when is it time to stop buying old cheaper rack gear?

yeah I get that...the workmanship and time getting a sound and the gear itself vs economical and efficient, and cheaper.... soundwise I cant tell anymore but the player and his gear "sounds" is another thing.

one of my elder best buds has the tube and biasing and tones of many speakers he changed and tried for decades, great gear stories and wealth of knowledge.....and he doesnt even like computers! lol...he is about as interested in DAW's and Podfarm as nothing.... his whole life is plugging into those amps and chasing the grail.

but yeah, as I look at my single KT2A with two knobs and think how easy my $30 Klanghelm comps can be like owning 400qty units that sound as good in the mix....I wonder what Im doing.

still in the end I think I prefer trying to create the sound outside is more fun than the mouse, but soundwise and cost wise...plugins win all that.

and Lazer your rack gear isnt really cheap, but those ADA units are getting pretty old....do you ever repair them or anything gone bad yet? like buttons that stopped working or display chips burn out?

I just got a KT2A. Unfortunately on back stock right now so it will take a while to get. How do you like it?
 
well they were abuot $450US and I got one for $399 no tax, free shipping....then today I notice Amazon is selling them for $299.
so I dont like that.

my intention was to have a "vintage" channel and after trying numerous others I went with the clone- of the classic 73>LA2A.
so sound wise its still under test with my skills and ears. it is not a distortion box and when I have it at 100% its squashed but not like a distortion squashed (like my podfarm LA2A does...but its so noisy by then its pretty bad)....so its shall I say "smooth"
as we all have the internet, I read enough who own the upper end and say its very very good.
the others even those costing many times more dont copy a vintage LA2A etc....so that rabbit hole isnt a concern to me.
It feels really well made. I love the ease and smooth pots and as a gearhead, open the hood and its like "how do people create these things?!!!"
Its mind boggling....

Reading some pro's it seems a lot of them use incoming compression in such a small way, 2:1 etc...you cant hardly even hear it working. And for HR like myself , non pro, its easy to want to crank it up to 100% comp/limit to her it, but on playback its probably not for everything.
So application and how to use it like the pro's is another thing , right?

Like cooking, small doses can work out better sometimes.

so in other words
5 star build
5 star on the concept simplicity

as far as sound, theres a nice sound. I am not really going to say, but prefer accepting those who own full blown studios with many many more hours and piles of hiend gear to compare it to and they seem to say its very very good sounding, no matter the cost. In other words, the KT2A is a great version of the LA2A as many others are. Do I know how to make it work perfectly, Im still testing on tracks and using different things through it...one thing is kind of cool, is even at 0% compression it has a nice tube/smoothing sound. I mean its a infamous LA2A design, it doesnt need me to say it sounds good. lol

3 stars that I paid $100 over todays price...arrrg!
 
well they were abuot $450US and I got one for $399 no tax, free shipping....then today I notice Amazon is selling them for $299.
so I dont like that.

my intention was to have a "vintage" channel and after trying numerous others I went with the clone- of the classic 73>LA2A.
so sound wise its still under test with my skills and ears. it is not a distortion box and when I have it at 100% its squashed but not like a distortion squashed (like my podfarm LA2A does...but its so noisy by then its pretty bad)....so its shall I say "smooth"
as we all have the internet, I read enough who own the upper end and say its very very good.
the others even those costing many times more dont copy a vintage LA2A etc....so that rabbit hole isnt a concern to me.
It feels really well made. I love the ease and smooth pots and as a gearhead, open the hood and its like "how do people create these things?!!!"
Its mind boggling....

Reading some pro's it seems a lot of them use incoming compression in such a small way, 2:1 etc...you cant hardly even hear it working. And for HR like myself , non pro, its easy to want to crank it up to 100% comp/limit to her it, but on playback its probably not for everything.
So application and how to use it like the pro's is another thing , right?

Like cooking, small doses can work out better sometimes.

so in other words
5 star build
5 star on the concept simplicity

as far as sound, theres a nice sound. I am not really going to say, but prefer accepting those who own full blown studios with many many more hours and piles of hiend gear to compare it to and they seem to say its very very good sounding, no matter the cost. In other words, the KT2A is a great version of the LA2A as many others are. Do I know how to make it work perfectly, Im still testing on tracks and using different things through it...one thing is kind of cool, is even at 0% compression it has a nice tube/smoothing sound. I mean its a infamous LA2A design, it doesnt need me to say it sounds good. lol

3 stars that I paid $100 over todays price...arrrg!

Yeah. I bought it a few days ago at $400 and it hasn’t arrived yet, and I see that price. Makes me upset.
 
I dont know why the drop$$$ but its probably going back up. And if they sell it at $299 it will piss off a lot of dealers...and past buyers! lol

Still its as close to a LA2A I will get. Will these units hold up for 50yrs? who knows...I wont be around to tell.

Not bashing or anything but the ART TPSII can get real close to the sound too. This morning comparing tracks to the KT2A and some bass and the ART TPSII is a "tone beast" as in wide wide range of sounds in Impedance knob to +20dbGain and Full gain can do electric guitar fuzz on a vocal too....it can do very clean also.
The KT2A seems to have its sound and its a very nice very subtle at 0%to50% but going toward 100% its squashed and yet its not ugly, its got a radio vocal sound and the Output Gain is huge ..no problem with enough gain.

As with my complaint on buying used cheap gear....
the ARTTPS has been around evolved to TPSII (impedance knob and other innards changed)....and Ive probably brought this TPS in 3 or 4 times, and recently both added used units have faulty crap...so Im pissed I didnt buy BRAND NEW for $215 w/ warranty, Its partially my fault because I didnt lplug them in to test for a long time and missed MerryGoRounds 48hr Return Policy on one unit. arrrrg....ok I paid $80 for Dual channels and now the old meters dont light or work, its hardly worth shipping it.

I wonder how many 10's of thousands of old rotty rack gear is being sold online with faulty crap issues and buzzes and meters that failed? and its not worth a $100 repair when you can get Brand New for $200 right?
 
Yeah, but none of my rack equipment is made in China. I cannot buy new.


edit, Crown ? is that Indiana , or China? I dont care. Its garbage.
 
when is it time to stop buying old cheaper rack gear?

what year is a cutoff? realizing if it fails its not worth repairing, if repairs are even possible most likely not worth it.

recently ive had a few broken, road worn and done, failed units....meters out, scratchy pots, one channel works one doesnt, this is broken but it "kind of works", new buzz noises etc...

and these are cheaper aka entry level rack pieces <$300 units, 2002, 1997, 2007 aged.

Its just weird because on Reverb, Ebay, Sales sites it seems people are increasing prices on these old things. I recently grabbed two units and both have failed parts and are dysfunctional units.

maybe I should have titled this BUYER BEWARE?

I think in the future , Budget gear is best bought Brand New, imo.

Make of it what you will, but the advice I was given on a sound engineering course was that the one thing to avoid on older electronics was leaving it unused. Apparently that promotes degradation of some components, particularly capacitors, electrolytics being the most vulnerable. Perhaps it's just an urban myth, but every 6 months or so I make a point of switching on my rarely used units and leave them to warm up for an hour doing nothing. I've had very few failures indeed, but that still doesn't prove the point. The failures I can think of were in the budget end quality wise, and occurred quite soon after purchasing new
 
that and mechanical failure in analogue gear. For example, lubrication sometimes dries up in the bearings of the motors in reel to reel tape machines. The merest speck of sewing machine oil left to soak overnight in usually puts things right.
 
when is it time to stop buying old cheaper rack gear?
I don't know. I guess it's somewhat dependent on what one wants. Purchases are always a risk, especially older stuff, and not just rack gear. Case in point, I recently bought 2 Akai DPS12i units {they stopped making these before my adult son was born !!} for me to use as back up units should the present 2 I use kaput. Putting them through extensive tests, one works brilliantly, no issues, the other has some issues which are presently being fixed. Both cost around the same amount {ie, cheap !}. Point is, I love recording on them. So I gauge them as being worth buying. It would appear that most punters would assign them to the scrapheap.
If your workflow involves rack stuff and you like them and don't see why you should change or chase the rainbows of modernity when your stuff does what you want it to do, then it's only going to be time to stop when the stuff you would want is no longer available.
 
You stop buying rack gear when there's no longer anything on offer you want?

Todd Rundgren gave an interview with Sweetwater last year, he said something similar. He's been a technology guy his entire career. You use what works, if the rack gear you have integrates with the computer gear you use great, if not change to something else, but the end result is the audience. People are listening to Mp3s so who cares if you produce them entirely on a computer. That may or may not be to your advantage . What is the end result your trying to achieve and who are you trying to reach ? Does old rack gear help you achieve making better music ? Some people may prefer the creative process of turning dials, during their production work. Its all good.
 
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