ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
The Story of the BM900 WallNow when I took this picture, It feels more of a memory as 2p 900K is already sold and gone.The wall could have been higher if I didnt choose to start selling of before I was finished with all of them.
They all came from an auction.
For me it was a call.What could be better with a new hobby then working on a bunch of 900?
Agenda was clear from start, to go work on all of them so they all reached a reasonable level of being nice cosmeticly, funtion well and could be used for someone that would love to own and use one.
I dont have possibility to wood work as living in an apartment so wood is what it is.
Day of arrival.
A truck from a freight company in Denmark arrived in front of the builing I live in a cold november night.The happy danish truck driver helped me carrying in evertying ( well there were more B&O things in that deal ), and I got a nice oportunity to practice my danish language.
Once inside my apartment, I saw all the dirt on the items I bought, and a ugly smell spread out in the apartment.Inspection, hmmm where have these guys been stored ?, many of them looked like they had been stored in a outdoor garage for decades.I asked Eva to help me, she took a bucket of warm water, with a little dishwash soap and cleaned the first layer of dirt of them. The water was really black after she was ready.
Inspection started.
more then half of them started and played, two 900M , not in the image, were both in horrible logisticly shape, wrecks and completly dead. Rust had digged in so deep in the knobs that I couldnd screw them off. Over time, the two M models in worst condition became part machines to makes the rest be better.
What all have got in the renovation, is new powersupply cap, new lamps, new electrical connectors, and a completly de attachemtn and fine cleaning of the knobs, scale, FM Stereo alignments, more then half have stereo decoder...better clening and wood polish.
After this its been individual work, some 900 were quick to fix as above, some needed way more work. broken lines on PCBs, mechanical problems in switchboard, hard mechanical tuning, removing modifications !, exchanging dead transitors, cant remember all.
One 900 came with a little story. It was stamped with SEMKO, approval , the old Swedish electrical safety approvement, but had a service tag from Denmark, so it had orginally been sold in Sweden, and ended up in Denmark.
3 of them is still under work, but I choose to take the image today as another K is sold and will be gone in a couple of days.
The project has been realy fun, but I will actually take a pause with 3 last ones as I have actually become a bit bored of opening 900s now.
A BC 7002 will take place now to give me new insirationa and lust on my kitchen table.
When I am totally ready I will keep 2 K and 2 M, the rest will be sold, I hope to buyers that will love them and use them.
I would love to keep them but with limited space I rather will continuie with new machines.
I have learnt alot on this journey, made mistakes, learnt again fixed my mistakes, been angry, been happy, been frustrated.
Martin have helped me ALOT, thanks Martin, and the biggest thing Martin taught me was not to throw away the two wrecks, All these would not have been this nice if I in stupidity would have thrown away the two wrecks.
I realize that this renovating is not only technical skills to learn, its a culture to learn.
What to do with them and what not to do, risk factors due to my own limitation of skills.
One future project will be to change all caps in the preamp in one of the 900 I will keep, to evaluate eventual sound quality improvement.
Soo, I didnt get to take the picture before the wall begun to be taken down by two pieces, and soon this will only be a memory, documented in pictures.
Its nice to touch them,and see the wall... and aren´t they lovely ?
My re-capped M75 are my precious diamonds.
Nice story and congrats Chris, and yes just beautiful pics, but how in the world and where could you buy a lot like this.
Collecting Vintage B&O is not a hobby, its a lifestyle.
Danish auction firm www.lauritz.comIt came with a bunch of BGs in redicilous bad condtions, and 3 beautifully BM3400 in quite good condition.Yes it was a very strange buy, VERY . It would have been interesting to know the entire story.If this was leftovers that they packed together to one bidding obejct, or if it was from one collector.First part of story unknown ...
It ended up as a quiet expensive buy for me in the end, with all expensives freight aso, but it was worth it, as It has become a memory I will never forget.
Actually I realize that the wall could have become ever bigger, one M is actually still open in in my project shelf
Nice. Thanks for reminding me that I don't have a black fascia 900.
Beats my old "quadraphonic" 900K pic. Well done saving these!
--mika
tournedos:. Well done saving these!
+1
Very nice and impressive!
//Bo.A long list...
Great job, congrat !!! And nice story ;)
The entire pile is now working perfect, !One K number 2 from the bottom had a dead FM tuner, now fixed this aturday eveningYipieee Just minors stll to do
A couple of power supply cable needs to be replaced and i will look for new rubber feet to them, then its all done.
Wow Christian, that's a lot! ShalI I do the same with my pizzaboxes 6500/7000's
Brengen & Ophalen
You are sooo, dxxxx, extraordinary funny, I laughed myself almost dead now.
double post please remove
Leslie: Wow Christian, that's a lot! ShalI I do the same with my pizzaboxes 6500/7000's
NOnot every thread on this forum is about how much stuff you have gathered les. why not make your own beobrag website. OT anyway.
nice work chris. really enjoyed this. watch out for the rubber bumper feet or screw heads will mark whatever it sits on. will the bm3400s and bgs also come or are the bgs too bad?
Wall of Pizza's
congrats on your hoarding les for crying out and if i may ask you the point of your post in this thread?
Minuscat: congrats on your hoarding les for crying out and if i may ask you the point of your post in this thread?
I imagine it was the amusement of finding someone else who collects - some people collect lots of different things, some collect every single type of a single device and some collect a mixture. I used to be in the former category but have divested myself of almost everything - I can however see a certain joy in seeing a wall of 900s! Completely pointless of course but very amusing! I feel quite inadequate now though - I only have one 900!
Peter
pointless or not, I am sure it is very interesting post for many vintage fans here...
Thank you Christian for you 900-story!
Vintage Bang & Olufsen
Peter :), if you read my initial post, the agenda is to sell them to people that will use them and hopefully love themThe agenda was to save them , make them nice and spread the culture of vintage B&O.
decided to keep two refurbed for my own collectionLast one for sale is up on internet.Mission complete, B&O culture spread to new users.
Good job, well done!
Impressive work!
I've done similar stuff with Beogram 4000-series (relubing, new trimpots, alignment and speed cal) one at a time, it's a good feeling to know that someone is happily using them now instead of ending in a landfill.
Vinyl records, cassettes, open reel, valve amplifiers and film photography.