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About 20 years ago, my father tossed an original and complete Dirigent 610K system with Type B speakers and a type 42 VF turntable in the bin. Everything was in working order except from the tuner part, which IIRC had lost most of its sensitivity, but the amp sounded great. I had lots of fun with this set as a kid playing 45 rpm singles at 78 rpm besides using it as intended, and somehow I've never really forgotten about it. So now, 20 years later, time has come to collect and resurrect a complete Dirigent System for the living room, maybe as a way of making amends for the one that was (probably) lost so many years ago.
So far, I've been lucky enough to find a 42 VF turntable in excellent condition complete with pick up-lift and dust cover. It runs great except that the fine speed adjustment in the centre of the selector only turns by using quite a bit of force and a pair of pliers. Anyone knows where to oil this thing?
I've also found a pair of Type B speakers which cleaned off pretty well. Only thing is that one of the speakers have a very distorted bass sound, but the speaker unit it self and the filter looks fine. Any idea about what could cause this?
Now I just need a nice Dirigent to make the set complete
More updates as the project progresses, but meanwhile, any information regarding this system is much appreciated!
Hi Beolitic,
first of all welome to the Beoworld and of course congratulation for your nice vintage B&O set.
Few of us here like to exchange tips and experince on vintage B&O stuff and we are always happy to see newcomers.
First of our inofficial rules is:
"Pictures or it didn't happen"
But as we can see, you got throuht
Your devices are really nice. The Dirigent 609/610K is also one of my favourite Receiver. It took a long till I found a nice specimen. Mine was repaired and it sounds great!
I wish you to get yours working soon!
And of course to complete your set to look as it looked in the 61's catalouge
Best regards,
Theomaster
Vintage Bang & Olufsen
And you are lucky to have a 42VF with dust cover. It is not common to see...
We had few discussions about this deck and other matching items in the past. You can use the BW search engine or simply look here or here ...
Lot more information and pictures about Dirigent 609/610 can be found in the archived section of the Beoworld.
BR,
Some beautiful pieces you have there. Your 42/V looks really lovely and as Theomaster said, the dustcover was a brilliant find if it is original.
I have a pair of type B's for my Beomaster 900M with an early BG1000. A dirigent is something that has been on my wishlist for a long time. Finding a nice one is tricky and they are not cheap either. There was a nice one on eBay.de which went for around €300 if I remember.
As you are in Denmark they may be easier to find than here in the UK though!
Best of luck with your search and keep us updated. We love vintage threads!
Ben
Thanks guys for the kind words. Wow, that 1961 set is EXACTLY the setup my father had, except that the Dirigent must have been a 610K, because IIRC the frequency scale went to 108 MHz, so it must have been a 1964 model. That is, if I have understood the threads regarding the Dirigent and the model numbering system in the forum correctly
I'm pretty sure the dust cover on the 42 VF is original. It fits perfecty and has a factory made cutout for the counterweight only. It even has a small B&O logo in cast metal (I think) in the centre, so I hope it's original. I found a date stamp saying september 1964 inside the rosewood case, so it must be one of the last ones made, right?
I will begin messing around with the speakers this weekend to see if I can make the faulty one work, so I'll probably be updating with questions and pictures then
Oh, and by the way, I'm all into vintage B&O stuff. Except my 'daily driver' Beosound 2300, my newest item is a Beomaster 6000 Quad from the mid-seventies
Excellent! Keep us posted! We look forward to hearing about it.
Think the 42VF crossed over with the early Beogram 1000s so I think you do have a pretty late one.
Found the time to take the bad sounding speaker apart today. There's nothing visibly wrong, the unit itself seems to be in good order, and it measures 3.9 Ohms in all, but it still sounds like af badly tuned FM station, that is, the bass is distorted. The speaker unit is a Sinus made in Sweden. When I apply a gentle pressure to the cone during use, the sound improves, so it seems that the cone has displaced itself. The magnet is fine, and there's no scratching when I move the cone. Is the unit fixable or should I look for a replacement?
No luck in making the speaker sound normal again, so I'm beginning to look for a replacement. I'm wondering if it's the same speaker unit fitted to Beomaster 900, the version with built-in speakers? According to this old thread, the speaker type is a Sinus O-4654 3.2 Ohms: http://archivedarchivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/p/31649/256110.aspx
This picture shows the defective speaker in my unit:
Any opinions - could I find a battered and non-functional 900 and use the speaker as a replacement, or is this considered heresy?
Whatever you try or do, just keep the old units !!
if you or any aquaintance ever make it to Chinatown, Bangkok (or probably any other Asian market with a tech section) it can be repaired for a few dimes...
here in Europe of course they can also fix them but yeah...labour cost...
Anyway: keep the old units with the speakerboxes is my advice :)
Beolitic: No luck in making the speaker sound normal again, so I'm beginning to look for a replacement. I'm wondering if it's the same speaker unit fitted to Beomaster 900, the version with built-in speakers? According to this old thread, the speaker type is a Sinus O-4654 3.2 Ohms: http://archivedarchivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/p/31649/256110.aspx This picture shows the defective speaker in my unit: Any opinions - could I find a battered and non-functional 900 and use the speaker as a replacement, or is this considered heresy?
There were 2 versions of speaker drivers in the Beomaster 900K. If I am not wrong, the earlier version (to be recognized on grey front) had the SINUS and the later version (with the black plastic front) had the SEAS one.The SINUS one could be the same as yours from the Type B speakers. I think we had a similar discussion here. Try to find it in the archived section.
I am sure Martin (dillen) could give us an right answer...
BR / Theomaster
Beomaster 900K had both Sinus and Seas drivers - and in more versions, some were "fullrange" versions, others more plain midrange/woofers.If you can provide a photo of the actual speaker from the front (cone side), I will see if I can find something in the dungeons.
Martin
Thanks a lot guys for the advice. I will try to keep everything original and even keep the defective parts, if I end up having to replace the speaker entirely. No trip to any Chinatowns (in or outside China!) on schedule at the moment I'm afraid.
Martin, this image shows the speaker from the front:
Martin found a working Sinus speaker for me (thanks!), so I replaced the defective one yesterday evening. Coincidentally, I also found a working Dirigent 609K on the exact same day, so what would be more natural than to test the speaker on it? Needless to say, the room was filled with a warm and comforting tube sound, so yesterday was indeed a good day
The Dirigent is in need of a bit of TLC, especially cosmetically, but it's a good basis for a not too extensive restoration. More pics to come when I get to this!
I guess we Danes are a bit spoiled as there's quite a lot of old B&O available here
With both Type Bs now technically fine, time had come to make a new back panel for one of the speakers. When I got it, someone had removed the original back panel and replaced it with a very thin board-type panel. I have no idea why, because the inside of the speaker is perfectly original and working. So I made a replacement using the right type of wooden board and fitted copies of the two labels - not really concours, but it looks OK. The screws are unfortunately quite contemporary, I couldn't find screws looking like the originals anywhere. And yes, that's my finger in the left bottom corner
The Dirigent is also getting some attention. The metal cover was rusty, and there was quite a bit of heat residue where the tubes had left their marks. The latter came off quite easily using a cleaner for wood stove windows. If you do this, be careful and test it on the paint somewhere out of sight - it might destroy the paint, though it didn't in this case.
After a thorough sanding of the rusty parts, the cover got some fresh coats of primer and color and is now drying. Hope I'll be able to fire the Dirigent up tomorrow
Excellent work! Looks much better already!
I think once restored this vintage set will sound lovely too. The valves have a lovely warm sound and with period speakers it will be really nice.
The Dirigent got a thorough clean-up inside this weekend, and at the same time I fitted a new suppressor capacitor (price: 0,5 Euro...quite cheap). On disassembling the Dirigent, I found what appears to be the date of manufacture for the rosewood cabinet: September 25th, 1962. There's another birthday to celebrate
The cleaning unfortunately also had a cost: When I tested the Dirigent, the amplifier section works perfectly, but on FM almost no sound can be heard. If I tune into a clear station, I almost have to turn up the volume entirely to hear something. I believe the fault lies in the ECC83 tube at the far left of the main PCB, as this tube has two filaments, but only one of them is glowing. The tube is not an originally fitted by B&O, but a Tesla put in by someone else later. Is it possible that this causes the fault? It's the tube just to the right of the main transformer.
Here is a pic of the cleaned and 'raw' Dirigent (before the suppressor cap was changed, if anyone notices):
Nice pictures and good work Beolitic!
If I am not wrong, it looks as you have a 609K version. The date Sept.1962 indicate to version 609K and not to 610K. Actually there is few changes between of those two versions. The important one is that the version 609K has the 100Mhz FM scale and older type of knobs (same as on tube High Fidelity Stereo Amplifier 608). On the version 610K knobs were white and the FM scale was extended to 108Mhz
On your last picture the place for stereo decoder is empty. Did you take it out for cleaning or is it missing?
My Dirigent is a nice one and good working but also the 609K version without stereo decoder. And unfortunately my favorite radio station plays on the 103,8 Mhz
Good luck repairing the tuner part!
Thanks - the work progresses far quicker than I had anticipated, so hopefully the Dirigent will be ready for another 50 years in a short while
And you are absolutely right, this one is a 609K and not 610K, so the frequency only goes to 100 MHz. The one my father threw away was a 610K, and I know this because I clearly remember the all-white buttons without the fake leather 'casting' on top...
The unit doesn't have a stereo decoder and I guess it never had. As I have understood from other threads, the decoder was an additional extra and was rarely fitted. But I can live with that, at least until I stumble upon a cheap decoder
Looks excellent! Good work so far.
I imagine finding a decoder will be difficult as I know Theomaster has been looking for a while!
Keep up the thread!
So it's been a while since my last post, but there's also some news:
I dug into the basement to find a replacement for the apparently defective ECC83, found one, swapped it with the one in the Dirigent, and: Success! The Dirigent now plays radio again, but (there always has to be a 'but' in a sentence like this, which I'll get back to in a little while)...
First, I was lucky to find another Dirigent 609K, this time in teak wood. This one had a few surprises up its sleeve, first off, it has 'Bandmaster 609K' written on the metal cover. The front says 'Dirigent'. Weird. Anyone have an explanation for this except that it could be 'assembled from leftover parts'? The inside metal framing is also a strange green painted colour, where as all the other ones I've seen are bare metal.
An even bigger surprise came when I removed the cover...and this was really great: It's fitted with a STEREODECODER!!!
But: When testing the new Dirigent/Bandmaster I found out that compared to the first one, the second one has FAR better FM sensitivity. And I mean by FAR, it literally drags in stations like very few radios I've seen before. It guess this is just what it's supposed to do, but does the decoder have anything to do with this? The other Dirigent is apparently not as sensitive as it should be. Where should I look to fix this? Please help.
Thanks in advance.
Good work and congratulations
Bad sensitivity could be due to any number of reasons, including misadjustment (but don't go around turning trimmers and coil cores without proper test equipment and knowledge - trying it blindly will just make things worse!).
As you have two working Dirigents, you could try swapping the front end tubes around (ECC85 inside the tuner metal cage). I believe that valve type is not known for its longevity.
--mika
Thanks for the advice. I tried swapping the ECC85s, so the one from the 'very sensitive' Dirigent was mounted in the 'less sensitive' Dirigent. Unfortunately, no change at all. The less sensitive Dirigent also has much smaller 'light bands' on the EM87, they only reach about half way on the most powerful stations, where as on the 'very sensitive' Dirigent they almost completely touch each other, even with a relatively short makeshift antenna. Where's the next place I should look, please?
I also fixed another thing: The plastic holder fixing and centering the tuning axle had broken, and the tuning knob was sort of 'dangling'. I made a new one from scratch in brass using a 'lemons to lemonade'-approach, and it turned out quite well.
At the same time i noticed a small switch which can be activated by pushing the tuning knob. What does this switch do?
Beolitic: At the same time i noticed a small switch which can be activated by pushing the tuning knob. What does this switch do?
That's the AFC control, well -AFC actually.It switches AFC off when pushed in (while tuning) and back on when the knob is released.Martin
It's been a vacation, some more collecting and a lot of Dirigent listening since my last post. I've even infected a friend with the infamous Beovirus, so now he has also begun shopping for one. I had the pleasure of having my specimen playing through his Beovox 45s, which sounded surprisingly good, and by good I mean a LOT better than you would have expected. Very nice overall frequency response and almost no audible distortion until the volume was turned way up. We played everything from Beethoven's Emperor Concerto to 90's Italo disco, and it just plays along, filling the room with a nice and comforting (ie analog) tube sound.
I've now turned my attention to my 42 VF deck, and I can't find any reliable info on setting tracking weight or anti-skating on this thing. I bought it and took it apart for cleaning and lubing without taking any pictures (stupid - I know), an is now rendered helpless regarding the settings on this device. It looks great but plays, well, not so great. Anyone know how this thing should be adjusted?
So it's been a while again, and turning my attention to the 42 VF deck made a few things clear to me that others might benefit from. First, I had the pick-up refurbished with a new stylus and elliptical diamond by a friendly local at a reasonable price. In addition, he gave me a small Ortofon pick-up weighing device, making the setting of the correct needle pressure very easy. The 42 VF was plugged into the Dirigent, and everything worked well except for one thing - the volume was very low. Knowing that the Dirigent has no RIAA and the 42 VF has to have one, I opened the record player and found a sticker inside saying 'Pladespiller 610' (Record Player 610), meaning this is a 1964 model. It had the RIAA board, but on top of that was another small board, apparently decoupling the RIAA. Removing the small board and bending the connectors slightly to compensate for 50+ years of pressure made the thing come to life again, and it all works now. Amazing that a 50+ years old amplifier board which has been sitting unused for so many years works perfectly