B&O, overpriced artistic piece of audio?

While impressive in looks and moderately OK in sonics B&O gear has always impressed those who are looking to impress. You have a very nice system that is heads & shoulders above B&O (IMHO).

Your system if set up properly should be sonically superior to B&O. If you really like the looks of B&O (I will admit that I have liked some of their turntables of which I have owned a few as well as a pair of Beovox 5700 loudspeakers in the 70's) you may want to consider having a "token" piece in your system. Since you do not have a turntable I would suggest a 4002 linear tracking turntable, their finest visual classic design IMO and also present in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. Cartridges are a little rare but findable as are repairs if needed, and it is a decent sounding turntable. They generally sell for 400.00 or more used plus add the expense of having it checked out and restored/cleaned if necessary. I believe that the cartridge was the MMC4 (not certain) and that they may go for $125.00 - $200.00 (again not certain, but I seem to remember these price ranges from Ebay.

your present system will absolutely *CRUSH* any b&o system. kinda like wondering if a ferrari is more fun to drive than a ford taurus: yup, just a *little*... ;~) also, i disagree w/spending $400 on a b&o turntable - get something befitting your current system. lotsa nice used 'tables in that price-range like systemdek, ar, cj walker, rega, sumiko, etc. again, these will crush the b&o table in sound-quality. doug

B&O??? Sould be called Sanford & Son. This stuff is JUNK! Paul, you have fine components, why take a big step backwards? If you want art, buy art -- a painting, a piece of sculptured furniture. In fact, the idea of furniture is a good example -- there are many pieces of "functional art" that function perfectly as furniture. B&O may be "artistic" to some folks but it does not function perfectly as audio equipment. In addition, it isn't all that distictive imho. I spent some time in a B&O store in Boston recently and was blown away at the downright lousy sound. Factor in the price points and it's even worse. This stuff is just bad. Also, there are far more distinctive pieces of equipment out there -- particularly TURNTABLES. Check out Wilson Benesch, Basis and others. The turntables may be the biggest pieces of #$$% B&O sells. They are unadulterated garbage. So far as B&O being the MOMA collection is concerned, so is the original Movado plain face watch -- cute looking bu,t again, not a Rolex when it comes to functional performance. Hell, it's not even an Oris. And, this is not as flagrant as B&O. Please tell me that you're not really going to do this.

If you want components that are gorgeous sounding as well as looking, they are out there. And some aren't too expensive. For a turntable, try the Michell Gyrodec or Oracle Delphi. For speakers the Gallo Nucleus Reference. For amps some of the Cary's or Quicksilvers. For CD players the Rega Planet, Meridian or Krell. Check out HiFi News from the UK. They have photos of a lot of stuff from Europe which is very aesthetically designed.