Rated at 30W, the Beovox 2600 was powerful enough to be used with the Beomaster 3000, though it was also recomended for use with the Beomaster 1000, 1200 and 1600.

Slightly larger than the Beovox 1200 of the same year, it was fitted with an 8” woofer with a rubber roll edge and a 1.5” dome tweeter. Befitting a loudspeaker to be used with the excellent Beomaster 3000, the Beovox 2600 met all the conditions of the DIN 45 500 “hi-fi” standard.

“B&O loudspeakers will meet very exacting conditions as their specifications exceed international hi-fi standards. All B&O speakers are of the pressure-chamber type with an impedance of 4 ohms. They are available in matched pairs only in a choice of teak or Brazilian rosewood finish” – taken from the 1967 – 1968 Bang & Olufsen product catalogue

B&O loudspeakers will meet very exacting conditions as their specifications exceed international hi-fi standards. All B&O speakers are of the pressure-chamber type with an impedance of 4 ohms. They are available in matched pairs only in a choice of teak or Brazilian rosewood finish

Only being available for two years, these small bookshelf speakers

are not that well known. With their old style cone tweeter but a modern small size, they can be considered a link between the 1960s and 70s. The small power handling capacity probably was to be blamed for their demise though, as most receivers introduced in the early ’70s already well exceeded the rated power.

These aren’t the speakers to use at a party, but at moderate volume they produce a very pleasing warm sound especially with acoustic music. The cone tweeter however makes them highly directional, so they are best used in set-ups where you can direct them straight at the preferred listening position.

Beovox 2200 bass drivers have rubber roll edges, so there is no need to worry about foam rot. If the speakers sound fine with all drivers working, they should be a safe buy even without further investigation. The frets, constructed on a wood/metal frame, are however easy to carefully pry off for inspection.

These speakers blend very well on a bookshelf, taking only a little bit more space than, say, a CX100 – and a small, golden old style B&O emblem on the fret accentuates the look. Highly recommended

to complete a vintage set-up with a contemporary Beomaster 900M, for example.

The plain exterior of the Beovox 1600 concealed an interesting design. Designed for wall mounting, either vertically or horizontally, the Beovox 1600 was the ideal for the mid range B&O models of the period such as the Beomaster 1200 or Beocord 2400.

The Beovox 1600 was a three-way design. The units comprised a 12cm woofer, a 2.5cm dome midrange and a 4cm cone tweeter. These units were supplied by Wharfdale (England), Philips (Holland) and SEAS (Norway) respectively. An odd mix, though they were all of good quality and were well made, the woofer had a rot-resistant soft rubber roll edge and a pressure die-cast basket for example. Using a cone driver as the tweeter and a dome for the midrange was odd practice, though it has to be remembered that these were early days for dome loudspeakers in general.

The crossover network was of a fairly standard three-stage parallel design complete with a band pass section for the midrange. Unusually for B&O, a film capacitor was used as the pass element for the tweeter, normally a cheaper electrolytic capacitor would be found here.

The slim cabinets also had an unusual feature, they were braced from front to back to make the large front and rear panels more rigid. This may have been done to stiffen the rear panel in particular, to reduce the amount of acoustic energy that was transmitted into the wall. The cabinets were constructed on the pressure chamber principle and were fronted by a cloth grille that was supported on a pressed steel sheet.

B&O had clearly put a lot of work into the Beovox 1600. It was later replaced by the Beovox 1800.

However, it was fitted with higher quality drive units (one 6” woofer and one 1.5” dome tweeter), which gave it a considerable performance advantage. The dome tweeter in particular was a great improvement over the cone type of the Beovox 600. The superior quality meant that the Beovox 1100 met the DIN 45 500 requirements for hi-fi. While it was still suitable for use with the same models as the Beovox 600, it could also be used with some of the better Beomasters, such as the 1000, 1200, 1400 and 1600.