I thought I would summarise the issues I've had with my Beosound 9000 as I'm at the end of the line in trying to get this rectified and the only option I see I have left is to take the complete system back for a refund - which B&O do not want to do!

I've had 3 new units and all have developed exactly the same fault after approx 9 months use. When I put cds into play the unit starts to spin them backwards, it then stops and either plays them or spins them backwards again and goes into pause. Occasionally the unit will also stop playing a cd part-way through and move to the next disc.

The engineer has been to my house and we've ruled out dust and environmental conditions. All my cds are excellent quality so it's not that either. I do not play the unit excessively but I believe the cause of this is something to do with the variety of cds I play on the machine (I have about 3000 cds in my collection).

Although B&O have been excellent with their cust serv in trying to fix the machine I feel each time it is repaired/replaced they are fixing the symptom and not the cause so it will continue to happen - 3 new 9000's in 3 and a half years tells me this is an inherent fault that cannot be fixed.

I have been told that this problem could be down to the quality of the philips laser unit that B&O now use - does anybody have any thoughts on this or other suggestions?

Help! I do not want to return my system but feel I have no other choice as the warranty runs out in a few months and I'm not prepared to accept another repair as I'm convinced the same will happen again unless we get to the root cause in which case I will be left with very large repair bills in the future.

Many thanks

I have never seen this type of problem on Beosound 9000's and as you say you have had replaced three times and the B&O engineer has been to your home and looked into the problem, so it can only be one of three possible issues as follows:

• Dust or other environmental condition which you have discounted, but must remain a possible cause.
• A product design fault which only shows up in your particular environment or manner of use.
• A faulty manufactured batch of units for your particular country meaning replacing a unit from the same faulty batch may cause the same problem to show up. Were the replacement units ordered from Denmark or did they come from stock in your country ?

The IP address you posted to this thread shows you in Estonia, is this correct ?

Please check the 4 digit "Type" number found behind the control panel which for Estonia should be 2571, if it is not, what type number is it?

Thanks Keith.

I actually live in the UK. All three units came directly from Denmark to the B&O dealer in the UK. I bought the first 9000 in June 2005, I then had a replacement in 2006 and another in 2007 - all direct from Denmark so I doubt it is a faulty batch considering the time frame.

Although dust could be a possible issue I would say not as the unit (and house) is kept extremely clean. The first unit was also taken away to the local B&O engineer who cleaned it thoroughly yet I still had the same issue on its return.

I'm therefore inclined to agree with your second point. But because B&O cannot explain or will not admit to a 'design fault' it makes it all the more difficult to come to a resolution.

Cheers, Phil

This is a difficult situation for any retailer and has to be handled delicately (my specialty, right? ) But seriously. 

When something like this happens repeatedly either in the same unit or between different units it is most likely the fault of the user. The problem is that "fault" is such a loaded term that many take it to mean that we believe them to be roughly handling or purposefully abusing the product. This is not so at all, it just means that there is some environmental issue that could account for the anomaly.

An example: A client kept bringing a BeoCom 1 in with corrosion inside the handset. This was, of course, not a warranty repair as the handset had been exposed to water. There were 2 repairs and 1 replacement as the client angrily insisted that the fault was in our product and that it was too susceptible to moisture since this was his living room handset.

What he later found out was that his wife routinely brought that particular handset into the bathroom for what must have been 45 minute hot showers, even leaning out of the shower to answer the handset, so over the course of a few months, enough water made it into the phone as droplets and steam that it would corrode.

Not to say that anything so extreme is happening, just that we can often be the number one influence on our products and cannot discount this. Needless to say, if we're open to examining ourselves as a possible cause, we can usually find the fault and correct it.

Good luck! 

Phil,

Given your answers I would make the following comments and ask these questions:-

1. When the units were sent back to your dealer I am assuming they were sold to someone else, or returned to Denmark. I would be asking the dealer if the problem has ever shown up with the units you had returned.
2. Has the dealers engineer actually seen the fault occur, either in your home or their workshop ?
3. Did you keep a record of the serial number of each of the three units ?
4. Were all three Beosound 9000 units Mark III versions ?
5. Is your home fairly modern, i.e. not older than 30 years ?
6. If your home is older than 30 years has the mains power wiring been updated since it was built ?
7. Do you live within 5 miles of a commercial airport ?
8. Has the power cable been extended or plugged into an extension lead of greater than 3 metres ?
9. Is the Beosound 9000 a standalone unit with powerlink speakers connected or connected to other products via Masterlink ?
10. If Powerlink speakers are connected directly to the Beosound 9000, how long are the Powerlink cables ? and are they teh thin Powerlink cables ?

Thanks for the reply.

Although I've examined everything that I do and cannot account for any user 'fault'. The unit is extremely well cared for (to the point of me being anal about it!). Although if B&O could tell me that I'm doing something wrong then I would immediately correct my behaviour. That is why I asked the engineer to come and see the unit in situ so he could tell me if there was anything I was doing wrong or if the problem was environmental. He could see how the system was well looked after and also how clean and tidy my house is. He was more than satisfied therefore that the issue is not down to myself as the user - other than the variety of cds I play, however for £5000 I would expect a sound system to play all my cds without any issue (they are not copies either but genuine discs). The unit has not been moved or touched since set-up, the house is not damp and all the cds are in filed away in protected pouches to keep them clean.

Cheers, Phil

Hello Keith,

In answer to your questions:

1)  I'm unable to say what happened to the previous units. They were sent back to head office in the uk.

2) Yes, the engineer saw the fault when he came to my house.

3) Yes, I have all 3 serial numbers

4) They are all mkIII versions

5) Our home is less then 30 years old

6) -

7) I do not live near an airport

8) The power leads are plugged into a surge protector, however this is less then 3 metres long. I upgraded the surge protector to the best I could find when I took delivery of the last unit so it is of very high quality

9) The 9000 is hooked directly to a pair of Beoloab 8000 speakers using the leads that B&O supply.

In reference to your first point, even if the other units were repaired and then used by somebody else I feel they may not have the issues I have as I am convinced it's something to do with the variety of cds I play. I notice that when I first load a cd the unit either does not read it as in the fault mentioned or it takes a while to start playing (almost as though it's scanning the cd) however, if I play that cd again without taking it out of the machine it will play instantly without any delay. I therefore think that the unit does something with each new cd it has to read and due to the variety of new cds I play I think the machine is unable to 'scan' them all. Another person did comment on the unreliability of the philips laser unit used in the machine for this very reason however any sound system at this cost should play all cds without this kind of issue - it's not ware and tear, I do not use it excessively but rather I feel the variety of cds played - what do you think?

Cheers, Phil

Phil,

Thank you for your answers and the last section for me provides some key clues to your problem:-

You said:-

I am convinced it's something to do with the variety of cds I play. I notice that when I first load a cd the unit either does not read it as in the fault mentioned or it takes a while to start playing (almost as though it's scanning the cd) however, if I play that cd again without taking it out of the machine it will play instantly without any delay. I therefore think that the unit does something with each new cd it has to read and due to the variety of new cds I play I think the machine is unable to 'scan' them all

I agree with this statement

The first point to understand is that the Beosound 9000 can store up to 200 titles of CD's in its memory, so if you remove a CD from the unit and subsequently put it back in any position the title will appear if it had been previously entered. It can do this because every CD produced has a unique ID number at the start of the CD and the BS9000 starts by checking to see if the number of the CD is in its memory and if it is, then it takes the associated title if there is one, and displays it.

Now, take the situation where in the life of the Beosound 9000 many more than 200 different CD's have been loaded on the Beosound 9000, then each CD added which has never been on the unit before has to be allocated a memory location for a potential title, so the software has to look for the oldest CD ever placed on the unit which will take time and use that memory location for the new CD.

So, I would like to bet that most Beosound 9000 owners have not placed more than 200 different CD's in their Beosound 9000 since they purchased it, therefore if there was a problem related to exceeding the 200 title level, few people will have observed it.

Therefore, I would suggest to determine if this is the source of your problem you do a few tests:-

1. Load a CD onto the unit which is currently NOT on the BS9000 but has been on the unit recently and determine if it plays without error.
2. Load several CD's one at a time that you are 100% sure has NEVER been on the Beosound 9000. You may need to get these from someone else for this test.

If (1) above always works and (2) above always fails, then we may be closer to the source of your problem.

Phil,

 As you originally suggested, the large amount of cd's that you own and use could be the cause of your problem. Keith has once again come up with an idea that could prove/disprove the problem. OK by finding this out does not fix the issue but does give you an option to live with it (not at the price you've paid) or get a refund/exchange.

 If you would like to try some cd's that you know have never been in the 9000, i could bring over a dozen of mine to try out Keith's idea (i have around 400-500 cd's). Just PM me your address or phone number.

 As i suggested in your previous thread, you could consider having you music collection on PC or Mac and streaming to the 9000 with airport express or connecting an ipod, thus you can use the cd player just for your favorite 200 albums.

Mark.

Hello Keith, firstly many thanks for your detailed reply, I really appreciate your help.

I think you are spot on as this has been my feeling for quite some time. I have always noticed, with each unit,  that once the fault starts (usually after approx 6 months use) that it is always with new cds played for the first time (in fact I can almost guarantee that each new cd won't play first time). Most of my cds previously played still play ok, on first use. Each unit has gone wrong after approximately the same amount of use and as my listening habbits have not changed and I receive about 3-5 new cds a week I am convinced that what you say is correct and that after playing a certain amount of different cds the unit starts to fail.

As you say, not many people will have the large collection of cds that I have and I believe that is why most people have not come across this problem.

I have mentioned my thoughts on this (i.e. as you and I have described) to B&O many times but they do not seem to recognise that this is the issue (I guess that would be admitting that there may indeed be an inherent fault with the unit). All I get in response is that this problem is unheard of elsewhere. Therefore it must be something I am doing differently to other B&O users and the ONLY thing is the shear variety of cds I play. All other options have been ruled out.

I truly believe this to be the issue therefore any amount of new units or repairs will not fix the root cause. And before long, when the warranty runs out, I will be left with a machine that will never play correctly. The more new cds I play the worse the unit gets and this current unit is getting to the point of being unplayable with new cds.

Although extremely disappointing, as the 9000 has always been the only sound system I ever wanted, the only viable option for me would be a refund although I've been told that B&O will be very, very reluctant to do this. However, another repair is definately not an option for me as the warranty runs out in a few months and I still feel the problem will be there and therefore will reoccur again in the future. I feel I have given B&O every opportunity to fix this. I have been couteous and patient and I have done my best to work with them to rectify the issue. But we have always gone back to square one and I cannot keep on with this - the last time this happened I said it would be the final time to try to resolve the problem. 

I'm extremely frustrated as I do not feel B&O are listening to me when I explain why I think the problem exists (as you and I have mentioned) although after your mail I am convinced this is the case, no other explanation comes close to answering why the unit does this.

Your thoughts are very much appreciated, many thaniks

Thanks for your offer Mark, it's extremely kind of you and very much appreciated. However, I have demonstrated this to be the case every time I get a new cd though as they never play first time and I always get the fault. Although old cds are nearly always fine and will play first time.

If you brought some cds over I can guarantee that they will not play. I've just tried a new cd now and the exact same fault happened although I placed a previously played cd in straight after and it played first time, this is how it has been for the past two months.

I would rather not stream my music to the 9000 as it defeats the object of having the 6 cd player and all my cds. I want a system whereby I can choose any cd in my collection, pull it out and play it instantly. I also do not want the additional cost of getting additional hardware for this purpose and neither should I after spending £5000 on this system it should work perfectly. As you can understand music is my passion and I am not able to enjoy my hobby as I should, which is very frustrating and disappointing.

I've had another thought though, as Keith suggested that perhaps the software in the machine is storing the memory of cds and once it gets to a certain point can't store any more I wonder if there is a way of wiping the memory clean so the unit thinks that no previous cds have been played - would this be a possibility?

Many thanks for your thoughts, I do appreciate it.

This is worrying to me, since I think I have about 600 cd's right now, and they are growing by several hundreds a year!

The 6 hundred I have now, haven't all still been played in the Beosound, I got it in october 2008, I know this since I name each new CD still, and there seems to be space left to name them.

If it is a question of amount of CD's being used in the player, it's a serious fault. And should be rather easily fixed with software? 

I agree, although it's been impossible to get B&O to even consider that it may be an inherent software issue in which case they are never going to look at that option, as I said earlier I guess that would be an admission that this could be a manufacturing fault.

It may not be much consolation, however if your unit does develop this fault in the future you can refer them back to my problem as reference. At the moment I do not know anybody else who has had this problem so getting B&O to consider that what I am saying as the cause may be true is proving to be extremely difficult!

I think there should be an experiment done to a BS9000 to load a massive amounts of CD's into it, say 1000 different CD's, and see if it fails.

Keith Saunders:

The first point to understand is that the Beosound 9000 can store up to 200 titles of CD's in its memory, so if you remove a CD from the unit and subsequently put it back in any position the title will appear if it had been previously entered. It can do this because every CD produced has a unique ID number at the start of the CD and the BS9000 starts by checking to see if the number of the CD is in its memory and if it is, then it takes the associated title if there is one, and displays it.

If as Keith says each cd has a unique ID number at the START of the cd. What happens if you load a new cd and as soon as the 9000 grabs the cd skip to track 2 and see if it plays.

Great idea Mark, with very interesting results.

I have a set of three cds that have not been played yet so I just put them in my 9000 and did what you suggested i.e skipped to track 2 on each of them before they started playing - all three played fine (from track 2). However, I then turned the unit off and tried playing them as normal from track 1 without skipping to track 2, striaght away the unit did the same fault, spun them backwards and went into pause. In which case I think Keith is 100% correct and the problems lies with the unit storing the unique ids of each cd. It's obviously overloading the software after a certain amount of cds have been played.

Now I need to get B&O to listen to me because replacing the laser unit again, as they suggest, will not and never will cure the problem. I feel the only way to fix this is to somehow wipe the memory on the software so all previous cds are no longer stored - I wonder if this can be done!

Thank you very much Keith. I really feel I have, for the first time, actually got somewhere today and I think we have almost certainly identified the cause, which is a massive step, especailly after trying out Mark's last suggestion. It's also been good to be able to chat to people and for them to listen to what I've been saying and the reasons I think the unit has been playing up. Whether that cause can be fixed or not is another issue but knowing why this has been happening is a massive step forward. Everyone's help, especially yours and Mark's is very much appreciated. This has really been causing me a big headache for a long time!

Keith Saunders:

In the morning, I will have a look at the circuit and get back to you.

 

Thank you Keith from me as well, as I'm very worried too.

Not fun to have a out-of warranty BS9000 in a couple of years with this problem! 

Hi Phil

Have you talked directly with the factory in Struer about this?
It is my experience that they almost always are willing to help.

 

Regards
Søren

Hello Soren,

I spoke to Customer Service in Denmark but the lady there told me I had to go back to the B&O shop in the UK where I bought the unit.

Cheers,

Phil

Phil,

As discussed, we seem to have now identified the core issue which does appear to be a software problem in the Beosound 9000, the fact that no one else has previously reported it other then you, does not mean there is not a problem.

After doing  some further research, I think the problem is likely to occur, not at the 200 titles level, but 255 point. At this point the EEprom would get a "Write Overflow". The reason is because up to 255 uses 8 bit addressing and to go to 256 titles would need 9 bits. It seems likely that the software is not handling the write overflow correctly. In fact diagnostic test 28 does appear to test this function and I am assuming the B&O engineer did run the diagnostics tests without problems.

Whilst you have always been able to delete title names, its not clear to me yet if this action also deletes the CD id code as well.

So, we need to do a test to determine if deleting a name also deletes the CD id code as follows:-

1. Open Beosound control panel lid. 
2. In the second section from the right on the control panel press CD and allow a working CD to play.
3. Below press NAMING button twice and you should see on the display the words CD LIST
4. You can use the up and down arrows to review your CD titles if you have any stored.
5. With a CD title listed press CLEAR and it will be deleted
6. Now delete, say 10 titles

Stop any CD that is playing and add a new CD which has not been on the unit before, if this works without problems, then we know that deleting a title entry ALSO deletes the CD id and makes the memory location available for a new title.

If the CD fails in the normal way, then we know that using the CLEAR function does NOT delete the CD id from memory or leaves the memory location marked as allocated, either way we will need to find another way to resolve the issue in the form of a workaround.

Gulp!

I think I should bring this thread to my dealers attention.

 Isn't this a pretty "humiliating" error is this is the case? Only 255 titles. 

bayerische:

Isn't this a pretty "humiliating" error is this is the case? Only 255 titles. 

No - that would be a simple limitation. But if this limitation creates this problem, then it is... looks like an elementary level programming error.

Uh!

I think this is serious, and we should somehow alert B&O about this issue !  

 Hello Keith,

I've just tried what you suggested, fortunately I have a few cds here that haven't yet been played. I went through the above process as suggested and then played the two new cds for the first time - both cds played fine without the reoccuring problem. This is a real result as I finally feel we are beginning to get somewhere, however I don't want to have to go through that process with every cd I play as my collection of cds is so varied and large it will only be a matter of another 6 months until the memory is full again.

I spoke to a very helpful chap from the B&O shop where I purchased the unit from today and he then spoke to the technical department. For the first time they seem to be accepting the possibility that what we are saying is correct and that it could be a software error (this has taken me over 3 years to get to this point as I've always maintained the error is down to the shear variety of cds played). They want to send an engineer to my house to log all the errors so these can be sent to Denmark and then the engineer will reset the unit to the factory settings hoping this will wipe the memory clean - do you think this will work? We need to find a way that I can periodically wipe the memory in one go, otherwise the unit will become unplayable for many of my cds as it is currently. What are your thoughts?

Many thanks,

Phil