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[Dave Dermont]

It's not the age, the design, or the manufacturer of the console you have to worry about, it's the condition of the particular console you are looking at buying that's important.

Not only can a well cared for older console often be obtained for a really good price, you can often get something that has more features and/or channels than you really need, thereby delaying the need for an upgrade down the road.

[Art Welter]

Dave Dermont wrote on Sat, 22 January 2011 15:08

It's not the age, the design, or the manufacturer of the console you have to worry about, it's the condition of the particular console you are looking at buying that's important. Not only can a well cared for older console often be obtained for a really good price, you can often get something that has more features and/or channels than you really need, thereby delaying the need for an upgrade down the road.

Or delaying the need to repair failed channels until the fatality count is worth the trip to the doctor   .

Another nice feature of modular channels, you can pull out tail end working channels, pop them in replacing the bad, and take the bad channel (s) in for repair.

[John Roberts {JR}]

Dave Dermont wrote on Sat, 22 January 2011 16:08

It's not the age, the design, or the manufacturer of the console you have to worry about, it's the condition of the particular console you are looking at buying that's important. Not only can a well cared for older console often be obtained for a really good price, you can often get something that has more features and/or channels than you really need, thereby delaying the need for an upgrade down the road.

Not to quibble, yes the care and treatment matters, but crap design, built with crap components can deteriorate with age even from sitting in a dark closet, untouched by human hands.

Flat vs, vertical channel boards is a matter of "pay me now" or "pay me later" philosophy. A compelling number of customers, voted with their own money, to pay for more difficult repairs later, thus the preponderance of that construction style.

Professional, "show must go on" customers will prefer the fault tolerance and ability to still operate with channels removed for service capability of the more expensive vertical channel construction, but they pay dearly for this feature.

The customer gets no more than he is willing to pay for and is always right, by definition.  

Mixers that were consumable, throw away's when new, aren't expected to be robust performers after years out in the real world. And don't confuse the intensity of the marketing message for what's actually under the hood.

If on a very tight budget used mixers will get you more bang for the buck, just like used cars.

Exactly like used cars.. caveat emptor.

JR

[jeff harrell]

i am going to eventually look for a good used Soundcraft console. i like removable channel modules. my antique (pre 1990) QSC 3500 and 3800 amps have removable channel modules. i only had to have 2 worked on since and 1 was because i screwed it up and the other was an amp i bought with a bad channel. i pulled the module out and sent it to QSC and they fixed it. sure saves on shipping and because EACH channel has its own power transformer and on/off switch i could still use the good channel. heres a pic i took with a spare 3500 module i picked up cheap. btw i took that amp pic with with the same Nokia camera phone that i used to take that pic of me holding the camera phone ! i took that pic of me about 3 years ago ! tripped out like a circut breaker !

[Ted Olausson]

Scott Jay wrote on Sat, 22 January 2011 06:39

I'd tend to disagree with 'loose' faders. Yes, internal resistance is minimal, but that is more often caused by having a lower lever tension on the slider arms. It's also a sure sign that they're carbon track resistors.

The brushes used for carbon and cermet is identical so it doesnt say anything, but if it did then the rugged surface of carbon would be harder than the smooth surface of the cermet.
The only way to check faders is if they are attenuating sound as expected, if not, then they need to be replaced. The rest has to do with construction and cleaning and in some rarer cases with how it is adjusted to feel.

Regarding old consoles, check potentiometers, buttons and caps.
Potentiometers and buttons can be a very expensive affair if they even are possible to source. Recapping isnt that expensive and should be done atleast every 10 years.
-Cleaning of faders should be done on a regular basis or atleast every year.