Hello!
My original message was on bang-olufsen.com, but as adviced by Peter i'll post it here too.
In a nutshell: i am trying set up a whole system (being Beomaster, Beocord, Beogram and Beogram CD, and preferably MCP too).
In the original message i asked about possible conflicts and problems i may encounter when mixing 5000 and 5500 series components. I got a nice and informative reply from Peter, which is as follows:
"The only big decision you have to make is the Beomaster. The Beomaster
5500, 6500 and 7000 are all pretty similar except the 5500 has rather
more connections - it has RCA as well as DIN sockets - but it can have
problems with the later Beolink 5000 and 7000 remotes unless modified.
All of these Beomasters will work with the MCP5500 or 6500 and Beolink
1000/Beo4 though. Any of the 5000, 5500, 6500 and 7000 components units
will work with these Beomasters as they all use Datalink which is the
language used by B&O to connect component units.
The Beomaster 5000 also uses Datalink and again will work with any of
the tape decks, CD players and Beograms in this series.However it will
not respond to the newer controllers but only the MCP5000 or Terminal
5000 as these remotes use different IR codes to the others.
Choosing would seem to be easy - the 5500 is more flexible and uses the
modern remote codes. Oh that it were so simple! The Beomaster 5000 is
better built and the pre-amplifier is far superior. So is the display
and you also have the benefit of controls on the drop down panel which
the later models lack.
It is however getting old - they all are - and they can all fail. The muting circuit on the 5500 is a common fault!
For more information, come to the forum on Beoworld as you will get many opinions rather than just mine! "
So, now i'd like have more of those opinions concerning these components, since i bet you people are a lot more experienced in this matter than i am. At the moment i have Beogram 5000, which is actually how i got introduced to this brand. So i lack all the other components. Getting a whole system at once is not out of the guestion, but so far i haven't found any with all the components, or they have been tagged with price close to 2000eur (being something like £1500). I see the beogram can easily be the most expensive single part of the system, so maybe it would be better to get all the other components part by part?
When it comes to components in different series, i read that the most radical changes on Beosystem components are between 5000 and 5500 series while 5500, 6500 and 7000 components are pretty much the same, with minor changes of course. Am i right? As mentioned before the 5000 and 5500 Beomasters have their pros and cons. What about the other components? For example CD 50 and CD 5500.
Phew, quite a post for a first one. :)
Thank you very much for your time and answers!