Beomaster 8000 Type 1903 - Arizona Restoration Project - First Look

I have been waiting for a while now to clear out other restoration projects so I could return to some Beomaster 8000 restorations.

The first one is a very nice, one owner Beomaster 8000 from Arizona.

The two, round control wheels operate smoothly and cosmetically, everything looks great on this Beomaster.

I plugged the Beomaster in but no "standby" red dot appeared on the display.

On to looking inside...

The center control bar on the Beomaster 8000 slides to the left in order to unlock the cabinet and access the screws hold the bottom control panel in place.

After removing the control bar, I could see that this Beomaster 8000 has been worked on in the past.
One tell is that two of the three, flat, metal springs for the control bar are missing.
Those springs just lay in place under the control bar and easily fall out when the Beomaster 8000 is opened up for service.  Unfortunately it is more common than not to open up a Beomaster 8000 and discover missing control bar springs.  I guess people lose the springs or forget to put them back.

Here is a photo comparing this unit with one that has the control bar springs.

I will have to see if I can fabricate some spares.

Another issue I quickly discovered was that the metal lid for the filter control panel did not open and close properly.

That lid is supposed to be spring loaded so that it slowly raises by itself with the control bar is pressed.
In this case, the lid has to be lifted manually and it free-falls shut.
That problem is also common though, most likely a broken lid lever.

This Beomaster 8000 unit has the original B&O configuration of the audio input sockets.
The tape RCA input and output jacks are on the TAPE 1 source.  Later, after serial number 2554003, those changed from the TAPE 1 source to the TAPE 2 source.

I lifted the front control panel into the service position next.

That confirmed that this is an early serial number Beomaster 8000.  At least, prior to B&O changing the Microcomputer Board.  This unit has the type of Microcomputer Board where the metal shielding case is soldered closed.  Later serial number units changed to a metal shielding case that snaps together.

I believe that began with serial number 2375027.

Here is a photo of the Microcomputer and Display boards.

Those boards appear to be original and untouched.

To the left side of the cabinet are the Preamplifier, FM, Filter and Left Channel Output boards.

The capacitors on the Preamplifier and FM boards look to all be original.  The Left Channel Output board looks like it has had some electrolytic capacitors replaced before.

I can also see the metal door lid mechanism now.  It does have a broken lever.
The lever can be replaced.

Behind the Microcomputer and Display boards is the Beomaster 8000 power supply and the Right Channel Output board.

The capacitors on those boards have been replaced already.

My next step will be to get out some test leads and trouble-shoot the power problem to see why the Beomaster 8000 standby LED is not coming on.

I will cover that in the next post.