Bang and Olufsen Beomaster 1200

Beomaster 1200 This is a design icon of the late 1960's and is well described here: http://www.beoworld.org/prod_details.asp?pid=320

I have recently been given this and it is now in regular use, after being in storage for several years.This set was purchased by my brother in law in about 1971 when it would have cost £109.00. He says that he and his wife heard them when shopping in Watford one Saturday morning soon after they got married. Their sound (along with the speakers which they still use) seemed so much better than anything they had ever heard before. So they blew nearly all their combined funds on them.

The first job was to glue the wooden sides together at the top right had corner in the view above. The next problem was the switch mechanism which in its years of idleness had seized because the grease had hardened. Switch cleaner solved this problem.

After establishing that nothing catastrophic had failed by gradually increasing the mains voltage through my 'Variac' I found that although the three pre-programmed FM buttons worked I could not get any signal when the FM button was depressed.

One thing caught me out, the radio is almost completely shielded and needs an aerial for FM and AM.

Eventually, after purchasing a rather poor copy of the schematic, I discovered that the potentiometer attached to the variable capacitor (bottom right in the above picture) was at fault. One end connection was not making connection to the carbon track. Removing the potentiometer which incidentally incorporates a small variable trimmer resistance at one end was straightforward and executing a repair entailed drilling out the rivet holding the end connection and judicious abrasion of the tarnished silvered end of the track and use of a soft pencil to repair the conductive path before re-assembling using a small self tapping screw instead of the rivet.

Two of the 12V 30mA miniature indicator lamps had failed but fortunately I had some wire ended ones which fitted quite well.

The radio connected to two Hitachi speakers which were part of a long gone Hi Fi system is now working well and I now have it connected to a Beogram 1000 turntable and a Sanyo CD player.

How much is it worth? Expect to pay £100-£120.