Scandinavian speakers/audio equipment

[cfz2882]

decided to create a thread on speakers and audio equipment from the Scandinavian countriesenmark,Sweden,Norway,Finland.The electronics from this region in my experience is mostly similar to products from Germany and Holland except for a greater tendency to use aluminum in construction and more usage of Japanese made motors,transistors and capacitors. My Scandinavian audio experience/observation includes:
Denmark-
-Dynaudio:awesume 6"woofers used in my Saab 99 and Porsche 928
-Scan speak 4.5 woofers and 1"dome tweeters
-damaged remains of a 1980 Bang&Oluffson turntable bought at a rummage sale-had belt drive DC motor.
Norway-
-1978 Tandberg TR2025MB receiver-nice looking receiver has shortwave in addition to usuall AM/FM
-1978 Tandberg TCD 301 cassette-mine needs repair,but this unit features DC direct drive reel motors and AC syncronus motor capstan drive-the motors are Japanese.
-Ca.1960 Tandberg reel to reel:incomplete remains bought at rummage sale-had basicly same motor as found on british Collaro turntables except a fan mounted on the tape deck one.
-Seas woofer found in a saab 900
Sweden-
-nice Sonab bookshelf speakers seen in a pawn shop-was going to come back and buy them but I was too late...They looked ~78-82 era and had~6"woofer
-5"speakers salvaged from a 1994 Volvo:no brand on them,but marked"sweden"
Finland-
-anthing from Finland?-I have seen non-audio electronics from there including Nokia video monitor,made in '93 had Japanese pix.

 

[firedome]

SEAS

I think was Danish, made the drivers for Dynacos such as the excellent A-25 in the '70s. Still around and respected. B & O is nice, not super high end, but cleanly designed, in proper Scandinavian tradition. No idea what speakers were in our new SAAB 99 had when we bought it new back in '74, nor those in the other 7 or so SAABs we've had, whatever they came with were what they were subsequently sold with, or replaced by our sons when they got them.

 

[cfz2882]

Saab speakers/audio

'71 99 still had it's original AM radio when i bought it in '95-radio and single speaker were made in japan by Clarion,i soon swapped this for an AM/FM blaupunkt stereo radio salvaged from a ~1978 Volkswagen dasher hooked to '84 renault Philips speakers This setup served well for a few years until i upgraded to a more complex stereo system.I have seen Blaupunkt,sanyo,and clarion in 99s.original 900s seem to have been mostly clarion with some Blaupunkt in very early 900s.The VW dasher radio looked very original in my 99 and i might reinstall it someday.

 

[whirlcool]

I had that Tandberg 2025 receiver myself. It sounded great, and new was very expensive about $999 in 1979 money. I eventually sold it because it was too weak to run my AR-3a's decently. But I enjoyed it when it was driving my JBL 4311's.

I'm currently listening to most music through a pair of Bang & Olufsen S75 speakers. Picked them up on Ebay for $75 for the pair because the seller couldn't spell Olufsen properly. I was the only bidder. And they were in mint condition too.

 

[davey7]

I once almost talked my dad into a B&O system. I'm trying to remember the tv brands my parents had in Norway, I think one may have been a very old (flea market) Tandberg. They made all the tape recorders/players used in schools in the 80's.

 

[lordkenmore]

I used some sort of Tandberg receiver ca. 2000. I don't remember the specific model number for certain, but I think it might have been a 2040. At the time I got it, my ca. 1990 British amp was acting up. I didn't expect much; just something that would keep the audio system going while I figured out "what next?" And once I had a "real amp" again, I could use the Tandberg one day in a secondary system.

But, as it turned out, the Tandberg was pretty good. I was in fact amazed. It didn't totally steam roll my 1990 amp, but it did amazingly well in comparison, particularly given:
-It was a 15 year older design (or so)
-As far as I know, it was more or less stock (not restored, recapped, etc)
-It had a lot more circuitry, including tone controls. (Simpler is often better.)

The Tandberg was good enough that I wasn't in any hurry to move on. And it was so good that I wasn't sure the 1990 amp was even worth fixing.

Unfortunately, tragedy struck. Long story, but I foolishly used a rabbit ear antenna for radio. It was handy. Unfortunately, it was a light antenna, and one day it fell. And some demonic influence caused it to fall in such a way that it went straight to the power outlet, where it knocked a connection loose, and made contact with live power. End result: no more Tandberg.

An audio dealer I did business with once (who sold me the British amp, in fact) recognized Tandberg: IIRC he said it had been quite common when he started business in the 70s.

IIRC this dealer also told me in the early 1990s that once that in his early years, he carried B&O, although he felt that as the years had gone by, B&O ceased to be competitive in sheer audio terms.

 

[whirlcool]

In the 60's and early 70's Tandberg reel-to-reel recorders were commonly found in recording studios along with Ampex, Roberts, etc. Tandberg had quite the history.

 

[lordkenmore]

Tandberg reel-to-reel recorders

I'm not quite sure, but it seems to me that I might have first heard the Tandberg name because of their home open reel decks.

 

[lordkenmore]

Another name I should have thought of before now is Ortofon, Denmark phono cartridge maker. Given that I'm the good analog die hard I am, I should have thought of them before... I shall have to punish myself for my mistake by going and listening to a first generation CD played on a first generation CD player. LOL

I have never had any sort of real experience with their cartridges. Maybe one day. I do have what is probably a FF15xE body that came to me on a mass market Japanese turntable.

 

[kb0nes]

Years ago (late 80's) our local MN company Audio King used to carry Bang & Olufson as a side line. I had a friend that managed the local store and I would spend a lot of time there. I would always marvel at the high end minimalist design. Svelte linear tracking turntables, sliding doors on the CD players, early adoption of remote controls and miniaturized speakers meant to look better then they sound (think Bose with higher class style). I did critically listen to their Penta speakers a couple times but I was unimpressed with what $5000 bought you there (in 1990!).

Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I was shopping at the local high end mall and I wander across an actual B&O store!! I had to go in and poke around and talk up the employees. I mentioned how I had thought that they had left the US market but I guess they had always remained here. All their products were still the same high style you'd expect. The only this that kinda caught my eye were the Beolab-5 loudspeakers. They certainly look interesting. They are a omni radiator design like the old Ohm Walsh speakers but cooler looking. I caught a glimpse of the $25,500 price tag and smiled and left. While I could see paying $25k for a quality pair of speakers, these aren't it. They sure LOOK cool though!

B&O for people that want to look at their audio equipment more then listen to it, or perhaps they just have too much money. Kinda like the $10,000 dollar range people showcase in their kitchen to warm up frozen pizzas...

 

[davey7]

Ortofon

I have an Ortofon cartridge on my JVC turntable. Idiots at radio shack sold me the wrong part so it's out of service. Need to get to the Saturday Audio Exchange....

 

[tolivac]

Ortofon used to make cutter heads for disc recording lathes-disc recorders.
Never seen a Tandberg machine in a radio station-the places I dealt with that used pro or commerical machines.Encountered mostly Ampex,Skully,Otari,and Studer-Revox.Sometimes ITC reel machines.Have an Ampex 300 and an Otari MR10 that I got as "payment" for fixing a radio stations chain transitters-AM and their FM's.Got some money,too.They had just converted to digital and were going to toss the analog gear-too bad I couldn't get all of it--would need a BIGGER truck.All I could use at the time was my freinds pickup.Another machine that radio stations snd older recording studios used was Berlant Concertone.They were very high end machines.Would love to have one.

 

[neptunebob]

Scandinavian equipment is good looking but.....

 
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[whirlcool]

Back in the 90's B&O put their foot down on repair shop parts availability. The only places that can order B&O parts from B&O are the dealers/authorized service centers only. That makes parts very expensive and their devices even more expensive to repair. And B&O won't repair anything past a certain age. All of their turntables fall into that category now. You see a lot of them on Ebay, but if something breaks, that's it. There is a B&OWorld website where people sometimes are willing to sell parts, but it's a paid membership type of website.

I always thought that B&O was just a pretty face, but once I got my pair of B&O S75 speakers I realized that they are/were more than that.

As for Ortofon, at one time in the 80's they owned Dual, the turntable company and Dual turntables all came with Ortofon cartridges. BTW, Ortofon replacement styli is generally still available, even for models from the 70's. A company here in the U.S. lpgear.com sell them in addition to lots of others.

 

[cfz2882]

'70s tandberg speakers

the first tandberg products i had seen were a pair of small stereo speakers at a 2nd hand store-were spherical or hexagonal,featured a woofer of ~4-5"dia.and were in a very '70s tomato red color-perfect to play some ABBA on

 

[lordkenmore]

>And B&O won't repair anything past a certain age.

It's worth noting that B&O is not alone in this. In fact I had a conversation with a service tech yesterday talking about Linn Products and their lack of interest in servicing anything older. A few months ago, a representative for a major speaker company and I had a discussion, and he was bemoaning the lack of support for his rather expensive CD player.

However...sometimes things can probably be fixed even if officially they are unsupported. The trick is finding the right person.

>I always thought that B&O was just a pretty face, but once I got my pair of B&O S75 speakers I realized that they are/were more than that.

I suspect a lot depends on the model and the point in history. As I commented before, an audio dealer I did business with once was owned by a man whose previous dealership had, apparently, carried B&O. But...that was back in the 1970s. When we talked, it was ca. 1990, and I got the impression he'd lost respect for B&O on audio terms.

Of course, again, this is nothing unique. Many companies have had ups and downs as far as sound quality is concerned.

 

[whirlcool]

Plus add to the fact that most companies that were into quality stereo at the time started turning their R&D dollars into home theater around 86-87 or so. That's the time I consider the golden age of stereo. Shortly after that timeframe, consolidation in the industry started and a lot of old line brands started to fail and the companies started going out of business or swallowed up by conglomerates.

 

[davey7]

"the first tandberg products i had seen were a pair of small stereo speakers at a 2nd hand store-were spherical or hexagonal,featured a woofer of ~4-5"dia.and were in a very '70s tomato red color-perfect to play some ABBA on "

Well, Frida was half Norwegian, so I guess that's alright...