Beogram 8002: Re-Assembly and a Joyful Test Spin with Manfredo Fest

I recently performed a functional restoration of a Beogram 8002 that I had received from a customer in California. This Beogram was in pretty decent cosmetic condition overall, but had a fairly scratched hood. Luckily, the dksoundparts store has new reproduction hoods that look very identical to the original ones. The only issue is that the original aluminum hood trim needs to be transferred if one wants to retain the original B&O labeling. Dksoundparts only offers a generic trim strip for fear of lawyer letters from B&O's suit wearing set. Luckily Co-Beolover Beomazed figured out how to remove the original trim from an original hood without damaging it! 

So, while I was playing the restored Beogram in 'service position' to see if it had any intermittent issues left to cure, I sent the hood to Beomazed and he transferred the trim. This post discusses how he did it. It is a pretty challenging and tedious procedure (and of course involving the heavy use of a Dremel tool!!...;-).

He did an awesome job! The trim did not suffer at all and the new hood looks absolutely pristine!

So when I received it back I re-assembled the deck with the new hood. Here are a few impressions:

Very beautiful! Time for a test spin with Manfredo Fest! I recently discovered this interesting Brazilian keyboarder and composer. It is difficult to find his original vinyls, so I bought a re-issue of his possibly most known record, "Brazilian Dorian Dreams" which was initially released in 1976 on T&M Productions. The re-issue is from the British label Far Out Recordings (FARO219LP). It sounds pretty god in my opinion and the pressing is of high quality with only few clicks and pops. It is available via Amazon in the US. The title song Brazilian Dorian Dreams was an equally educational and joyful experience to me. It is written in the Dorian scale, which I had never experienced before, I think. It gives the track a remarkable sound, which I seem to enjoy very much. The wonderful voice of the vocalist Roberta Davis is probably not hurting this experience either! Check it out, it is definitely worth it! The album is on Spotify for a quick discovery.

Here are a few shots of this magnificent record playing on this fully restored Beogram 8002:

Very Beolovely! I will now play a few more records and then it should be time to return this nice Beogram 8002 to its owner!