Hello,

I am a tech amateur and could use a little advice from all of you beowizards out there.  I recently moved into a house that has a B & O Speaker system throughout it.  In the main living room there are four cords coming out of the wall.  The previous owner did not let us know what was originally used to power the speaker system.  It was installed in 1988.  Does anyone know what systems would work to hook up to the cords to get this system going?  I am assuming something like a beocenter 8000-9500 would get the job done?

Thanks for any advice

I would guess that you have a MCL2 system - do any of the rooms have the transceivers in them? These should be white rectangular wall mounted items. The best device to get if this is the case is probably the Beocenter 9500. A Beosystem 7000 would be the most advanced system you could use.

If you8 can post some pictures of the bits you have found it would help. There should be control boxes around the place as well.

All rooms with speakers have a volume control dial and 3 rooms have the rectangular wall mounted items you described.  I will try to get some pictures together for you. 

Volume control dials are unusual! Look forward to the pictures!

First picture is light switch, volume control that is in every room that has speakers, and some sort of B&O control panel that is in 3 rooms.  Second picture is same panel, just close up.  Panel says 'timer' on the left and 'mute' on the right.

Third pic is speaker.  About 2 in every room.  There is about 12-16 throughout the house.

Fourth pic is the ends of the four cords that come out of the wall.  I am assuming these would hook up to a beocenter??  Can I buy adapters for this system to run it with something other that B&O? Or will this system only work with a B&O system?  Thanks Again!!

rhansen:

Fourth pic is the ends of the four cords that come out of the wall.  I am assuming these would hook up to a beocenter??  Can I buy adapters for this system to run it with something other that B&O? Or will this system only work with a B&O system?  Thanks Again!!

Please REF your other post here.

1.) YES, as Peter mentioned a 9500 would be a nice piece.

2.) Adapters for non B&o: Not exactly... the 2 pin is for local speakers on SPK1. You could clip these plugs off and run the attached speakers w/ anything besides B&o.

The 3 pin is the problem. It is actually used to "drive" the remaining speakers in your house. I am not certain, but if you clipped these as well and disregarded the 3rd wire, you may get something out on at least the first set of linked speakers downstream. I am just not sure and it would seem a shame to tear up an already installed Master Contol Link system.

3.) Per 2 above, your best results would clearly be to obtain and install a B&o piece capable of driving the MCL system. Not sure where you are, but these are rather affordable now. Just get a good one!

With that said, I am curious to know if there are any other components visible in this system? Smallish white boxes with wires going IN and OUT referred to as MCL2A or AV's as well as maybe some larger black, heavy boxes (P's) with power to them? It is possible that they may be remotely hidden or as I am concerned... they may have been extracted... rendering the whole thing well, pretty much dead. [HINT] Can you extract one of the transcievers and see if it is attached to anything?

Let us know what you find and welcome to BeoWorld!

burantek:

The 3 pin is the problem. It is actually used to "drive" the remaining speakers in your house. I am not certain, but if you clipped these as well and disregarded the 3rd wire, you may get something out on at least the first set of linked speakers downstream. I am just not sure and it would seem a shame to tear up an already installed Master Contol Link system.

Plus, what point would there be to attach speakers to a non-controllable 3rd party system that is located somewhere in another part of the house? Connect a B&O or just forget about the wiring.

Yes, I also read this earlier but forgot to return to when I had time   The volume dials and speakers are not from B&O, so it is anybody's guess how they are connected. The volume controls might be passive at speaker level, which would require high power wire potentiometers... do they feel "scratchy" when you turn them?

Finally, I would expect a Beocenter 9500 or its ilk to have problems driving that many passive speakers. Two or maybe three pairs perhaps, but... so there would probably need to be some of the black box amps that Jeff is talking about somewhere.

Thanks for the insight fellas.  I am not home now, but I have removed a volume dial from the wall in the past (by the way, when turned they click, not scratchy).  Behind the dial there was a white box w/ several wires going in and out of it.  If I remember correctly.  I'm glad you replied to this thread when you did. I was on the verge of buying a Beocenter 9500.  Will probably hold of on that at this moment until I make sure it is the correct system.  Anymore info would be very helpful.  Thanks a million!

rhansen:

I'm glad you replied to this thread when you did. I was on the verge of buying a Beocenter 9500.

Well, nothing wrong with that anyway! You could certainly run at the very least the local speakers!

rhansen:

Behind the dial there was a white box w/ several wires going in and out of it.

Well, then it may be your lucky day! Did they look anything remotely like this?

rhansen:

Thanks for the insight fellas.  I am not home now, but I have removed a volume dial from the wall in the past (by the way, when turned they click, not scratchy).

So they are rotary switches ("click-click-click..."), not continuous controls? They might be passive volume controls using several fixed resistors, which could work. Still, obviously a custom job by somebody.

The rectangular boxes are remote control transceivers, so at some point it has been possible to control the main system from those rooms. All of them should be connected to the MCL2x boxes (about the size of a small but thick paperback novel) though, they will not do anything useful by themselves...

I would opt for a beomaster 5500/6500/7000. These are more than powerful enough to push all of those speakers. (I used BM5500, now a BM 7000)
These are really superb units with plenty of power and easily available 2nd hand and worth the small investment. They have the optional advantage that it's easier to connect other (both B&O and non B&O) items to, like cd players etc.

I tried a BC9500 which I found limited to pull a full MCL system. 

Their should be a small-ish white box in each room, though I know some people have them actually built into the wall .... 
The dial could just be a manual dimmer for the sound mounted between the mcl2 box and the speakers (I used to have one like that in my bedroom) Makes the room controllable manually and I guess avoiding investment in an extra remote for that room. 

The black box (MCL2p amps should not be necessary imo).  Fun is that you can use a BL1000 remote to control the system in every room.

And yes, at this point I am pretty set on getting a B&O system.  It seems to be much easier.

I can full suggest the systems I mentionned.

The amount of speakers is irrelevant ... the total wattage pulled by them is.

Also in a system like that, it's unusual to switch on all the speakers full blast all the time.

Yes, I cant imagine we will have all speakers blasting at once.  After thinking about it I believe there are 14 speakers total.  Do you think a beocenter 9500 would easily handle most of these speakers playing at medium volume or 5-6 playing loudly?

rhansen, where are you located?

I am located in northeast Nebraska.  And I am sorry but I dont recall if the box looked similar to the picture you sent me.  I only really remember what was behind the volume dial.

rhansen:

I am located in northeast Nebraska.  And I am sorry but I dont recall if the box looked similar to the picture you sent me.  I only really remember what was behind the volume dial.

Argh, too far!

I understand. Spend some time this weekend and find out just what you do have. Maybe snap a few photos and we can all piece this together for you. 

Beocenter 9500 is rated at 2x85 watts at 8ohms
Beomaster 7000 is rated at 2x110 watts at 8 ohms. ( Is what I remember but you can look it up on this site)
My beomaster can perfectly handle 4 pairs of speakers without breaking a sweat ....(I don't have room for more speakers..) so I think 6 sets would be feasible.  

Like I wrote before, it depends on the power used by the build-in speakers.  For example : 2 pairs of 60 watt speakers vs 1 pair of 120 watt speakers ...
One of the other reasons I go for the beomasters , beside being more powerfull, is that it does not run as hot as a BC9500 in a MCL system.

Also maintenance (and possible repair) costs  are a factor in this setup imo. 

I think I am finally coming to understand the system thanks to all of your helpful info.  So, knowing that I have 14 speakers in my house, with 3 transcievers.  I understand that a beocenter 9500 or a beosystem 7000 will work.  Which do you recommend? Thanks again

Beosystem's hart is a beomaster. 

I love the beocenter 9500/9300 for it's design, but beware buying second hand as ofter the cd player is need of some work, the tape deck will need new belts and the glass panels often come loose. Not to speak of the 2 doors coming off tracks during shipping.

The beosystem 5500,6500 or the later 7000 all have the beomaster as main amplifier. Build like a tank (weighs as much too....) they go for little money 2nd hand and to me are the best value for money..... though a more 'conventional' kind of system and less design.

I would get the 6500 or preferably the 7000. You seem to have a lot of speakers! The only thing is the volume controls - I  wonder if you have MCL2Ps in the system.

Ok, I turned my house upside down trying to finally figure this system out, and just when I was about to lose hope, I found what I was searching for.  It had been hiding from me in the furnace room. 

First two pictures are of transciever(amplifier?) that I found hiding.  I did not find the other two, but I am assuming they are hidden in the wall somewhere.  The 3rd pic is the volume dial.  4th pic is rectangular (transciever?) panel for beolink.  There are 3 of those in the house, which leads me to believe that there are 3 transciever boxes for a total of 16 speakers.  Took the speakers out of the wall, they are made by sonance.  Am I moving in the right direction?  I hope these extra pictures are a little help!

Thanks again for all of your insight!

The first find seems an MCL2something all right. It doesn't contain an amplifier, just some circuitry to send/receive remote commands from the transceiver (last pic) connected to it and pass them on to the main system, and a relay to switch on/off the local speakers connected to it. You must have two more of them somewhere as the IR transceivers alone have no use at all.

Can't make much of the volume control pic, but it definitely still is a custom job by somebody. Most probably just a passive attenuator so you can individually turn down the volume of those local speakers, otherwise they will all run at the same volume since the main system has just one shared output for all of them. It might also switch between some speakers, who knows.

But in any case, to me it seems safe for you to start looking for something to connect there

The white boxes hold the MCL circuitry that will switch on/off an individual (or several as they can be grouped) set of speakers and the last pictures shows the IR receiver that is connected to those boxes. 

These boxes need to be connected with the 3 pin plugs.

The volume control is just what it is ...switches on/off the speakers (hence the click sound) and dims the volume (just like a light dimmer).
Most likely connected to the 2 pin speaker plugs. It's kind of a limited manual control instead of the IR receiver/white box combo that also works with remote control.

As you have 4 plugs (speaker L and R and MCL L and R)  obviously they have several sets of speakers connected to both the speaker and MCL plugs.

So you still think the Beosystem is the way to go?