Got a call from the receptionist at work this morning:  "Rich, you have a parcel at the front desk."

Went up to the front of the building and found a B&O box.  "Well, that's a good start - original packaging."

Picked up the box and started walking back to my office.  I could here the table rattling around on the inside.  My initial thought:  the ebay seller from whom I purchased this piece didn't lock the transport screws like I asked.

For those who haven't seen my "BG4002 Down! (Back up already)" thread, my BG4002 has been sent off to a professional.  A week or two ago I received my new Soundsmith SMMC20EN.  Well, I'm not a patient man.  I need to hear this new cartridge.

I'd tried to buy a BG1700 or two on Ebay based on some things I'd read here, but they went a bit out of my price range during bidding.  I ended up buying two BG3404's instead.  One advertised as working fine with a working MMC20EN, and one advertised as working two years ago when the cartridge died, but unknown now after being in storage.  All told for the two tables, cartridge, and two shipping charges, I spent $175 US.

Between the two tables, I hope to get one running well.  If the cartridge works, great.  If not, oh well.  I still have the Soundsmith, afterall, and the JaffBay MMC3000 from the BG4002.

I opened the box, and yay!  A bit of extra packing.

I removed all the newspaper and found an original owner's manual.  Score!

Quick check of Beoworld:  no BG3404 owner's/user's manual on site.  Hey!  I can finally give back to Beoworld with a scan of the owner's manual.

But yikes!  Look at that tonearm!  Pretty sure it shouldn't be in that position!

I got the BG3404 out of the box and onto the dining room table.  Quick check of the cosmetics - nothing jumps out as wrong.  Even the dust cover is in good shape.

I opened the cover and took a look at the tonearm.  Looks bent at the back and has the same damage to the surface of the table that my junky spare RX 2 had.

Oh man, that looks bad! What's next?

I unwrapped the bit of packing material at the front/cartridge end of the tonearm.  Sure enough, there was a cartridge under there.

Dig the angle the tonearm is making.  I "screwed" the tonearm counterweight back into position, and tried to see if I could manually move the tonearm back close to where it belonged.  It just sort of "snapped" back.

I took a look at the stylus.  Yeah, looks like there's something there that will track in a groove and create sound.

Leslie:

Oh man, that looks bad! What's next?

It gets worse.

Something unusual caught my eye sort of sticking out of the platter.  The platter is a bit like the RX 2 in that it appears to be a top plate setting on a lower platter, the lower platter actually carrying the belt.

I pulled the top plate and found this.

The RX 2 top plate does not have this black, semi-flexible ring attached to it.  Is this additional ring standard on the BG3404, or is this an after-market tweak to add more mass to the platter?  I'll have to look at the service manual.

In any event, the ring needs to be bent back into round.

...and reattached!!!!

I tore the ring completely off and applied a small bead of two-part epoxy to the platter.  (I had some epoxy left over from performing the "Martin surgery" on my spare Beovox M70 phase link drivers.)  I then pressed the ring back into round onto the platter and set it aside.

Standard fitting to the more upmarket radial decks - my 1902 had it.

I plugged the deck in, and wouldn't you know it?  The tonearm immediately sort of "clicked into place" and returned to its home station.

I'd been doing this on my lunch hour, and I was already needing to get back to work.  I had to see if the deck worked.  I pressed the "spin" button, and the deck did turn.  I tested the transport screws.  As I figured when I first was walking with the packaged deck, the transport screws were fully disengaged.

It's not quite the right size (diameter too small), but I thought I might be able to get away with putting an RX 2 top plate on the platter as a quick substitute, just to see if the deck might work.

Peter :

Standard fitting to the more upmarket radial decks - my 1902 had it.

Thanks, Peter.  It looks "original," if a bit beaten.

With an RX 2 top plate/platter in place, I put a record on.  I connected the the BG3404 to my newly refurbished BM4000 and plugged in my newish Form 1's from LifeStyle AV.

The angels burst forth from heaven, and yes, ladies and gentlemen, there was music!!!

Good news Rich!

Alas the MMC20EN is likely shot.  Didn't take a whole lot of listening to figure that out.  Swapped in the MMC3000 and there was a world of difference.  Perhaps the MMC20EN will be my first experience with an Axel retip.

Got the BM4000 back into its rightful place in the system tonight, along with the BM4000 switch and an additional shelf in the tower.

Over the weekend we shall have our first listen to the new SMMC20EN.  I was thinking about this last weekend - the SMMC20EN is my first NEW cartridge since the 80's, if you can believe it.

Sad case of shipping damage but I'm sure, you will get it going all fine again.

NEVER ship a Beogram (or Beocenter) with the platter fitted.
ALWAYS wrap the platter separately and place it under the Beogram.

Martin

Received the second BG3404 at work today.  While walking the package out to my car I could here the deck bouncing around in there without the transport screws engaged.  No original box, either.  What condition was this one going to be in.

Got the deck home and opened the box.  The box wasn't even full with packing material!  Not a good sign!

Egad!  Just a single layer of bubble pack around the deck, and the platter is installed!

At least there was some packing material inside the dust cover.  No apparent damage to the tonearn.  Checked the ring on the underside of the platter, too, and it was fine.

I put a cartridge in the tonearm and checked it out....

Looks to work just fine!  The dust cover has seen better days, though.

Over the weekend I'll check the speeds of the two decks and use the one which seems the best.  Hopefully it will be this second one so I don't have to mess with the bent tonearm of the other one (yet, that is).  Then I'll just switch dust covers.

Can't wait to get that new SMMC20EN out and onto some of my new vinyl...

So...a question.

Two BG3404s shipped to Florida.  One from Minnesota, one from New Jersey.  Both trips 1000+ miles....er, 1600+ km.

Neither deck shipped with transport screws engaged!

The question:  am I just lucky, or is the BG3404 that robust of a machine?

The second deck is definitely the better of the two.  In fact, the first deck's tonearm may be barely on the good side of usable.  Both decks have perfect speed, though.

Here's the second deck playing Dark Side with the MMC3000 from JaffBay.

As noted above, the second deck's dust cover has seen better days.  I started the process of swapping dust covers but decided against it.  I took the cover off the first deck, and in an attempt at practice I guess, tried to put it back on.  Couldn't do it.  Glad I didn't take the cover off deck two.

Aside from being a bit tired looking, the only thing that might be a bit off mechanically/electrically with the second deck is the tonearm.  Call me crazy, but doesn't the tonarm look just a bit "saggy"?  Not 100% parallel with the surface of the deck?

Murphy's Law:  "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."

After I settled on the second BG3404 as the better of the two, and verified that its speed was perfect, I hooked up the new Soundsmith SMMC20EN cartridge.  And there was no sound coming from the right channel.

I put the MMC3000 back in.  Both channels worked.

Put the Soundsmith back in.  No right channel sound.

Repeated the process.  No right channel in the Soundsmith.

On a positive note, my initial impression that the MMC20EN that came with the first BG3404 was shot was wrong.  I tried the MMC20EN with the second deck after the Soundsmith didn't work, and it sounded quite nice.  Maybe I had the tracking force way out of whack when I did my first listening.