Bang & Olufsen Beocord 8002

Manufactured: 1981 – 1982
Designer: Jacob Jensen
Colours: Teak, rosewood, oak, white

Bang & Olufsen Beocord 8002 was one of Europe’s most advanced cassette recorders, yet electronic automation made it by far the easiest to use. Microcomputer control meant operational errors were impossible. 

A new development – the Dolby HX Professional recording system or ‘HX-Pro’ automatically optimised bias levels relative signal content, thus ensuring professional standard recordings every time, no matter whether you used, ferric, chrome or metal tapes. In addition Beocord 8002 had the ability to indicate recorded and playback time in minutes and seconds so you could plan your recordings economically.

Finding the start of a particular track was automatic: you just had to key in the required ‘address’: computer logic then found it for you. You could also program the deck to make unattended recordings at any given time within a 24-hour period.

When coupled to Beomaster 8000 all recording and playback functions could be operated by remote control using the BeoLab terminal. Beocord 8002 could be used as a stand-alone tape cassette recorder or as part of hi-fi systems such as Beosystem 6000 or Beosystem 8000.

The second generation of this series of tape recorders, replacing Beocord 8000, introduced a new type of recording system which B&O would later licence to other manufacturers all over the world.

The HX Pro (Headroom eXtension) system worked by adjusting the depth of the bias current during recording, so that when a strong signal was recorded, the bias level favoured a wide frequency range, and when a weaker signal was recorded low background noise was the priority. The improvement in performance was certainly worthwhile, and all types of tapes and recordings benefited from the process. In particular it enabled really good recordings to be made of ferric tape, useful for making cassettes for the car players of the day, few of which offered the correct equalisation for chrome.

Another addition was that Metal particle tapes could be used. Since the standard for the sensing hole had not yet been fully agreed by all the cassette makers, both automatic and manual means of selecting the Metal position were fitted.