
samth3mancgp
New member
So yesterday when I was up late content browsing around and tinkering with my 80-8 I came upon an eBay auction that seemed like a good deal. It was a Dokorder 7140. The winning bid was $61 plus $40 shipping (which i'm fine with because I'd rather that than drive another 100 miles or so to get a lesser deck for a higher price)
I've found some threads about this deck and other dokorder decks here, and on AudioKarma. It seems like there is mixed emotions about it. Many people said it was cheap and un-reliable. Others said it was the most feature full deck for the price, and it sounded nice and warm. One thing that everybody agreed on was that Finding spare parts for it is difficult. There is a series of those short gimmicky expert village videos about restoring a reel to reel and the person doing the videos is using the same Dokorder deck. He said that links to his e-mail were availible but I could not find them. I was going to ask If I could get the service manual from him. Perhaps somebody on this forum has a copy?
I am planning on bringing it into where I go to school for a music tech class with a friend. It is part of an "Advanced Music Studies" program that we are taking our senior year. Since the Sony TC-377 isnt geared toward recording options like sync, and the 80-8 is too big and the track count is not practical for a small setup at school, I think the 4 track with options like sync, sound on sound, pitch control would be best. It will be fun to experiment with different tapes, slower speeds, bias settings etc. We will get to record some of the best musicians from schools all over the county. When I had the TC-377 in there for ahwile while it was working by a stroke of dumb luck we recorded one of the piano players improvising using 2 CAD condensers and the direct outs on the back of a firepod preamp. All of the teachers (that laughed at us when we first brought it in) were awestruck by how great the old technology sounded! The only teacher that appriciated analog was an older guy who retired this past semester. He knew all about them and loved it because it was whatq he grew up with. The teacher that replaced him, as well as the others all went to college in the 90s. They thought the analog stuff was a waste of time. We proved them wrong with one recording
I've found some threads about this deck and other dokorder decks here, and on AudioKarma. It seems like there is mixed emotions about it. Many people said it was cheap and un-reliable. Others said it was the most feature full deck for the price, and it sounded nice and warm. One thing that everybody agreed on was that Finding spare parts for it is difficult. There is a series of those short gimmicky expert village videos about restoring a reel to reel and the person doing the videos is using the same Dokorder deck. He said that links to his e-mail were availible but I could not find them. I was going to ask If I could get the service manual from him. Perhaps somebody on this forum has a copy?

I am planning on bringing it into where I go to school for a music tech class with a friend. It is part of an "Advanced Music Studies" program that we are taking our senior year. Since the Sony TC-377 isnt geared toward recording options like sync, and the 80-8 is too big and the track count is not practical for a small setup at school, I think the 4 track with options like sync, sound on sound, pitch control would be best. It will be fun to experiment with different tapes, slower speeds, bias settings etc. We will get to record some of the best musicians from schools all over the county. When I had the TC-377 in there for ahwile while it was working by a stroke of dumb luck we recorded one of the piano players improvising using 2 CAD condensers and the direct outs on the back of a firepod preamp. All of the teachers (that laughed at us when we first brought it in) were awestruck by how great the old technology sounded! The only teacher that appriciated analog was an older guy who retired this past semester. He knew all about them and loved it because it was whatq he grew up with. The teacher that replaced him, as well as the others all went to college in the 90s. They thought the analog stuff was a waste of time. We proved them wrong with one recording
