Hello,

some months ago I bought a cheap Beocenter 2800 which had several defects - non-functional sliders, sticking buttons, turntable arm would not rise nor lower, belt was missing, etc etc... I have been able to fix up pretty much everything (except for the cracked lid), but the phono sound is murky on the left channel (radio & tape from the external connctor are fine), treble seems somehow attenuated.

Could this be a problem in the cartrige itself (seems to be original MMC 3000), which I'm not particularly looking forward to replacing, or does this sound like a possible problem in the phono pre-amp stage? Any other possibilites?

Also, any suggestions on what to use for lubricating the tone arm mechanism? The lift mechanism plunger was frozen solid when I got the machine. I got it loose with BreakFree gun oil, but it doesn't seem to last too long, the lift is getting really slow again...

(this is my first post - I got sucked into this after finding a really nice Beomaster 900K on a flea market. Seems like there's no escape... )
 

Well done so far!! Tricky to diagnose from afar, but the MMC3000 will be getting quite old! What you clearly need is more B&O so you have something to check the cartridge on! Capacitors do get tired in the era of device so it could be worth looking at them but I would start with a cartridge. Where are you based?

Well done on the 900K. That is a very nice model!  Everyone I know seems to have one! Lee, Tim, Andy and Craig certainly do and I am willing to bet a lot more of us do as well! Keep mine in the hall!

Thanks, Peter! I live in Finland. I've got a few leads open on "new" equipment, so I might well end up with a Beogram and another cartridge to experiment with. This 2800 might be up for sale anyway due to lack of space (just found a Beomaster 1000 and a pair of working Beovox 2200s to go with it...). In the meantime, I think I'll try and see if I can easily swap the channels somewhere after the tonearm, that should reveal whether the problem is in the cartridge or not.

And yes, I really love the 900K and so does the girlfriend, so it's not going to leave the family I still need to fix the stereo decoder in it and it'll be perfect.

-mika
 

Hi

First off let me say that I'm not the big handyman with regard to repair things like old stereos. However I would still give it a shot if I can repair my system myself.

Some time ago i bought a beocenter 2800. The sound is perfect so electronicly it is sound. It has a few sticky keys (off- and turntable play button), would be nice to fix, but I can live with it as it is.. The main problem though is that after I moved the pickup arm started to have a quite big problem. It lowers fine, but after reaching the end of the record it zips back into the starting position horizontally before it raises the arm again. (In other words it drags the pickup accross the record and amplifier casing before raising the arm). Got any tips to what I can do?

regards Ejensen

Well done finding my first thread!

I'm pretty sure you have the regular dried out lubrication problem with the pin that lifts the tone arm - see this old thread (it's on Beogram 1902, but the turntable section in your 2800 is pretty much identical).

Thx a mill. Will give it a go when I get time between aome of all the other projects around the house.