B&O Beogram CDX - CD Player With Dual TDA1540 DAC

Bang & Olufsen is well known for the lifestyle audio product. They are focusing on the style and design without sacrifice the sound quality. No exception for this old CD Player. This is Beogram CDX is build around 80's. At that time, the feature such as motorized CD lit with the disc platter is very high class and stylish. I could imagine this CDP is just like automatic gull-wing door in luxury car.

Looking to the CDP itself, the case is build by a plastic. There is also aluminium plate covering the case and clear acrylic for the disc tray.

I get this unit in fault open close door condition. I should lift it up manually to get the CD lid to open.

The main attractive of this CDP is the platter inside the lid. You just put the CD on it, then once you close the lid, the platter will moving down and the disc will start to spin.

The others problem I found is the LED for number 6 is off. Mostly because of the cold joint solder or faulty LED. It is quite easy to fix.

I am curious about what inside this CDP is. I open this plastic cover immediately. Flip it down and un-screw it using small hex.

I got the main problem for the broken automatic CD lid is the worn gear and cracked rubber band. I don't have this spares and finding them will takes some time. So I will leave as it is right now and do open the CD tray by manually pull it by hand.

The DAC and analog LPF filter are in the middle of the case. This board is dual layer board which all of the top side are only for the grounding. You can notice the TDA1540 and others SAA IC from Phillips. I should also mention that all the capacitors are also from Phillips.

The lens pick-up is similar to the Phillips CD-104. This mechanism using magnetic to move the lens smoothly. You will never find this kind mechanism on today CD player.

I also make an upgrade on the RCA line out cable.

I removed the old, low quality cable. I wondering why they put the cable like this in this beautiful CD Player.

I using female RCA output that I dismantled from old Pioneer car head-unit. This connector is actually good compare to the OEM cable. Thus, by using this female RCA output, I got more option to using any kind of RCA cables after this CD to the amplifier.

I also make some cleaning on the platter. It is look like new now.

After all done, I test this CDP in my audio system. The first sound impression is almost similar to the Meridian 203 here. This B&O background noise is better, it is very quiet. The high frequency are open, the mid range are warm and sound stage is wide. I can say this B&O Beogram CDX strong on the mid range. It gives more color to the music. The downside, I feel that the bass are slightly boomy. For example the music with heavy drum will dominated to the overall sound performance.

After playing some music with this CDP about total around 3 hours, or at least 4 disc in a row. I find that the optical lens need to be service or replace. The CD reading skip for only play a disc with fine scratch. The skip sound is very fast and then it recover to play the music again for less than of quarter second. But it becomes more and more often. At last, I should remember this CDP is build 30 years ago and I should give it an applause for overall performance after all.

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