Hi Everyone,

For the past weeks, I have been soaking up all the wonderful information on here and Beocentral about Bang & Olufsen products. Particularly the audio range. I have recently acquired vintage 78, 33 1/3, 45 records that I would love to play and preserve by recording them later on by way of my computer.

Please bear with the long post if you can, as I'm still learning about the technical aspects of turntables, amps, etc.

Here's my proposed plan to build a sound system:

1) For my vinyl collection, I intend to use the Beocenter 7700 solely for playing 33 1/3s and 45s.

2) With the growing 78 record collection I have, I plan to use the REK-O-KUT Rondine Jr. turntable playing just these. I admire both the Beomaster 1900/2400, but think the BM 2400 has the edge as far as design for me. I think the BM2400 will work with the TT as it has no RIAA built in. I would love to use a Beogram but the fact is that many 78s would be too rough on the required stylus. Not to mention that they play better with a larger stylus tip for their wider grooves.

3) Another thing about 78s before the 1960s is that they did not have the standard RIAA equalization applied to them so along with the turntable, I would purchase a re-equalizer to alter the built-in RIAA on the Beomaster 2400. Namely the REK-O-KUT Re-Equalizer.

3) As for speakers, I have a pair of S45-2 on the way as the first items for my system. Yay! I hoped to use these speakers for both sound setups with a speaker switchbox if it wouldn't be too much overload. Niles has their ABS-1 switchbox that looks like it could work.

4) Both the REK-O-KUT turntable and re-equalizer have RCA connectors and I believe the both BC 7700 and BM 2400 have the 5-pin DIN connectors. The S45-2s have the 2-pin DIN. And the speaker switch box has spring-loaded push terminals.

Considering that this is a set-up that could work well, the cables I think I would need are:

- 3 sets of speaker cables (2-pin DIN cutting other ends for spring terminals?)

- 2 sets of RCA to 5-pin DIN cables

5) As for recording my records with my macbook, I'm not quite sure what that would require.

 
Ultimately, I would prefer to have the BC7700 to play only my vinyl and the BM2400 connected to the REK-O-KUT TT and Re-Equalizer to play only my 78s. While having both systems hooked up to the S45-2s through the speaker switch box.

So if anyone has any advice of what's missing or better ways to achieve this, please share your ideas.

Thanks in advance if you were able to read this and make some sense of it. : )

A perfectly reasonable suggestion but why complicate things? I would use the Beocenter 7700 and S45-2 speakers but I would attach a second record player to the 7700 Aux input via a decent variable RIAA which would give line output. I would also get a Beogram 1000 rather than the model you mention. It will cost much less but will play 78rpm records, you can get suitable styluses from Axel and it will be far nicer to look at. It too can change the pitch via a rotary control. You can of course use your selected deck through the 7700 anyway.

I use CD Spin Doctor plugged into the tape socket to transfer vinyl to my Mac Mini. The hardware is an ADS Tech Model RDS-150-EF. The software and hardware was purchased as a complete  package. also has Spdif input outputs,

I thought I might be over-complicating things. I cannot thank you enough. I was hoping for a beogram that could play 78s but did not think it would have the pitch control. And it makes me happy to know it would be pleasing to the eyes and cost much less, ha. In this way, it would sort of be a beginning and end setup of classic B&O.

A few more questions for my dense head...

When you say "decent variable RIAA", do you mean a preamp? Do you have any model that you would recommend?

Also would I still need the speaker switchbox and re-equalizer?

Again thanks for simplifying this so much already.

Eugene:

I use CD Spin Doctor plugged into the tape socket to transfer vinyl to my Mac Mini. The hardware is an ADS Tech Model RDS-150-EF. The software and hardware was purchased as a complete  package. also has Spdif input outputs,

Thanks for your detailed explanation. :) I'll also be sure to check the Mac forum when I delve in further with transferring.

The RIAA will need to be researched as the problem with 78 records is that there was no real standard. Therefore the equalisation varies . I gave all my 78s away as I never listened to them and gave my BG1000 away at the same time! The RIAA will be a pre-amplifier to bring the signal up to line level.

Ah I see. I've only started to collect 78s due to liking songs in certain movies from the 1930s.

I understand the need for the preamp now, thanks. Will try to look for a right model.

If you are using the Beocenter to play LP's & 45's, and using your other turntable into the ' tape 2' socket on the Beocenter, you only need one set of 'speakers, no switching box required! 

With regard to the extra turntable, the cartridge used will need to be changed to one with a stylus for 78's, as you say, a wider tip - and if you ever want to play 'vinyl' on this turntable, you'll need a second cartridge with a stylus for LP's. It will need a preamplifier to bring the output up to 'line' level; most give straightforward RIAA equalisation. As has been said - quite correctly - 78's were not RIAA corrected, but also early LP's had different correction curves from different record companies. In practice, most LP's are close enough to the RIAA curve to be acceptable, however, 78's are a very different matter. The ideal would be something like one of the Graham Slee preamps with switchable correction, but they are a serious investment... and in practice, many people in the 1950's when they were first playing both formats, simply used the tone controls on their amplifiers until they were happy with the sound. (Quad, for example, with their preamps, had a table of advised settings for the tone & slope controls.

I would start by using a basic RIAA preamp - which can be fairly cheap - and see how it sounds with 78's. Probably a bit bass-heavy & treble-light, possibly acceptable - if not you can consider another mortgage(!) to buy a switchable one. Because the 'Tape 2' connection is RCA ('phono') sockets, input from the preamp will use one pair of sockets, leaving the output pair for connection to your chosen recording medium, whether it be your computer or a hard disk or CD recorder.

Thanks for clearing up the switchbox issue, one less thing.

I actually came across the Graham Slee "Jazz Club" amp which is supposed to cover a wide range of curves. Of course that would be ideal, though I have found a few others which would be the Rek-O-Kut Re-equalizer and a basic (affordable) one with a switch between the most common LP and 78 curve. I think I'll start with the basic one as I heard a sound sample with/without an equalizer. I could only tell a slight difference if I searched for it. That could be due to my hearing loss in the high frequency range though.

I was going to ask Soundsmith if they can provide an elliptical 3.0mil tip for the SP 6/7 cartridges for the BG1000. Ideally I would like to have a few different stylus tips for playing my 78s, like the 3.0mil, with a 2.5 and 2.7.

So another option I thought would to be to change the cartridge to a Grado 78 or Stanton 500 which allow for these different size tips. I don't know if that's possible with some tweaking. I only came across this thread where the person changed the tonearm on the BG1000 to play 78s.

I see this will be a project but lucky for me, a fun challenge.