B&O Beocord 2000 de luxe

[Trevor Leese]

Hi everyone, i managed to obtain a B&O Beocord 2000 de luxe reel to reel tape deck. Does anyone have a information on this item, schematics and instruction book to photocopy please.
Has anyone got an opinion on these machines pease.

[mitajohn]

The schematic is there:

https://elektrotanya.com/bang_olufse.../download.html

[ricard]

I used to have one of these. I found it to be a well engineered, if a bit quirky at times. But that's part of the charm. With its combined 2-track/4-track capability it's excellent for playing back arbitrary tapes when you don't know the original track arrangement.

I had problems getting the drive train to run at the correct speed. I got the impression that although initially fine, wear and tear over the years (increased friction through the tape path, coupled with small but inevitable deterioration of the otherwise excellent rubber parts) ate up what margin there originally had been when it came to torque. I ended up replacing the spring on the idler (awkward to get at I seem to recall) with a stronger one which helped somewhat, while also adjusting the force on the pressure pads on the heads to minimize the drag through the tape path while still maintaining adequate tape-to-head contact.

Another point is that the amplifiers tend to be a bit noisy from the outset, owing to the use of germanium transistors throughout.

On a lighter level, it's interesting to note that the three big Scandinavian manufacturers (B&O of Denmark, Tandberg of Norway and Luxor of Sweden) all use a joystick as the main tape function control, albeit in three different configurations (B&O use a V-shaped joystick path, Tandberg and Luxor both use a T-shaped one, but Tandberg has the play position towards the front whereas Luxor has it towards the back). Joystick control is of course shared with the British BSR TD2 and TD10 chassis (which incidentally have been used by both B&O and Luxor at times as well); the original joystick concept I believe comes from the second generation Soundmirror machines.

[wd40addict]

Excellent machines. Interestingly the two that passed through my hands were both the quarter track variant so three heads only. Only the half track variant had four so it could also play quarter track as described above.

There were also two case styles: either a plastic suitcase style with two loudspeakers that formed the lid, or a teak case for fixed location use.

The only problem I found was that on both machines the single felt pad that applies pressure on the erase head (which tensions the tape across all the other heads) had become too 'squashed' giving poor wrap around the play head. Some creativity was required here...

Sound quality was first rate once bias was adjusted for modern tape. Both my machines had silicon transistors, except for the power amp outputs, so noise was fine. These days the Bogen heads have a reputation for going open circuit. Luckily mine were ok.

[Ted Kendall]

Fair comment, both. An excellent machine in its day, and still good if the heads and mechanical wear fall in your favour. Mac Hellyer actually owned a 2000 and swore by it - and he fixed just about everything on the market in his day job, so he should have known.

The Tape Recorder Service articles for this machine are well worth looking up - Studio Sound (actually Tape recorder at this time) July 1968 et seq on the American Radio History website.

[DMcMahon]

Service manual attached but only in German.

[Trevor Leese]

Originally Posted by mitajohn

The schematic is there:

https://elektrotanya.com/bang_olufse.../download.html

Thanks a million John, much appreciated mate.

[Trevor Leese]

Originally Posted by ricard

I used to have one of these. I found it to be a well engineered, if a bit quirky at times. But that's part of the charm. With its combined 2-track/4-track capability it's excellent for playing back arbitrary tapes when you don't know the original track arrangement.

I had problems getting the drive train to run at the correct speed. I got the impression that although initially fine, wear and tear over the years (increased friction through the tape path, coupled with small but inevitable deterioration of the otherwise excellent rubber parts) ate up what margin there originally had been when it came to torque. I ended up replacing the spring on the idler (awkward to get at I seem to recall) with a stronger one which helped somewhat, while also adjusting the force on the pressure pads on the heads to minimize the drag through the tape path while still maintaining adequate tape-to-head contact.

Another point is that the amplifiers tend to be a bit noisy from the outset, owing to the use of germanium transistors throughout.

On a lighter level, it's interesting to note that the three big Scandinavian manufacturers (B&O of Denmark, Tandberg of Norway and Luxor of Sweden) all use a joystick as the main tape function control, albeit in three different configurations (B&O use a V-shaped joystick path, Tandberg and Luxor both use a T-shaped one, but Tandberg has the play position towards the front whereas Luxor has it towards the back). Joystick control is of course shared with the British BSR TD2 and TD10 chassis (which incidentally have been used by both B&O and Luxor at times as well); the original joystick concept I believe comes from the second generation Soundmirror machines.

Thanks for the info Ricard, very informative. Trev

[Trevor Leese]

Originally Posted by wd40addict

Excellent machines. Interestingly the two that passed through my hands were both the quarter track variant so three heads only. Only the half track variant had four so it could also play quarter track as described above.

There were also two case styles: either a plastic suitcase style with two loudspeakers that formed the lid, or a teak case for fixed location use.

The only problem I found was that on both machines the single felt pad that applies pressure on the erase head (which tensions the tape across all the other heads) had become too 'squashed' giving poor wrap around the play head. Some creativity was required here...

Sound quality was first rate once bias was adjusted for modern tape. Both my machines had silicon transistors, except for the power amp outputs, so noise was fine. These days the Bogen heads have a reputation for going open circuit. Luckily mine were ok.

Thanks a lot for the insight to this machine, very helpful and interesting. Cheers.

[Trevor Leese]

Originally Posted by Ted Kendall

Fair comment, both. An excellent machine in its day, and still good if the heads and mechanical wear fall in your favour. Mac Hellyer actually owned a 2000 and swore by it - and he fixed just about everything on the market in his day job, so he should have known.

The Tape Recorder Service articles for this machine are well worth looking up - Studio Sound (actually Tape recorder at this time) July 1968 et seq on the American Radio History website.

Thanks Ted, much obliged mate.

[Trevor Leese]

Originally Posted by DMcMahon

Service manual attached but only in German.

Thanks for your input Dave. Much appreciated.