Tascam 688 MIDISTUDIO Story...

[famous beagle]

Well I can say I have been inside. The one thing that makes these hard to work on is the lack of a couple of extra feet of wire. I have though of making extender cables but it takes time to find the right connectors. The 488 is also a pain in that the same thing is true, they cut cost so much but a couple of feet of extra wire would be a good thing to have in there. Most the wires I talk about are not audio wires but basic DC type wires.
Since they have come out I have serviced many of them and there are a good many Porta Studios that have the Gear C problem like the 122 Mk III. The 112 is not direct drive but a very much cheaper design.
Sam, Skywave Tape Deck Repair, Chicago

Yes, you're right. There's one wire connector (at the least) that you need to disconnect in order to safely move the transport panel out of the way, and there are two that need to be disconnected in order to lift the mixer panel fully back. Other than that, though, I found it much easier to get into than a lot of other Portastudios, namely the Porta One/Two and the 246.

The side panels on the 688 are a bit of a pain to get back on, though.

[RFR]

Yes, you're right. There's one wire connector (at the least) that you need to disconnect in order to safely move the transport panel out of the way, and there are two that need to be disconnected in order to lift the mixer panel fully back. Other than that, though, I found it much easier to get into than a lot of other Portastudios, namely the Porta One/Two and the 246.

The side panels on the 688 are a bit of a pain to get back on, though.

Good on getting it up and running.
On the subject of disassembly and assembly issues, it always leaves me scratching my head.
How in the hell did they put these units together in a timely fashion to be able to crank them out and be profitable????

[famous beagle]

Good on getting it up and running.
On the subject of disassembly and assembly issues, it always leaves me scratching my head.
How in the hell did they put these units together in a timely fashion to be able to crank them out and be profitable????

Indeed! I have to believe they had it worked out to a very specific order of component installation and assembly that enabled them to do it fairly quickly.