I agree entirely - I've had this player since 2007 also after coming from an Arcam. I was also very fed up with that horrible plastic trundelling noise and the plastic trays of CD players. I saw this in a shop in Sheffield and was totally blown away with the quality of the unit but most of all the sound.

I used to use it with a Beomaster but after getting the hifi bug I switched to Exposure amps and then to Quad II's of which I am now using - the CD7000 sounds superb with solid state as well as valve. It is a little sparse on controls yes, but it's fine and you get used to it.

Can't say anything about the earlier versions except that my friend had a 5500 and would have had to butcher two other units to re-ferbish his after it gave up the ghost (but he did buy it in the 80's)so he bought a 7000 too and is well happy.

I'm not a big B&O fan, so I guess this says something about the quality of this player! Look to about £300 - £330 ish for a minty one.

Ok... I've been through some CD players simply to find the best sound for the least amount of money. I started with a Musical Fidelity X-RAY 24K before I moved on to an Arcam 70.2, then an Arcam Alpha/5+ (including an NOS converted version) all of which held their own in lots of different ways. I was wanting to find something that had a good equal base of depth, dynamics and an overall equal frequency band.

Some CD players lean to the lows, some to the mids and some (Like MF) lean to the brighter side of the highs. It's seldom to find a cd player that can equate a good full range, a pinch of each with a just a little more salt on the bass and mids.

Well, I think I've found one, and I'm sure there are plenty more out there too. But this one comes with styling and a build quality that only the £3000 players can give you such as Copland etc.

The Bang & Olufson Beogram CD 7000 was (as most of the literature will state) the last of the high-end models they produced. Built by B&O themselves the unit is sturdy, solid... no cheap creaky plastic, no poor quality buttons (in fact no buttons at all) and no plastic cd tray.

The first thing you would say about this player is it's difference, and all B&O products shout. The sound is dynamic, fast with a nice balance in all the nice stuff. I am running it through a none B&O passive pre-amp with monoblock amps and it sounds superb. It's fun to use, quality = fun in my book!

I picked it up for about £300 as it was in minty condition. Now, tell me what you can buy for that, with this amount of quality and design involved? - I fear you would struggle.

The player uses the very well documented TDA1541A DAC which is very, very good indeed. It's very well spoken of due to it's simplicity. The CD 7000 has one of the best implimentations of this chip. It's versitle too with a lot of people converting these players to NOS (no over sampling) to improve it even further, and thats not all... it's also fantastic base to add valves (tubes) to if your handy with a soldering iron.

The player has a solid bilited alloy cd tray, yes... solid alloy - that glides out without the drama of hearing the 'clunk' and rattle you get on soooo many players. It's slilent glide instantly demonstrates quality and it's soft touch controls also gives it a certain uniquness.

Ok.. there is a catch to some of this praising. There are not many controls if like me you would be using it with a none B&O system. All you have is play and advance track but with the help of the Beomaster you can get one of the most amazing remote controls ever - the Beolink 7000. Very rare and very expensive even to this day if it's in good condition.

Apart from that, it's really quite perfect - on the back there is the DIN output lead (simply converted via a 7 Pin DIN to RCA lead) and a SPDIF Co-Ax digital output.

All in all, for my money I feel great... I like design, I like quality sound - this has it...

If you are going to go for a CD Player, go for the 7000 simply because they were the latest released (1994) in the range so less chance of any problems in technicals. The earlier players like the 5500 are almost identicle but they are getting really old and they also don't have the same build quality in my opinion.

Get the 7000! - £300 well spent!