Mark
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If they are not selling rebuilt B&O cartridges then they would almost have to be a UK distributer for Soundsmith. Soundsmith is licensed and authorized by B&O to make replacement cartridges, and they claim to be the only entity to do so. Peter Ledermann had to reverse engineer existing cartridges in order to make new ones. If these UK dealers are selling a cartridge made by someone else I would be very leery in buying one. Don’t be afraid to ask, but I’m sure it’s Soundsmith.
Are the UK sellers selling the Soundsmith cartridges or rebuilt MMC cartridges? I don’t think there are any other options. Either way it would probably be a safe purchase.
The value of a Beogram 8500, or any, is up to how much a person is willing to spend for any given condition. £400 to me does not sound like a lot, especially if it is in working condition. I see the 8500 going for £1,949.99 and £1,650.00, so if the one you see is in working condition it may be a bargain. What would be a comfortable price for you?
You have to be careful purchasing a turntable from eBay because if it is not packaged correctly it could arrive in pretty poor condition. I’ve purchased a few players that arrived with parts broken that needed to be repaired after I received it. I purchased an 8002 that was completely refurbish by the seller for $1500 without cartridge, and for me it was a bargain and I love it a lot! Luckily the seller knew how to package it for shipping.
I have a couple of soundsmith cartridges and I am very happy with them so I think you made a good decision. I understand the desire to keep the turntable 100% B&O with a rebuilt MMC cartridge as the B&O cartridge has a little more refined look to them, and I’ve heard they sound a bit different. Better or worse is subjective but I hear that Peter can build or modify the cartridge to sound like the original B&O, but I don’t have any experience in that.
I hope you enjoy the turntable and the experience!
As I am very knew to the audio world, could you perhaps explain to me why these preamps make better sound than an internal RIAA preamp? Is the difference big?
A quick disclaimer, my figures are based off a Google search.
The need for a phono preamp:
Signal levels for a phono output will range between 0.0002 Volt and 0.007 Volt.
The standard CD-player output voltage is 2V RMS, with units varying between 1.74V on the low side and a whopping 7.2V on the high side.
Job 1 of a phono preamp is to amplify the very small phono output to be around the 2V RMS of a CD player to have adequate volume when sending the signal to the amplifier. The phono preamp should do this without introducing noise or distortion to the signal.
Job 2 of a phono preamp is to apply the RIAA EQ curve to the phono signal, ensuring that your records sound balanced and accurate.
The RIAA EQ curve boosts the bass and treble frequencies to compensate for the inherent roll-off of these frequencies that occurs during the recording and playback process.
The better the cartridge the better the phono preamp should be to get the most out of the cartridge. It all depends how “picky” you want to be when you listen to records. I’m sure an internal phono preamp can be quite good depending on who is making it and what their standards are.
I have a large CD collection of great variety dating back to the mid 1980’s. I still buy CDs and rip them into my iTunes library and listen to them from there, I rarely listen to them on my Oppo player anymore.
The matter of sound quality differences is highly controversial, but I don’t think it really matters much because we tend to adapt to what we have if we are enjoying it. Is CD better than a streamed version, would the music sound better coming from Beolab 50’s over my 18’s and 19? I very much enjoy my music on my Theatre/18’s/19 so in the end that’s all that matters.
While I have a huge variety of music, there is a lot I don’t listen to (much) anymore, I tend to favor my newer favorites.
I have a Beogram 8002 connected to my Theatre, I don’t use it that often because it does take more work to find an album, clean it, play a side, flip it over, clean it, and play the other side, but I do enjoy that on occasion, especially if I have someone over. If you have the capability to connect your CD player, you may not use it often but there may be occasions that you do enjoy it.
Steve,
It sounds like an incredible buy at that price and it looks like it didn’t need much more of an investment to get it properly working, outside of a cartridge. I will be interested to hear how it sounds with the Beolab 4 speakers, but I am also wondering how well it would hold up to larger Beolabs. Would larger Beolabs reveal the limitations of this turntable or cartridge?
A few years ago I purchased what was described as a new RX (without box). It certainly wasn’t and it even arrived with a broken tonearm, but I did take it in for repair. $198 US later I got it back, but I haven’t tried it out yet. I guess the RX would be in a similar category as your 2000. I do have an extra SMM3 cartridge and an unused pair of Beolab 4’s with a phono preamp… maybe I will set it up somewhere. I’m looking forward to your next video!
While I don’t out-right disagree with any of these testing methodologies there are many variables involved that could affect the outcome. It would be nice if there are tools available where we can each know for sure in our environment.
we already know the answer to be 256 (according to the article I posted, and others).
Adding this information to signal info would only confirm what they state, which I don’t think would be a bad thing.
I always hope that Apple can improve Airplay 2 performance. Whatever is going on behind scenes is not always easy to determine, which is why I would love to see more information added to “Signal info” in the B&O app for each device, if possible to do so.
I wonder if the bit rate, sample size, and sample rate could be added to the signal info for the device in the B&O app?
But if its Apple’s Music app, as mentioned before, it will get downsampled from 16/44,
What does it get downsampled to?
All my (few) MP3’s show the sample rate of 44,100 kHz, with no sample size, so I don’t know if this (alone) is any indication of lossless or lossy. If lossy what is the bit rate?
I haven’t studied them but I did look through them. I could have missed it but I didn’t see anything about “bit rate”. The third link does mention “sample rate” but that does not indicate if it is lossy or not.
In my library I have CDs that I ripped to AIFF that shows up as:
bit rate. 1,411 kbps
sample size 16 bit
sample rate 44.100 kHz
and iTunes purchases that show up as
bit rate. 256 kbps
sample rate. 44,100 kHz
If I understand this correctly it is the bit rate that tells you if it is lossy or not…
So according to what I’ve read, Airplay 2 may or may not deliver a lossless file. Is there any way to determine what bit rate is being delivered to the device? It would kind of be nice if there was an Airplay 2 device that analyzed the signal to let you know what is being received. I wonder if B&O is able to decode the Airplay 2 mysteries.
For my system, I rip CDs to iTunes/Music to AIFF. My understanding is that Airplay converts everything to ALAC or AAC, so I am hoping that means that my AIFF files are converted to ALAC 16/44.1 over Airplay 2. When I A/B’ed a CD played on my Oppo to Airplay over AppleTV, there seemed to be a slight decrease in quality, but not much. Certainly acceptable for the flexibility of streaming. Both used a Bryston DAC.
And see here for the explanation that Apple Music can not be distributed via AirPlay 2.
It says Airplay 2 is limited to 16/44.1 which is the normal CD format. It seems to define high-res as above this, so if ALAC is encoded at 16/44.1 then it should be lossless over Airplay 2. If ALAC is above this, say 24/192 then it would be downgraded. Is my understanding correct?
If I have understood correctly, Airplay 2 is not lossless.
A google search on this is answered by someone at the RoonLabs community:
AirPlay2 can exist in two forms: lossless 16/44.1 ALAC or lossy AAC. It’s up to the app to decide.
Perhaps Apple Music has its content in AAC?
I have a Beogram 8002 with a Soundsmith SMMC1 cartridge and the MMP3 phono preamp and it sounds absolutely wonderful. I’ve read that the Soundsmith preamps are designed for their cartridges. There are a lot of opinions regarding vinyl that it is nowhere as near as good as the digital version, but that is not my experience at all. I guess a lot of it would depend on the quality of the record, cartridge, and preamp. I could listen to vinyl all day and never tire of the sound, but it some work prepping the album for play.
I think the choice of phone preamp depends on how much enjoyment you want to get from your vinyl, and how revealing your system is to be able to hear small differences. As Mark-sf says, pretty much any moving magnet phono preamp should be able to do the job, and there are budget phono preamps that are very good. I’ve had several budget preamps (not the ones listed above) but I don’t remember saying “oh wow!” when I listened to albums with them. The Soundsmith MMP4 is about $800 US, that’s quite an investment, but if you are after the best sound, have a good system, and think you may someday upgrade to one of the other Soundsmith cartridges, that could be a serious contender.
Good luck in your quest!
My first look at this model I was expecting it to be a little cheaper than the base model. I was surprised to see it quite a bit more!
Gold tone with light oak is just a bit too bling bling.
I guess that would depend on the surroundings. My walls are a gold-toned color so the gold and light oak speakers just sort of blend in and doesn’t stick out or look showy at all. If I paint my walls a different color who knows if I would like it as much.
