Tascam Score

[Steviek19]

All from the original owner except for the MX-80 Special thanks to @sweetbeats for helping me sort some of this out

 

[Serendipity Records]

Wow, I've always been a bit prejudiced against Tascam as a whole, but that's a nice setup for sure!

 

[RFR]

Excellent!!

 

[TalismanRich]

All the equipment looks to be in decent shape physically. It is has the classic Tascam look!

 

[Steviek19]

All the equipment looks to be in decent shape physically. It is has the classic Tascam look!

It looks NOS but the original owner did use it. He showed me a polaroid of his old home studio. He still had all the boxes for the outboard gear too.

 

[sweetbeats]

Super clean! Looks awesome. Jealous of the M-308B. <3

 

[sweetbeats]

Wow, I've always been a bit prejudiced against Tascam as a whole, but that's a nice setup for sure!

Why prejudiced against Tascam?

 

[Serendipity Records]

Why prejudiced against Tascam?

Hmm -- not sure! Somehow the way they branded themselves (especially their older gear) never seemed very attractive to me... Though their newer Model 12 looks really handy!

 

[RFR]

My experience with older Tascam stuff is that it has always been very robustly built. For ‘semi-pro’ gear it’s been very solid compared to its competitors such as Fostex.

I had briefly a fostex mixer…. Too plasticy.

It wasn’t until the more modern portsastudios that Tascam got more plastic.

 

[sweetbeats]

My experience with older Tascam stuff is that it has always been very robustly built. For ‘semi-pro’ gear it’s been very solid compared to its competitors such as Fostex.

I had briefly a fostex mixer…. Too plasticy.

It wasn’t until the more modern portsastudios that Tascam got more plastic.

I agree 100%.

 

[BeatleFred]

Nice equipment. I used to own an M-308, but at the time I didnt have much spare time to use it as I had hoped to.

Nowadays, I have an M-1516, which is a few years newer (early 90's vs mid-late 80's).

I imagine both models are evenly matched in functionality and features?

One thing I do like is the upright VU meters on the 308, they are easier to see, which is a nice feature going back to the Model 2A/MB-20 meter bridge, compared to the M-106 (only two meters and flat down, not upright).

The M-1516 is nice in that you can lift/carry it without too much strain & effort, its not too heavy despite its somewhat large appearance.

 

[sweetbeats]

I imagine both models are evenly matched in functionality and features?

Short answer: no.

The big differences between the M-300 and M-1500 series:

M-300 is a much more robust build, a lot more metal, a lot less plastic, full size metal bodied pots with metal shafts instead of all plastic, larger format push switches on the M-300…larger size chassis-mount faders on the M-300 instead of small form-factor horizontal PCB-mount faders…and optional full-size conductive plastic units…M-300 series has higher headroom throughout with +/-15V audio power rails and an ample capacity linear power supply…M-1500 series is +/-12V with a less overbuilt switching type supply…you mentioned the meters…larger size analog VU units on the M-300, low resolution LED bar graph type on the M-1500…jacks mounted right to the channel PCBs on the M-1500…separate backplane jack PCBs on the M-300…basically the M-300 is in a completely different class in terms of the durability, reliability and longevity. And the signal path on the M-1500 is significantly “value-engineered” compared to the M-300. I would pick the M-300 over the M-1500 every and any day. This is not to say the M-1500 is “bad”, the M-1500 just suffers from market value engineering. It has a few additional features that make it a little more flexible than the M-300 series, but nothing one can’t live without AFAIC…and yes it is definitely lighter and more compact. But the M-300 is a better console series according to those things that, IMO, are important.