to have dissapeared.

 

[Golddollar]

For what it's worth, I have a HP Envy laptop computer, and its sound system is Bang & Olufsen. I am very impressed at the quality of the sound coming from speakers that have to fit in a laptop computer.

 

[tlawler]

Here's some stereo gear for deep pockets.

Audioarts | New York City | Hi-End Audio

When I was in high school, I had quite a few well to do friends, and being a budding audiophile, I used to ooh and aah over some of their parent's systems. There was some pretty high end stuff like Yamaha and Onkyo with Klipsch, Bose, and DCM Time Windows speakers. But only one had a B&O system, which he kept locked behind glass doors. I've had mostly lower end stuff over the years like Marantz, Technics, and Pioneer. I do have one of the lesser Carver amps, but I need to get the power supply fixed(I've always wanted one of the Carver tube amps). Hopefully I can get the B&O running and put it in my shop.

I found this for everyone's enjoyment

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5oyUhRQr7_8[/ame]

 

[tlawler]

I ordered the speaker connectors and they came in during the week. I played around with it a little this morning and got it working. So far, I've only tried the receiver on FM, but I can't get a good enough lock on a station to crank it up. I need to make up an antenna and haven't done that in years. I'll look up a how-to for a simple dipole and make it out of speaker wire. I'm still trying to figure out the alien looking display on the remote.

 

[Imissedagain]

Good that you got the connectors and a dipole should be easy to make at 75 or 300 ohm.

Decades ago I used a Scott stereo tube amp to power my bass guitar speaker cabinet for non Rock'n'Roll work.

Installing audio/video systems on boats and integrating them to Nav/Comm gear was always fun.
Glad some others started their companies based on just audio/video with boats and a few actually learned to do that correctly.... especially with how not to damage existing wire runs while pulling their cables.

 

[bdGreen]

Ha.
The speaker system in my Ford F150 is all B&O.

Good sound.

bdGreen

 

[Imissedagain]

If it's the high-tech model just power up the remote/system and say:
spille noget vidunderlig musik.

 

[tlawler]

I couldn't get the antenna to work. It has some other sort of DIN connector and just sticking the wire in the socket wouldn't give me a stable enough connection. The CD player doesn't power up(or I just haven't figured out how to turn it on) and I didn't try the tape deck..I haven't seen a cassette around here in years. I needed a clean rca output and everything is wi-fi, bluetooth, or usb these days.
Soooo...I had to go up into the attic and dig through my dead stereo component graveyard and I came up with my 20+ year old pioneer cd changer and a shoebox full of bare cd's. Hooked it all up and started jamming. This thing is pretty amazing. The stereo separation is very precise and the balance drops the idle output to nearly zero. I've never seen a receiver that didn't have at least some sound output on the idle channel when the balance is all the way to the other side. I've put it through it's paces with some Led Zeppelin, Talking Heads, Boston, and Pink Floyd. All great for really testing the audio limits of stereo equipment. I've only got some old KLH bookshelf speakers and a pair of infinity satellites from an old surround sound. I'd really like to hear it with some high end speakers.

 

[outta_ammo]

I worked at a high-end audio dealer in Palo Alto CA in the late 70s. We carried B&O (oh, the rosewood!) and some other no-name brands like McIntosh, Revox, and Tandberg. Yamaha was our 'entry level!' The temptation to say "just keep my paycheck, I'll take this and that" was ever present.

I had a B&O tangential tracking turntable until the proprietary cartridges were no longer available. I miss it.