Need advice on purchasing tascam 48/58

[999imw]

I posted a few weeks ago about buying an Otari 8shd that had no rubber left so I couldn't test it. Ended up passing.... Then considered a Tascam TSR8 and found a few on ebay but was talked out of that due to the shipping and duty( im in Montreal)...
Finally I found some local machines for sale. A Tascam 48 from a local analog equipment store and a 58 that I found out about by talking to a local tech.

The 48 comes with 2 dbx units, locator and midi sync unit. I was talking to the guy at the store yesterday and he said he was still waiting on the seller to decide on a price (the store will obviously add to the price of the machine...and tax..)

The 58 is a private sale and comes with an MRL test tape, 2 custom snakes, 3 rolls of new Quantegy 456, 3 used rolls and a demag. The guys asking 2000$ for the whole package. He also has a Soundcraft 200b that he wants 500$ for.

Both machines have just been serviced and are in great shape. I talked to the tech who serviced the 58 and he said that he didn't think it had much use.

What should I do???

 

[The Ghost of FM]

Tough call.

Some thoughts to consider.

The 58 doesn't come with the DX4D dbx NR units and the price is pretty high, even for a lightly used one. So if you can even find the NR units separately, that's going to add at least two to three hundred more to the price. I saw a 58 for sale on the US ebay site that was going for 950 with a remote, snakes and a stand. So maybe 1500 is closer to reality for your local one. Though the MRL and newer tapes it comes with are a definite worthy inclusion that adds about $500 to the value.

Both machines are well made, good sounding decks but the 58 does have slightly better specs if both are still working to the original levels.

I've seen a local 48 in Toronto selling for 1200 + tax selling at a pro audio store, and it too had the dbx units included for that price or $900 for the deck on its own + tax. www.tele-tech.ca so use that as a price gauge for your local one.

If you're recording straight high energy rock without a whole lot of quiet parts to the songs, you could probably get by without the dbx. But otherwise, it's nice to have if you want to have a recording platform that's as quiet as digital.

Maybe mention to both sellers that you've done your homework and know their price is too high and see if you can wrangle them down a bit.

Bonne chance!

Cheers!

 

[999imw]

Thanks a lot! Never heard of that store in Toronto but it looks interesting. Great for a price reference too.

I'm gonna think about it for the week. The guy with the 58 will be out of town until next weekend and the 48 still doesn't have a price.

I'm also looking to pick up a console. Like I mentioned before, the guy with the 58 has a soundcraft 200b 16 channel mixer that he's selling for 500 but he says it needs work. There's also a Tascam m308 for sale locally for 250$. When I was talking to the guy at the audio shop that has the 48 I mentioned picking up the the m308 and he said I'd be better off with a newer mixer. He had an Allen & Heath Gs3v 24 in the shop for 1500$. I feel like this would be a bit overkill for what I need.....

i guess my next question is ; what's the best mixer for either of these machines? The tascams' the best deal and if it's in decent shape I think it would be all I'd need.

 

[The Ghost of FM]

On the mixers, I have a bit of experience with the 300 series from TASCAM as I used to own two of the M312B which had phantom power built in and were good, solid boards with lot of flexible routing solutions and decent quality Mic pre's but not quite as smooth sounding as the Soundcraft 200B which is really more of a PA mixer but could work as a basic studio board too and offer a slightly better sounding Mic preamp. I have a bit of experience with the 200B as the band I used to play in recorded an album in a lower budget pro studio and used a 16 channel 200B. So I know it sounded pretty good and slightly smoother then the TASCAM board. But it was not a night and day difference, connectivity-wise, the TASCAM board would offer the -10db RCA jacks to hook up to either of the recorders to keep your cabling costs within reason. The 200B is a balanced output board only. So cabling to that is something to keep in mind. A&H are also a good product and British like the Soundcraft. Never heard one though so I'm only going by on-line reviews to form that opinion. If you win 6/49, go for it! Otherwise, the 308 would do a decent enough job and keep your costs down a bit. Budget for an external phantom power supply for your condenser Mic's though which is around 50 bucks. Also consider with only an 8 channel board, you've got less preamps to play with which might be an issue if you wanted to Mic up a drum kit and the rest of the band for a live off the floor recording. But if you just record on your own, 8 is cool but leaves you with no room for errors should a channel go down in the middle of a session. That's unlikely but still something to think about. Extra mixer channels also come in handy for things like printing reverb effects to tape as you can rout that back to a channel strip and assign it. Extra strips also come in handy for dedicated tracking strips so that you don't have to do as much mixer resetting between tracking and mixdown. That's why I had the 312B's, because of the extra channels. Maybe keep an eye out for one of those.

Cheers!

 

[sasquatch]

Man ,a whole bunch of available gear in southern Ontario.Browse Ontario KIJIJI.

If gear has been sitting awhile at TELE-TECH prices get very flexible.

Gary

 

[999imw]

Thanks!

I'll mostly be recording on my own so 8 channel should be all I need although I see how it would be nice to have extras for mixing and for the off-chance that I do some live of the floor band recordings.... Those M312b's look perfect. Pretty much an m308 with some extra channels and phantom. If I could find one of those that would be great.. I also like how the tascam boards have the parametric eqs whereas I'm pretty sure the soundcraft doesn't.

I checked ontario kijiji..... couldn't find much in the way of 1/2' 8 tracks but there are a few consoles. There's a nice looking Tascam m520 all though theres no way i'd fit that into my apartment (let alone my honda civic!). I'll definitely consider picking up that 58 from Tele-tech though if things here don't work out!