[Scott Dorsey]

James Perrett wrote:
On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 19:17:03 +0100, Scott Dorsey wrote:

The advantage of the old Tapcos is that the whole frame can
flex without damage. A lot of older mixers were built that way, but it's
much more expensive than putting everything on the board because it
requires
hand assembly. So you will only find that sort of construction on more
expensive products today.

The Allen and Heath Zed range are probably the cheapest mixers that are
still built with individual boards for each channel.

That's a big help! But in the case of the Tapco and a lot of other gear of
that era, the pots themselves were solder eye types with wires connecting
them to the boards rather than being directly mounted onto the board. This
provides a _lot_ of strain relief.

I know of a 25+ year old A&H PA mixer that is still in use. My old MM
mixer is 32 years old and still in use although not as often as it used to
be. MM were about the cheapest proper mixers you could buy in the UK back
in those days.

Sound quality in cheap mixers sure is better than it used to be, but
ruggedness is not. On the other hand, when you consider how the pound has
risen, those MM mixers probably cost more than a mid-grade console today.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."