That Was The Week That Was – 22nd November 2020

After buying a Beomaster 1900 from Ebay to replace my Beomaster 1500, I realised a few days later that several of the bulbs – the ones for bass, treble and balance – were not actually working. After some digging around on the Internet, I found Beoparts who supply a handy bulb kit. A few days later the bulb kit arrived and so I set to taking this beautiful thing apart so I can solder in these new bulbs.

The Internet never disappoints and so it was I found a great video by MyMate Vince, taking apart a 1900, but using an LED hack to replace the bulbs. What's amazing is how the Beomaster was designed to be taken apart quite easily – very different to today's products.

Once I got the Beomaster apart, I was in awe of the design thinking which went into the light display for Bass, Balance etc. Instead of making a series of lights that went from zero to one as you moved the fader, it instead used one light with a plastic film overlay with cutouts for each point within the range. This gave the effect of an array of lights lighting up in an elegant way, when in actual effect there was just one. Love it!

Around half hour later I had carefully removed the old bulbs and soldered in the new ones. With the case all back together I powered it up and it looked wonderful, like something from the future, only that future was 1976. Oh and it sounds wonderful too.

On the work front I had delivered my latest motion piece from Trend Micro. Happy to say the feedback was some of the best I've ever had from a client.