Tascam Score

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Steviek19

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

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Wow, I've always been a bit prejudiced against Tascam as a whole, but that's a nice setup for sure!
 
All the equipment looks to be in decent shape physically. It is has the classic Tascam look!
 
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.
 
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!
 
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.
 
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%.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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