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ARCHIVED FORUM -- April 2007 to March 2012
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This is the first Archived Forum which was active between 17th April 2007 and 1st March February 2012

 

Latest post 06-09-2010 2:41 PM by valve1. 4 replies.
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  • 06-06-2010 6:06 PM

    • valve1
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    France B&O- never again!!

    I live in Dublin Ireland and am a major B&O fan.My wife and her sister wanted to buy a house in the south of France with a view to running painting courses. It would also be a holiday home for us both. That translated to a lot of fly/drive trips to find a place, followed by another year of same to get the house refurbished. I had to deal with all the builders tradesmen town planners. It was hard graft but one year later the house was finished and believe me I am very fussy. I had no problems with any of them or their work. Needless to say I ran link cable to all floors and speaker cable to all rooms that might want a system.

    I brought from Dublin a pair of lab 8000s and a pair of 4000s. My nearest dealer is in Montpellier and I ordered a beolab 3500, a beosound 4, a beolink and two beo 4s the total price included the installation. It was easy work for them as all the cables including power were  in situ so all it needed was plugs and equipment. It all went to plan except there was no bracket for the beosound 4. They came back with a floor stand which neither of us liked so months later we got a wall bracket.In October we returned to Dublin for the winter. I returned to France in mid april to find one of the 4000s had fallen off the wall.

    Before continuing I should mention I have 34 years of installing and repairing all manner of telecom equipment and cables into castles to caravans, sailing ships to submarines and unusually enough houses. Cables equipment and walls are embedded in my DNA by now.

    I was horrified to discover that a speaker that weighed in excess of 6kgs was attached to a wall using two 25mmx4 screws with yellow plugs. The walls in this house are made of quarried stone. Where the 4000 was being hung the wall had a thick layer of light concrete plaster. I measured the depth of both drilled holes and they both were over 40mm deep.It had to be obvious to the B&O technican when drilling the hole that he was in plaster not stone. How the speakers did not fall of sooner i do not know. These speakers were hardly used as the room they were in became a holding area for all the ikea furniture for the rest of the house as it was on the ground floor. Part 2 to follow

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  • 06-08-2010 3:06 PM In reply to

    Re: France B&O- never again!!


    France part 2

    I rang B&O in Montpellier and could not get any reaction out of them. A neighbour who has keys for the house rang Montpellier gave them his telephone number as I had to go home. Two weeks later no news the neighbour rings again to be told its your problem ring your insurance company! I was furious and in Dublin. I rang head office Denmark, they were good but in the end it took over 3 months for them to get an answer from head office in France. The feed back was "the speakers had been on the wall for a whole year and if they had not been fixed properly they would have fallen down soon after they were fitted" They went on to say that i should have seen them getting loose.

    I am very disappointed with the whole saga, at no point was the wrong screws for the job addressed. by comparison I use two 20mm x4 to attach plastic rj11 telephone sockets to wooden skirting. I used two 80mmx 6 to rehang a new set of 4000s .

    Bottom line;I will never buy B&O products in France, I will buy them in Dublin where I have all ways got great service

     

    Hi Valve 1, took the opportunity to paste your second message as a reply to your first as otherwise your posts will drift apart in the forum.

    Can't comment on your obviously inadequate fixings and your poor retailer support other than to say that there's an increasing trend for manufacturers not to provide fixings on the basis that they don't know what the wall is like that you will be fixing to. Unfortunately too many manufacturers place top and bottom wall fixings so close together that there is so much pull on the top screw and so much compression around the plaster near the bottom screw that sagging on the wall or complete failure is highly probable.

    My own previous experience with B&O wall fixings was the wall bracket for a BC1. In this case the bracket fixing points were adequately spaced vertically, but I seem to recall still having to select my own plugs and bolts (and going for 75mm long M6 coach bolts!)

    If you had a contract with the retailer to provide an adequate fixing then I would guess that a simple pull-out test of the same screws and plugs with similar leveraged load would prove that the fixings were not up to the job and would prove his liability. (Your insurer might argue that he can't cover for inadequate installation........ unless adequate fixings were overloaded by accident such as someone falling against the speakers.)

    Graham

     

    I used to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure. [W C Fields]

  • 06-08-2010 5:34 PM In reply to

    • valve1
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    Re: France B&O- never again!!

    Thanks for your past(ing) Graham ! I overdid the story line and was to tired to redo it.     Your point about a pull out test is valid, but no one from B&O wanted to look. If you tap the same plaster you would know it was not attached to the wall. This is why I persisted through head office. 

    M6 coach bolts ? you must live in a very old house!

    Eddie

  • 06-09-2010 4:32 AM In reply to

    • BeoGreg
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    • Joined on 07-24-2008
    • South of France
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    Re: France B&O- never again!!

    Why put all the french dealers in the same boat ?

     

    Gregory from France

    Since 1995 : Beosound Century, Beolink 1000, Beocom 2400, Beovision MX 6000, Beocord VX 7000, Beo 4, LC2, Beosound Ouverture, Beolab 2500, Beocom 6000, Beolab 8000, Beosound 9000, Beovision Avant 32, Keyring, Bottle opener, Beosound 2, A8, Beosound 3, Beovision 10-40, Beo 4 Navigation, BeoTime, Beocom 5, Form 2...  

  • 06-09-2010 2:41 PM In reply to

    • valve1
    • Top 500 Contributor
      Male
    • Joined on 05-27-2009
    • Dublin Ireland
    • Posts 213
    • Gold Member

    Re: France B&O- never again!!

    Hi Gregory, I can not put all the dealers in France the same boat but B&O in Denmark seem to have the problem getting a reply from their main man in France who looks after all the dealers. I in turn could get no response from my local dealer in France. On the other hand I have have a 100% good experience with B&O in Dublin including their installation team, so thats where I will be buying my beovision 7 40 for my house in France.

    Once bitten.....

    Eddie

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