Who makes the best DIN - RCA cable for Beogram 8002?

Looking something very nice. Top quality OCC with top RCA connectors.  I currently own the one made by Soundsheavenly, and it's ok. Looking for upgrade.

Will you really be able to tell the difference between a high quality Soundsheavenly cable and one of the 'snake-oil' £500 cables?

Unless you're running BeoLab 90's and hang upside down to sleep, I doubt you'll tell the difference!  

The best 'upgrade' option for sound quality will almost certainly be a better stylus...

Lee

" high quality Soundsheavenly cable and one of the 'snake-oil' £500 cables?"

 

 

On the contrary, I would be amazed if I didn't hear a difference because that would be a first for me.

 

Please take a trolling elsewhere b/c this thread was very obviously not intended for you. You are certainly welcome to your own opinion. No need to post it here. Thanks.

 

 

@Steve:

 

Get out your super duper snakeoil and mix it with some pink and light green color. Then paint one of your DIN -RCa cables and sell it for 1500,00

That's a super deal for you! 

 

@robertsong: You better inform yourself about the people you claim to be trolling.

Lee is one of the great team who run this site!

 

Do an A/B/X blind test and come back and tell us about it. However you are free to spend your money in any way you wish. Not sure a Beogram 8002 with its limited record support would be my first choice though. I think changing the platter would be my first decision. And having examined the suspension and build quality, I am sticking to my Beogram 3000. Or 4000 if I want beauty.

Hey... everyone is entitled to their own opinion. 

From my own limited experience with Bang & Olufsen, I've found that the quality of the stylus can make a way bigger difference than a cable when it comes to sound quality. That's all I was trying to say.

However, if changing a short lead for a super expensive one makes a huge difference - I'll take that on board and happily admit I'm wrong.

Last comment on the thread. I'll get my coat and shut up.

Lee

 

How about the internal wiring in the Beogram?

And the internal wiring and  circuit board material in your amplifier?

No sense in upgrading interconnects without making sure those are up to scratch.

Martin

Quick Steve, here's your chance. Solder a better pair of gold RCAs to your stock cable and put a cable jacket on it and sell it to him for 100 times the price! Remember, it's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money, as said PT Barnum.

Not a lot of high end cable makers focusing on the BG8002. I wonder what all the high-end options are? Or even moderate options.

I used a din to rca that was modestly more expensive than the one from soundsheavenly. Rean din, cardas starquad cable, amphenol rcas. Same length, I believe, as the one from Steve. Looked nicer and felt nicer. Sounded different but not necessarily better. Kind of like what Peter was saying, the BG8002 has its limitations on how good it can sound but the cable isn’t that big of a limitation here. It’s only a $1,000 turntable at this point.

I’ve been playing with sub-$10,000 turntable setups-interconnects are huge there. But for the sub-$1,000 turntable, in my opinion, a $50 cable isn’t much different than a $100 cable. The original B&O BG8002 to rca isn’t as good as Steve’s at this point. I just ordered a din to din from sounds heavenly and will be comparing it to the stock cable. I think most of us running the BG800x regularly are happy with the soundsheavenly option or are using din-to-din with the matching system.

You could ask soundsheavenly if they would do a “bespoke” cable for the bg8002, they have fancy options for other applications. If you’re handy, you could mod a Kimber Kable phono cable to a large 5pin din. Zu audio might be willing to make one of their phono cables to fit too.

I’d be interested in a cable shootout but I’m not too optimistic.

Jeff:

Quick Steve, here's your chance. Solder a better pair of gold RCAs to your stock cable and put a cable jacket on it and sell it to him for 100 times the price! Remember, it's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money, as said PT Barnum.

Jeff

Beovirus victim, it's gotten to be too much to list!

I don’t think he is a sucker. Sometimes a little more money for something that looks and feels nicer is worth the extra. If the sound improves with an upgrade, that’s a bonus.

Hi robertsong,

Welcome to Beoworld - I'm pleased to hear that you like my cable!  For less than £20 GBP, the sound quality of this cable should be very good, but there will be some further room for improvement at this price, especially on a high quality turntable like the Beogram 8002.

I am not looking to make more money out of this, but I would be interested to hear your thoughts on how this cable compares to the higher specification version that I produce in other cable types (ie. silver plated oxygen free copper wiring, twin mono construction, gold connectors). 

Would you be interested in trying out the "prototype" of the upgraded cable without obligation and reporting back to Beoworld on your findings please?

I would be happy to offer this at the same £19.99 GBP price including shipping that I ask for the standard cable, plus you can return it up to 60 days after purchase for a full refund if you aren't completely happy.

Please feel free to get in touch via my sponsor link below if this is of interest.

Kind regards, Steve.

What will you be doing to the cables inside the Beogram?

I mean, from factory the signal path is:
MMC cartridge coils - soldering - cartridge plug/socket - soldering - thin copper strands (mainly unshielded) - soldering (unshielded) - ribbon cable (unshielded) - soldering (unshielded),
shielded leads, soldering (unshielded), circuitboard (unshielded) - passing over a silence relay on the unshielded circuitboard- soldering (unshielded), DIN socket (unshielded).

I doubt any of these signal carrying materials, solders etc. were made of oxygen-free copper.
Surely, you would want to do something to all this, - perhaps even long before anything external?

What type of MMC cartridge do you have?
What is the tracking force set to and how many playing hours does it have?

Martin

Has anyone noticed that the tone of the O.P. sounds very similar to that of someone that Lee suspended from the forum yesterday? It just seemed like quite a coincidence that this new profile arrived at that same time...

Dillen:

What will you be doing to the cables inside the Beogram? I mean, from factory the signal path is: MMC cartridge coils - soldering - cartridge plug/socket - soldering - thin copper strands (mainly unshielded) - soldering (unshielded) - ribbon cable (unshielded) - soldering (unshielded), shielded leads, soldering (unshielded), circuitboard (unshielded) - passing over a silence relay on the unshielded circuitboard- soldering (unshielded), DIN socket (unshielded).

I doubt any of these signal carrying materials, solders etc. were made of oxygen-free copper. Surely, you would want to do something to all this, - perhaps even long before anything external?

What type of MMC cartridge do you have? What is the tracking force set to and how many playing hours does it have?

Martin

How feasible is tonearm rewiring on one of these tables? It seems many options would be tricky with the low mass we are working with here. Are there other options than using the stock ribbon cable to din connector and keeping it semi-close to the original look?

On one of my non-b&o turntables I’ve run Litz wire directly from the headshell connectors to the preamp, bypassing all connecting points before the RCAs. Fun exercise for only a small improvement.

I haven’t had problems with interference from outside signals from the lack of shielding within the table, even using my special low output moving coil cartridge on the BG8002. Over the distance of the cable to my preamp I can see a higher susceptibility and need for shielding but my living environment has spared me from the problems some others have with outside signals so I might not be the best example of the adequacy of the signal protection within the turntable. If “signal protection” is the best way to refer to cable, solder points, and shielding.

I’d be interested in any insight into getting the best sound for me from this turntable. Cartridges are obvious and I’ve well invested in them.

Saint Beogrowler:

Jeff:

 

Quick Steve, here's your chance. Solder a better pair of gold RCAs to your stock cable and put a cable jacket on it and sell it to him for 100 times the price! Remember, it's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money, as said PT Barnum.

 

Jeff

 

Beovirus victim, it's gotten to be too much to list!

 

 

I don’t think he is a sucker. Sometimes a little more money for something that looks and feels nicer is worth the extra. If the sound improves with an upgrade, that’s a bonus.

Audio Jewelry is about all wires ever are. The only time I've personally seen wires that could be identified at all is where the "audiophile" brand had pathologically off parameters designed specifically to make them sound different, such as wires with very high inductance that introduced a rolled off sound.

The only area where I think wires might be more prone to cause audible effects, and again mostly if they are not designed well, is wired from the tonearm to the phono preamp, due to the sensitivity of many phono cartridges to capacitive loading. Then again, if the capacitance is affecting the sound of the cartridge, the wire is IMO defective. The standard engineering approach has always been to make phono wiring low enough capacitance to not have an impact on the sound and handle proper loading in the preamp. I have seen numerous phono preamps that allow both resistance and capacitance to be adjusted.

Doing a wire test properly, A/B/X is not that hard using a comparator. Doing it manually by swapping wires is harder mainly because to do it properly double blind, your test subject has to leave the room, a person has to come in and swap the wires and then cover them up again to keep the subject from seeing which wires are connected, and then he leaves and the subject comes back in. The problem with this is that it will hamper your ability to hear a difference, as opposed to using a proper comparator, which allows you to switch quickly, because human auditory memory is remarkably poor. I think this is exacerbated in a turntable wire test because unless the table had an easily accessible rear panel plug in for the wires from table to preamp, it takes forever to change them.

To this day, despite a fair number of tests I've personally been involved with, or have read about over the years that were done properly, I've not personally ever seen a person who could reliably identify which wire was which, speaker or line level, in a properly controlled double blind test. However, many people want to believe, so this has become and continues to be one of the Holy Wars of audiophoolery. Same as it ever was.

Saint Beogrowler:

How feasible is tonearm rewiring on one of these tables? It seems many options would be tricky with the low mass we are working with here. Are there other options than using the stock ribbon cable to din connector and keeping it semi-close to the original look?

Not a lot can be done easily.
The tonearm wires are shielded inside the metal tonearm, that's all fine if you can live with them running VERY close
to eachother. Actually, there's only the thin layer of lacquer on the copper strands between them - that's FAR LESS than the leads insulation in the
original DIN signal cable, where they run at least half a milimeter or more apart).
And when they come out of the tonearm the problems really begin; They are still running VERY close down to the connection board, and they
are missing the shielding.
There is no room for shielded cables - or B&O would've fitted it.
The same goes for the ribbon cable to the carriage. Difficult to shield, I think.

My point is just, that so long as the internal wiring or shielding in the Beogram - and perhaps also in the amplifier - is not up to
the same level (they are weak links), it hardly makes much sense to make one VERY strong link in the chain.

The choice, quality and cleanliness of the stylus is the key to good sound in my opinion, as well as the quality and condition of the medie
source (the records).
To make any sense in the audiophile world, a record should only be played a maximum of five-six times on B&O tangential decks (two-three
times on other decks) and a B&O stylus should play for no more than perhaps 100-150 hours before replacement (25-40 hours for other brands, due to their higher tracking force).
If the source and stylus starts to produce 0,1% or more of distortion, everything that follows in the signal path doesn't really matter anymore.

Martin

I'll continue our discussion if we can stay nice and I think there is a place for comparing experiences with audio cables although the BG8002 might not be the best place for this.

Many have had the experience of music "coming more alive" etc with minor changes in their setup. This is probably getting away from the intent of the original posting, but I think it is worth trying multiple different products in the line of audio reproduction to find something that you enjoy more. I'm not talking audiophile here, just quality materials that can make a difference in these old systems with all their flaws.

I have never given to much weight to the opinions of others on A/B testing when it comes to wine or audio equipment or different pressings of albums I enjoy. Sometimes it is a place to start, and I do enjoy the comparison myself and at times hearing the experience of those who have compared the same thing. The better quality blind test, the more fun. Different qualities of wine, soy sauce, audio cables, or CD vs Vinyl, or interconnects can bring a greater appreciation for a piece of equipment or passage of music. Some people treat their opinions as bible but they are boring to me. I'll risk a little money here and there to possibly appreciate something I love even more.

I know the 10 foot shielded aluminum wired USB cable I made into a DIN to RCA for my BG8002 sounded drastically worse- even as I sat there listening to it trying to figure all of what was wrong, my wife came home, stopped mid-step and said, "what did you do to the music? It sounds wrong." I used a nice set of RCAs and DIN. Nice solder with a bit of silver. This isn't snake oil, just a very bad choice in materials in cable on my part.

Dillen:

 

If the source and stylus starts to produce 0,1% or more of distortion, everything that follows in the signal path doesn't really matter anymore.

 

Martin

 

 

Thanks Martin,

 

I am relieved I can not improve upon the internal wiring of the BG8002. If you had said it was worth the effort, I would have tried on my next project.

 

 

I mentioned in my response to Jeff how I had made an external cable that was so bad that it was the point of being the weak link. I’m still learning where the point is. I’m not of the thought that just because vinyl playback is flawed with distortion from wear that it can’t be optimized.

I would imagine your USB phono cable, if measured, would have characteristics that were way outside of what is considered acceptable for such a low level signal that originates in such a delicate thing as magnets or coils or hunks of iron wiggling ever so slightly in a magnetic field. That's why I said if cables were to make a difference this would be the most susceptible place for that.

I've heard story after story of people making small changes and describing the results, often supposedly massive changes. What always puzzles me is the fact that people never think to question whether the change is external or internal to their minds. I used to be solidly in the everything can make a difference camp, but some very talented designers and audiophiles got me involved in controlled testing which demolished much of my belief base. I will say, it is humbling to find out you can't hear what you think you hear. How a person reacts to that is also interesting. For me, possibly because of a strong science/engineering background with lots of experimentalism, I changed my beliefs, not everyone will. I remember one test where a strong subjectivist type audio dealer took a controlled test between his expensive Pass Aleph amps and a Yamaha integrated. He bragged he could easily tell the difference, but once level matched and blinded, he failed miserably. His reaction was interesting, first he came online and admitted, humbly, that he couldn't hear what he thought he could, it really made him reevaluate things. A bit over 24 hours later he'd worked himself up into a frothing rage, shouting that the people who ran the test (trustworthy people who would have loved a real positive result as then they could study why) why, they tricked him, they rigged the test, and just excoriated them non stop for days and weeks. Go figure.

I remember a time when I was just starting to get into questioning things, I helped an audio store who was designing and marketing their own line of cables, set up a test and help them write ad copy. We had the various wires set up with a switch box, and listened intently. We all agreed, this one had less bass but sounded very detailed, this one had great bass but a little veiled, etc. We left one Saturday night, came back Monday to do a final listen to make sure our opinions still held. Yup, wire 1 was bass light, etc. We described in great detail what each sounded like and that it sounded the same as Saturday. Well you can probably guess the end result, when we went to pull the wires, we found out that the tech needed the switch box to diagnose a piece of gear in the shop, had pulled it, and had put the wires back in different places. The bass shy wire was actually the one we thought had tons of bass, etc. It was an eye opening experience on the fallibility of human hearing.

One thing I never understood in the audio world, it's allegory to optical illusions. You show people with a ruler that the two lines are actually the same length, they will uniformly say, huh, cool illusion. If you show many people their hearing things, all too many bow up and start acting like you just killed their dog or something. Puzzling.

There are certain things with cables I like, or liked when I wasn't using B&O, RCA plugs that were decent, usually meant gold plated even if cheap ones the gold scraped off after a couple of matings, good ones that made reliable contact. I lost count of the days I spent behind the audio equipment wall in my shop days mating and unmating RCA plugs to try and find which one had worked loose or oxidized and was causing issues. I also like sufficient gauge in speaker wire, usually 16 or 14 gauge zip cord, 12 for very long runs. But, just zip cord, nothing special. I do remember the days in the past when Polk Audio introduced what they called Cobra Cable. In the mid to late 70s. This cable had very high capacitance, and back in the day when a lot of high powered transistor amps were borderline stable anyway killed a lot of amps.

I guess you could say silence and smoke were audible differences!

Fantastic - a cable debate, we haven't had one for years!

1.5mm2 or 2.5mm2 T&E for me, if it's not visible.

Puncher:

Fantastic - a cable debate, we haven't had one for years!

1.5mm2 or 2.5mm2 T&E for me, if it's not visible.

Well then, it's past time for a Holy War!

Forget the cables for the audio signals. You need to worry about AC power to your equipment.  It is a miracle that my audio equipment even functioned in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and 2000's with just a normal, stock power cord.  How was that even possible? Fortunately modern day people rest easy with power cords like this...and at such a reasonable cost.

Ok, I took a look inside (service position) and saw exactly what you are describing.

Dillen:

What will you be doing to the cables inside the Beogram?

I mean, from factory the signal path is:
MMC cartridge coils - soldering - cartridge plug/socket - soldering - thin copper strands (mainly unshielded) - soldering (unshielded) - ribbon cable (unshielded) - soldering (unshielded),
shielded leads, soldering (unshielded), circuitboard (unshielded) - passing over a silence relay on the unshielded circuitboard- soldering (unshielded), DIN socket (unshielded).

 

And I happen to agree that going with a higher end cable might be a waste! It will definitely sound different, but actually better? All that would do is exploit all that crap that comes before it most likely.

So I think I'll be scrapping this 8002 project altogether.  Do all B&O decks have that crappy ribbon wire? I'm amazed it sounds as good as it does. I also own a Technics SP-10 mkII, yet the 8002 actually does some things better than it believe it or not (imaging!). Most of that magic is coming from the MMC1 most likely.  Maybe the low mass tangential tonearm as well????

 

Thanks for the more positive posts guys.

 

 

 

Believe me, lots of "high-end" decks have worse internal cabling that this Beogram.

Beogram 8002 is an excellent record deck, and in many ways far ahead of any radial and/or belt driven deck, despite all their bells and whistles and whatdoIknows.
Give it a good refurbished original MMC1/2 cartridge and use it with a B&O amplifier and the original specially-shielded cable as it was intended, and it will work wonderfully.

It was never meant to sound sterile and/or audiophile or look technically complicated enough to scare away female users.
It's meant to sound pleasant and unwearing on the ears, be easy to connect and use while
appearing timelessly presentable as no other brand of turntable.
It does all that perfectly.  - And lots more if you really sit down, look at it and listen to it.

I have seen countless attempts at making B&O products audiophile.
It rarely (if ever) comes out particularly well.

"Fitting modern speaker drivers in Beovox cabinets must be better!" - comes up almost daily.
But it won't be. The majority of the original drivers were custom produced to their task in the specific cabinets.
If changing one or more parameters would have made it work any better, it would already have been done.

If Beogram 8002 would sound better using a different cable, there would have been such a cable delivered with it.

Martin