Scott Hansen talks about the Bang & Olufsen Beogram 6000, designed by Jakob Jensen* in 1974. I share Hansen’s take on B&O these days, who I find insultingly inaccessible and willfully queer:
I really can’t say I am as impressed with their work in recent years. It seems as if industrial designers are always trying to “evolve”, which is fine as long as your idea of evolution is turning into an alien. When I look at a classic example of design like this I really see a human element missing from a lot of it’s modern counterparts.
He has more pictures of the Beogram 6000 on his site.
B&O Beogram – 1974 [Blog.iso50.com via Monoscope via Coudal]
* Scandinavians love Scandinavian design!
the 6000 is great. i picked up a 3400 on the cheap and i’m really happy with it:
http://www.beocentral.com/products/bg3400
this is the 79 model, still works like a charm. and it’s just beautiful.
Ah, wonderful! My father has a full B&O system which he bought new when it came out. The tape player no longer works (and there’s no real justification to fix it). The turntable however is a thing of beauty, and fascinated me as a kid, watching the head move across and automatically drop down.
My mum had the original Beogram 4000, which, while missing the quadrophonics of the 6000, being the first model to come out was of much higher quality in materials / components used – It was completely over-engineered and must have cost a fortune to make! It also had a strobascope to check speed that was missing from the the later 4002/4 & 6000. Amazing decks tho.
BTW they never actually ‘read’ the grooves as people thought they only detected the lack of pulses reflected back from the ribs when a record was present – If the belt ever came off and the platter stopped the stylus would drop thinking there was a record LOL!
As for thinking modern B&O stuff is alien, well I don’t think so. Much of their past stuff is timeless, but ideas move on. Also, due to ever lowering costs other manufacturers have been able to catch up and adopt some of B&O’s more exclusive features and looks, so I would suggest they have little choice other than to stick their neck out and make some bold moves…
BTW their newer speakers really rock!
Olly.