gear pricing : mx5050 mkIII (8 trk) + soundcraft 400b

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thebookofkevin
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gear pricing : mx5050 mkIII (8 trk) + soundcraft 400b

Post by thebookofkevin » Thu Feb 02, 2006 10:50 pm

so this radio company in san francisco is going out of business and put an add for some equipment on craigslist. the two items that i'm interested in (Otari MX5050-mkIII and the Soundcraft 400b) both say "$/bo" as price, like, they're only accepting offers for those.. (there are other things with a price/bo, but these, it seems, they don't want to list probably because they don't want to list it too low)

What do you guys think a reasonable offer for the both of these pieces of equipment are, provided that they are in fair to good condition?

Is it a pipe-dream to think that $600 is good, or would that be overpaying?
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percussion boy
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Post by percussion boy » Fri Feb 03, 2006 1:02 am

$600 for both sounds low to me, unless the market has changed.
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I own that same model of Otari. Something to think about:

You really can't see how much life is left in the heads, or how close to needing relapping they are. If you decide they don't sound good & send them to JRF for eval/relap, that's a three figure sum in addition to what you pay for the deck. (When they come back, they have to be carefully lined up when they're reinstalled--do you want to pay a tech to do that?) Also, if the recorder doesn't have an alignment tape, that's another three figure sum. A service manual is $60+.

I like the Otari, just didn't understand what a moneypit it would be, even in good shape. YMMV.

Hope this helps . . .


[edited for clarity????]
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Roboburger
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Post by Roboburger » Sun Feb 05, 2006 1:31 pm

That's a fair price to offer. Let them know that if they get a better offer, to give you a second shot at a higher price. Watchout for that 400b- it's a fine basic board, but there's some british wackiness going on. The Board is wired Pin Three Hot, which doesn't have to be a huge problem. I use mine as is, and just watch out for phase issues if I am using an external preamp on some things and the channel strips on others, which I haven't really done yet, but I expect that I will with a drumset at some point.

The outputs are all unbalanced, even the XLRs which are wired pin three hot, pins 1&2 ground. You'll get the best sound (IMHO) making sure your recording rig is looking for a -10 signal (Dunno What the Otari is looking for, but My Layla toggles between -10/+4)

The manual is available at www.soundcraft.com under the "Classic" denomination.

PM me if ya wanna gab or I can help with soldering snakes...
Audio Engineer Euphemism for going number two: "Rollin' off the Low End."

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