It's worrying to hear that B&O will find it difficult to recoup the tooling costs for any homegrown product over its anticipated life-cycle, and perhaps this explains why they're still churning out 15yr old designs such as the Beolab 8000 and Beosound 9000! Seriously though, there are interesting parallels here with the British car industry

Flappo The Grate: so you think a company that produces televisions without digital tv built in is up to the minute ? especially such expensive ones with such limited connections - unless you spend £8k on a bv7/40 of course - or is it £9k ? for the prices they charge bno gear should be 100% cutting edge , forget the fancy designs and the

AdUk: Thanks everyone for the input! I am rather fond of the CDX having worked in a B&O dealer when it was launched. I know it's only 14bit, but I had a CD104 when they were around and it was surprisingly accomplished! I have an MF Nu-Vista 3D in my main system and Im not expecting it to compete with that ;-) Am I correct in assuming the CDX2

Fair play if you save something from landfill by using Freecycle, but can't you at least see why some people might not feel that was not exactly in the spirit of what the site was set up for and the principles that underpin it? As you've stated, you're not really too swayed by the reducing carbon footprint argument, so why go on Freecycle

I'm fond of my CDX too, but agree about the hinge mechanism. When I have people round who don't know what a BM 8000 or a CDX is, they're always impressed by the huge LED readouts on the BM, or the sensi-touch controls (not bad for a 20 yr old bit of kit) on the CDX. Then it's time to load a CD....pressing the eject button....clunk..

I got a non-working but cosmetically mint Beolit 609 from a charity shop for a couple of quid. I did pay to get it fixed, but it's unlikely that this Beolit would have been found anywhere else but a charity shop, as it had clearly been stored in someone's cupboard after failing early on in its life. Still waiting to find something on a boot

They're not small, but I use Beovox Pentas with my Beomaster 8000. They're the only ones (apart from M/MS150s/RL140s and possibly M100s) that can really hack the pace when the 8000 is cranked up. Beware if you use CX50s and accidentally wind the amp up as I don't think they'll last for long! As for a CD player, as datalink won't

Peter: Have a pair of those too and I prefer Form 1s. The U70s sounds fine but are not that comfortable - better than they look they are going to be though! - and again are not a patch on the HD600s. I'll wait until a good pair of U70s turn up. I would use them occasionally, so as long as they're competent I'll be happy to go with them,

What about U70s? I keep seeing mint pairs on eBay and am very tempted, particularly as I think they would complement my BM 8000 in style. I know the black leathery stuff will now have disintegrated, but do they sound as good as they look?

I guess it depends on whether you want to make an investment in the system to bring it up to scratch, or whether you'd rather let it go to to either as a job lot or as separate pieces. If I were you I'd keep the lot (I've got a BM 8000 and it's my favourite piece of B&O), but the full system is massive and you'll need somewhere