I was reading the thread on the wonderful Thorens Beogram 3000 and was struck by something. Why is it called a Beogram 3000? It was built to go with the BL/BM5000 so surely it would have been better to call it the Beogram 5000. I just wondered if there was any reason why the more obvious name wasn't used and they plumped for a number that doesn't really fit with the rest of the system. Does anyone have any ideas?

Good question. They did have the Beogram 1000 at the time and the 1500 ready to launch, it could be they felt that 5000 would belittle these units too much? Because it would definitely have made system unity sense to call it the Beogram 5000.

Maybe they had a lot of Beogram 3000 pins for the fascia already made up?  

Frede should be able to enlighten us here.

Beocentral's chart over radial tracking turntables:

http://beocentral.com/radial-turntables

Perhaps they were designing the 5000 to be non thorens and the 3000 was seen as a stop gap?

A very good question!! Maybe B&O can answer this! I'll email them!

soundproof:

Good question. They did have the Beogram 1000 at the time and the 1500 ready to launch, it could be they felt that 5000 would belittle these units too much? Because it would definitely have made system unity sense to call it the Beogram 5000.

Maybe they had a lot of Beogram 3000 pins for the fascia already made up?  

Frede should be able to enlighten us here.

 Beocentral's chart over radial tracking turntables:

http://beocentral.com/radial-turntables

I am sorry I don’t know but I have a feeling why.

The Beogram 3000 was only on the market for one year. It is obvious the products developed in ‘a hurry’ so B&O could present a product matching the Beolab 5000. Only the Beogram 1000 was available at that time.

If you look in the product brochures of this period the Beogram 3000 is really not very visible and the description in the B&O catalogs was very short.

Why

Because B&O was not happy to have an OEM product in this product range. The policy regarding OEM products changed later as we all know.

A top product was allowed the name  xxxxxxxxx 5000 like the Beolab 5000. The Beogram 3000 was considered as temp. product for B&O, that’s why it was not named Beogram 5000.

Please remember  - this is my opinion (absolutely not an official information picked up at B&O)

/Frede

Frede, do you have any idea how many Beogram 3000 Thorens B&O sold during that year?

Sorry no, I would really like to know, but I dont.

Perhaps I should start on the same analyzes as I am doing for Beolab / Beomaster 5000?

Also we must take into account the Beogram 3000 - with the deck from Acoustical of Holland - type 5211 (Quite rare)

/Frede