Are Bang and Olufsen turntables any good?


Hello all,

I've re-dedicated myself to 2 channel audio, tubes and everything.
Way way back I bought a B&O Beogram 1700 turntable.
Before I use it in my new system I'd like to know your thoughts.
I KNOW THERE ARE BETTER TURNTABLES OUT THERE, but I have this one.
Years ago I heard a malicious rumor that B&O turntables actually damage the vinyl played on them irreparably.
Any truth to this? If so I'm in BIG trouble.
Thanking you in advance.
PS: I've still got my original discwasher system complete with working Zerostat. Any good?
rhanechak
Whether or not B&O turntables are anywhere near state of the art, (and I think not, to be honest), remains to be seen. They were, IMHO, the best of the mid-fi turntables, as they had lots of features, but only decent sonics.

However, their cartridges were very nearly state of the art in terms of how light the cartridge was, and how small the stylus was. I used a B&O 3000 linear tracking turntable, with a MMT2 cartridge, for many years, (from about 1983-1990), before finally putting it away in favor of going digital. I got back into vinyl (2003-present), and I have played a good many of the old disks that I used back 20 years previously on my near reference analog system. They still sound great and almost like new. IMHO, the sound on those disks were not harmed in the slightest by using the B&O turntable.

My advice is if you really want to use this turntable, is to buy the best cartridge that you can, in order to get the absolute most you can out of the turntable. (By the way, most, if not all, B&O turntables used a proprietary cartridge, so you're kind of stuck with whatever you can find.) And then when you've gotten hooked on vinyl again, you can upgrade to something a bit more current, which will give you much more options in terms of tonearms, and more importantly, cartridges.

Good Luck!
Dear Rhanechak: Like you I heard a B&O TT sveral times but way way back for to have a today precise opinio on it.

What I can tell you about B&O products is that even today some of its cartridge models ( MI ) are very good quality performers, example: MMC1 and 2 and the MMC20CL.

If your B&O comes with either of those cartridges then you are lucky.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.
I've never heard anything about B&O tables damaging vinyl.

You can get new cartridges for the B&O mount from Soundsmith. The Soundsmith cartridges have been very well received.

Of course there are better tables, but I think it would be fine for getting back into vinyl. You should probably get yourself a strobe disc to check the speed, and may also need a new belt (about $30).

http://www.beocentral.com/products/bg1700
b&o put more r&d into their tables than many of todays so called high end models, and with anew cartridge, they sound great. they are not 'tall' however, so there are sceptics.