Hmmm - my Soundsmith cartridge has always been a tight fit on my Bg4000, but it's worked without problems.

The other day I got my other Bg4000 back from the shop, and reveled in the nice sound from it. Today I wanted to try the Soundsmith cartridge on it, and when removing it the dark "lip" that one slides the cartridge on to came along with the Soundsmith. I was able to remove the lip from the cartridge, and can now scratch my head as to whether this can be repaired.

Status. I'm the lucky owner of two fully functional and cosmetically very nice Bg4000s. I bought number 2 in order to have somewhere to get parts when needed (don't look at me like that), but thought I'd have it looked at to see if it could be made to work as advertised. It could, and I was hard pressed to tell which deck I preferred the sound of. Right now, that's a simple choice ...

It seems as if the connector "tongue" was pulled slightly out when the lip came off. I believe it's glued to the lip, and that's probably why it got dragged out about a mm.

Any suggestions?

Has the plastic broken or could it be slid back? If the latter, maybe it can be gued back in place. If the former, why not ask Frede to see if he has the spare part.

I was faced with a similar issue so used a two-pack adhesive to glue everything back again.

However, I am not so sure this was a permenant solution as it appears to have come loose again...Bear in mind a few carts have been removed an re-inserted since then!

Graham (Joeyboygolf) has got (or had) a similar issue and was waiting for a donor...

@Peter I think this is one of the few parts of this model that cannot be removed unfortunately, so will require a whole new arm assembly, but I am sure there is someone has worked out how to pull it all apart fully intact!

Thanks for the suggestions. Encouraging to see others have found themselves in similar trouble. (Encouraging from the POV of being able to mend things).

Really a big shame, the deck was playing wonderfully and I was on the third or fourth record to be played on it after it was resuscitated. It could be that the lip had an earlier damage.

A question - the arm assembly is different from my other Bg4000, and I'm wondering whether it may have been replaced alltogether, with a later generation assembly?

If I pull out the insert holding the light on the static arm, it comes out as a module, free from the arm itself; whereas on my other deck, it's attached to the arm with wires.

I'll look into whether I can carry out a repair here - if not I know what will be resting on the back seat of my car as I make my way to Frede this June.

Yes mine also detatches and you should find the same with the tonearm, but I would treat this as if it is wired when trying to remove!

I would guess yours is early before things resorted to the more permenant wired solution seen in later decks.

Hi,

The same thing happened to me and i tried to glue it and rebuild it for months and it was never the same.

In the end i used an arm from a BG4002. Its a bit different but if you are handy with a hacksaw then you just have to put a diagonal cut in the same place as the BG4000 arm and a small hole to locate it with a screw.

Its far easier to hold of a BG 4002 arm than a BG4000 one and i think that the tongue is a bit stronger, IMO.

Hope thats of help

Tom