Great gear you got a *bad* deal on

lefuquaire · Post by **lefuquaire** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 9:36 am

i paid $249 for a nady rsm 4. wish i would have known they were going to blow them out @ $79. in any case i should have put the money towards a beyer or shure uni-ron.

JES · Post by **JES** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:23 pm

Bought a Peavey VMP-II in "perfect condition" on ebay for like $650. Decent deal. It arrives. First, it's nothing like the pic. It's got stickers on it that weren't in the picture and its clearly got lots of cosmetic damage. Oh well, why cares so long as it works, right? Right. So I plug it in, turn it on and . . . nothing. Long story short, I sent it out for repair and paid another $250. Works great now and everything sounds like it was recorded in the 70s. I just retubed it and it sounds even better.

Then there's the whole prosumer cycle, which is a "bad deal" in concept. Bought something so I could get recording, but it wasn't really good enough, sold at a small loss, bought something else. Eventually, I just started saving up to buy whatever I wanted in the first place. Wya better plan.

Best,
--JES

johnny7 · Post by **johnny7** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:31 pm

Tascam 38 off the Bay for $600. It was supposed to be working perfectly. It wasn't.
i had a tech who never managed to get it working - he was rather busy with other stuff. i have still not used it as I lost interest. (And bought an MCI )
Anybody in Seattle want to buy a parts machine?

Johnny7

calaverasgrandes · Post by **calaverasgrandes** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 7:47 pm

pretty much ever computer I have had ever.
The most recent one I spent way too much on. I was just thinking I was doing well money-wise, so I went out and bought all the neat things that there were to buy for a computer 2 years ago. Its got a real nice power supply thats not compatible with all the new motherboards. the motherboard is great, but they stopped making chips for it a while back. My video card is pretty nice, but wont transfer to any new system I get. Its AGP. From what I understand the TC powercore card wont play nice on any of the new PCIe boards. Even if they have PCI slots. So I guess I am sticking to this computer until it blows up or the software gets too big for it.
When I upgraded to Sonar 7 I overclocked it by about 12% to keep up. I bought DDR 500 ram so I would have space to overclock.

That and most pedals I ever bought. I have a whole milkcrate full of em. Most of them are boring and have no resale value.

Jeff White · Post by **Jeff White** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:19 pm

calaverasgrandes wrote: That and most pedals I ever bought. I have a whole milkcrate full of em. Most of them are boring and have no resale value.

Please feel free to send them to me. I'll pay for shipping. PM if interested.

Jeff

calaverasgrandes · Post by **calaverasgrandes** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 9:46 pm

just because its boring and non-saleable now doesnt mean it wont go up. I can actually recall when EH pedals were considered junk. And when Ross distortions were the cheapest you can get.
Besides I exagerate. I figured out that running 2 or 3 boring phaser/flanger/choruses in a row makes a less boring phalanger!

lyman · Post by **lyman** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:20 am

i bought a dbx 163x on craigslist for an ok price ($50 or something) and it had a bad capacitor. i got hosed on the repair cost, so even with the seller agreeing to split the repair fee it turned into a not great deal.

i also paid money for a boss fz-2 hyperfuzz pedal. yeah.

apropos of nothing · Post by **apropos of nothing** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:44 am

The computer upgrade game is definitely for suckers.

Here's my philosophy on it, which has served me very well: Purchase the very high-end of last year's tech. This cuts a lot of money off the front-end, but still gets you a pretty decent machine. Then, use the hell out of it. Use it until there's nothing it can possibly be used for anymore. I got a killer machine this way in 2001, and I'm still using it, and it still rules. Amortizing this way, I got a hot machine for $700, 7 years ago. Adding to it all the parts I've put into it (DVD-+R, several PSUs, a couple hard-drives), it still works out to about $115/year of use. Not too bloody horrible. If I'd purchased the same machine the second it came out, it would have been twice as much, and I'd have had to sit around through BIOS upgrades and crap like that.

calaverasgrandes · Post by **calaverasgrandes** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:52 am

Yeah, but I am a "computer guy". I actually get a lot of stuff for free. But then I do this horrible logic;
I cant waste this $300 motherboard I just got for free. So I'll go buy the $600 CPU that goes with it.

I also fetishize computer gear about as badly as some folks do with guitar gear, or recording gear. Luckily its the reverse of vintage though.

kayagum · Post by **kayagum** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:05 am

You don't want to know about how much I paid for my Tascam 238s....

(I'll give you a hint, it's 4 digits)

At least it was new, I got a lot out of it, learned multitrack recording, and passed it along to a fellow TapeOp'er (tatertot).

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:37 am

i was the first kid on my block to have a cd burner, back in the late 90s. burnt all the way up to a blazing 4x and only set me back $700!

RodC · Post by **RodC** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:12 pm

I agree with apropos of nothing, I have 4 PCs and 2 laptops, I always buy stuff about a year old. For the past 4 or 5 years the life of a PC seems to be gettin a bit longer. I can remember when a year old PC wouldnt even run the latest software.

calaverasgrandes wrote:Yeah, but I am a "computer guy". I actually get a lot of stuff for free. But then I do this horrible logic;
I cant waste this $300 motherboard I just got for free. So I'll go buy the $600 CPU that goes with it.

I also fetishize computer gear about as badly as some folks do with guitar gear, or recording gear. Luckily its the reverse of vintage though.

To cure this, only read reviews of stuff you want to buy if its at least 8 months old! Just never pick up the latest magazine. lol

red cross · Post by **red cross** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 5:54 am

themagicmanmdt wrote:to respond to the SW questions:

one guy got one for $300 here on the boards.

another just sold for ~$800, and a similar (albeit different model) SW went for just about $1k.

(i paid around $2k.)

it's strange. the board to me is worth it.

but apparently, i was about a grand and a half overbid on the showcase showdown.

(i still think the board should go for what i paid for it, though)

anyways. i won't post bout that board no more. i think 3 out of my last 10 posts were me whining about it. i mean, the thought of it kept me up at night.

but, i'm ok now.

tomb is my therapy.

i mean it.

this forum gets out the late night jitters, and sidetracks me with wonderful recording theories and tempts me with awesome deals on the forums.

sweet, sweet dreams indeed.

(+1 on the tascam story - see, those kind of posts are why i'm *awake* here at 3am when I've got to work at 10!)

Was that the board that was on Primal Gear some time ago? I actually almost pulled the trigger on that.

Recycled_Brains · Post by **Recycled_Brains** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 6:44 am

The only kind of shitty thing that happened to me, was buying a TAB-Funkenwerk V78M preamp off the board, and having it show up completely unuseable.

The phantom power was fucked, the gain and sensitivity switches were shot, and the tubes needed to be replaced. Seller said it was fine when it left, but I have a hard time believing that ALL of that shit went bad during shipping.

Luckily, Oliver over at TAB completely rules, and he fixed it for free, but I was without it for 3 months or so (Oliver being the busy man that he is).

Frustrating to have a new (to me anyways) piece of gear arrive, then go right back out the door for 3 or 4 months. Especially when your collection of good preamps is tiny.

Oh well... I love it now, so it was worth all the hassle, but it was a pain in the ass, nonetheless.

Sean Sullivan · Post by **Sean Sullivan** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 6:52 am

I bought a Sennheiser MD421 the other day that "tested and 100% functional" last month and tried it out and it was DOA. I called, and they guy said "we're a pawn shop so there was probably no way for us to test it." Why then the bleep did you list it on eBay as tested! I sent it back for a refund for last week, hopefully I'll get my money back.

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