Beomaster 1200
| Product : | Beomaster 1200 |
|
| Produced from : | 1969 - Dec 1973 | |
| Designed by : | Jacob Jensen | |
| Finish : | Rosewood, Teak, White | |
| Desirability : | 3 |
As heart and brain to the Beosystem 1200 - Bang & Olufsen’s first complete ‘designer’ stereo system - Beomaster 1200 was considered in the late 1960s when the very idea of possessing a matching hi-fi system hadn’t really been thought of. Up to that time customers bought everything that they needed on a ‘pick and mix’ basis. It was not until Beosystem 1200 was announced that people could even contemplate buying similarly-looking music systems, and not just the way that they looked on the outside as the technolgy within was complementary too ensuring that all components were ‘plug and play’.
And what were customers buying in these early days? Cassette decks were on the market of course, but unfortunately for the Bang & Olufsen customer, no cassette recorder featured yet in their product range. So it was a choice of record deck or reel-to-reel tape deck which were the only available sound sources. The other feature was that of FM radio which had already been integrated into the Beomaster 1200 electronics.
The radio section was made up of FM and LW/MW, all packaged around a 2 x 20W amplifier. Three preset radio stations could be tuned in and used as ‘favourites’. The receiver was novel in that not only was it striking with Jacob Jensen’s ’slide rule’ controls filling up the top of the unit (another first as up to then most amplifiers had controls on their sides) but it could be mounted on to the wall, giving the impression of something very space-age and very modern looking.
A novel receiver in many ways, Beomaster 1200 was chosen for permanant exhibition in 1972 by New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The model was replaced by the Beomaster 1001 which was designed on certain similarities.
Beosystem 1200 could be made up with the following complementary units: Beomaster 1200, Beogram 1200 and the Beocord 1200 tape recorder.
Bang & Olufsen with Jacob Jensen were given the 1970 iF Award for their design of the Beomaster 1200.
BeoMaster 1200 types:
