(Mike Rivers) wrote in message news:znr1068557295k@trad...
In article k.net writes:

One of them is a Ramsa WR-8716, 16 channel, 4 buss, 2 outs, very large, very
heavy, with meter bridge.
What's a reasonable ballpark figure for such a console, in functional, but
cosmetically fair-to-poor condition?

Just a guess, but I'd say $200.

Good guess. The only one on ebay (a wr-8816) went for 222.50.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tegory=23 785



Or perhaps it makes a good rental unit that I don't have to worry about,
since it's seen a good deal of dents and scratches?

Not likely. People who rent want something light and compact, plus
something that looks like it will be reliable and not fail in the
middle of the gig.

I doubt that people rent items that can be purchased for $200 anyway.
And Behringer probably sells a new mixer for about $200 with about the
same number of channels that probably sounds better.


(There is some rust on the top of the control surface

Make that $50 then. People won't want to buy something that looks like
it's been rained or sweated on. I won't ask how much you have in this
mixer, but you can tell us if you're not embarassed.


I think that you would have to give it away now, but I'm not sure who
would want it. Some kind of a home studio where portability, sound
quality, appearance and reliability are not issues?

I took these
on with the promise to the wife that I'd turn them around pretty quickly and
not allow them to clutter up the house.

My sympathy to Mary Ann. If the others are anything like the one you
described, they'll be with you for a while.

Harsh, but fair.

Thanks for the estimates on value.

I was planning to sand down the rust (at the edges of the top metal panels)
and retouch with black epoxy paint.

I spent all day tearing down modules and removing some of the modifications
that the prior owner did to it (wiring to the Solo switches on 6 of the
mixers) and putting them back in original configuration. The unit looks
almost pristine on the inside, amazingly. The faceplates on the top of the
mixers are what look like hell. But I think I can salvage them and retouch
the paint.

The mixer was working fully when I tested it last night. Then I went to work
removing the modifications that the other owner did to it. It consisted of
removing some shielded pairs connecting the contacts of the Solo switched of
six of the mixers together and restoring the cut clads at the switches.
I don't know what other mods are related to this, but now I can't get any
audio to pass through to the headphones, unless I press Solo on one of the
four bus mixers. The analog meters no longer read signal present, however,
oddly, the peak LEDs next to the first four bus meters do work. It appears
that something's inhibiting the bus from allowing the signal to pass through
to the four bus mixers and the L-R mixers, since removing all the mess of
wires that were added. I spent over ten hours on that one problem alone
today.

Perhaps I got myself a boat anchor here. I rushed into the pickup because my
friend said he's moving and this stuff's got to go.

I have a couple of Behringer mixers myself and I'm very pleased with them.


--
Take care,

Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

VIDEO PRODUCTION . FILM SCANNING . AUDIO RESTORATION
Hear my Kurzweil Creations at: http://www.dv-clips.com/theater.htm
Business sites at:
www.dv-clips.com
www.mwcomms.com
www.adventuresinanimemusic.com
-

"Mark & Mary Ann Weiss" wrote in message thlink.net...
Thanks for the estimates on value.

I was planning to sand down the rust (at the edges of the top metal panels)
and retouch with black epoxy paint.

I spent all day tearing down modules and removing some of the modifications
that the prior owner did to it (wiring to the Solo switches on 6 of the
mixers) and putting them back in original configuration. The unit looks
almost pristine on the inside, amazingly. The faceplates on the top of the
mixers are what look like hell. But I think I can salvage them and retouch
the paint.

The mixer was working fully when I tested it last night. Then I went to work
removing the modifications that the other owner did to it. It consisted of
removing some shielded pairs connecting the contacts of the Solo switched of
six of the mixers together and restoring the cut clads at the switches.
I don't know what other mods are related to this, but now I can't get any
audio to pass through to the headphones, unless I press Solo on one of the
four bus mixers. The analog meters no longer read signal present, however,
oddly, the peak LEDs next to the first four bus meters do work. It appears
that something's inhibiting the bus from allowing the signal to pass through
to the four bus mixers and the L-R mixers, since removing all the mess of
wires that were added. I spent over ten hours on that one problem alone
today.

Perhaps I got myself a boat anchor here. I rushed into the pickup because my
friend said he's moving and this stuff's got to go.

I have a couple of Behringer mixers myself and I'm very pleased with them.


--
Take care,

Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

VIDEO PRODUCTION . FILM SCANNING . AUDIO RESTORATION
Hear my Kurzweil Creations at: http://www.dv-clips.com/theater.htm
Business sites at:
www.dv-clips.com
www.mwcomms.com
www.adventuresinanimemusic.com
-

This is the model that has the separate modules, right? On the upper
end I have seen these go for about $700, they are very nice consoles
for that price, but the ones going for over $500 are in pretty good
shape.

Since it sounds like the one you got is not in such great shape, the
$200 - $300 range sounds about right.

I hate to see people part out boards, but you might have better luck
selling the individual modules....I've seen these consoles on Ebay not
fully loaded (10 - 12 channels instead of 16) so maybe somebody that
got one or wants some spare modules would be interested.

One issue with RAMSA is that they don't have the name rep....a
similiar Tascam of the same vintage will go for more even though they
are not as nice of a console and cost less new.

If you keep it I'd say it's one cool looking boat anchor g

Analogeezer

This is the model that has the separate modules, right? On the upper
end I have seen these go for about $700, they are very nice consoles
for that price, but the ones going for over $500 are in pretty good
shape.

That's correct. It's completely modular and the modules are swappable.
The price range seems a little more in line with what I thought something of
this size and substance would seem to be worth.


Since it sounds like the one you got is not in such great shape, the
$200 - $300 range sounds about right.

That's not too bad, although I've got some 15 hours into refurbishing it
now, and since restoring the original configuration of the channel mixers (I
removed some hacked in wiring to the solo button on six of the mixers--this
board was being used on an AM radio station and I suspect they hacked the
modules' on/off switches to provide tally/monitor mute functions to external
hardware), the board is no longer functioning. Only the Solo/Cue buss is
working. There is no longer any output on the L-R and the 1-4 busses, so now
it looks like there was something else that depended on the modification
being present to unmute the busses, but where, I cannot determine. So at the
moment, this console has $0 resale value, except for parts. But doggonit,
nothing irritates me more than wasting a lot of time on something like this
only to give up and send it to the trash.



I hate to see people part out boards, but you might have better luck
selling the individual modules....I've seen these consoles on Ebay not
fully loaded (10 - 12 channels instead of 16) so maybe somebody that
got one or wants some spare modules would be interested.

That could be a real possibility. Given the fact that I disabled the console
inadvertently by trying to restore those input mixers to factory
configuration.


One issue with RAMSA is that they don't have the name rep....a
similiar Tascam of the same vintage will go for more even though they
are not as nice of a console and cost less new.

Yeah, I know. But it was a free pickup and the friend that called was
enthusiastic about it. I was expecting something the size of a Mackie 16
channel, not this 100lb monstrocity that it turned out to be. I drove 22
miles out of my way (each direction) to pick it up and was in a rush to head
to a studio to finish producing a show to be broadcast later that same
night, so I didn't really look closely at it's condition, but was told
everything was working. Someone gave me a hand loading it onto my truck and
that was that... when I returned home, I had to carry this beast into my
shop by myself, and it took considerable effort to move it and reposition it
to work on various parts of it.

If nothing else, I learned one new lesson: Always ask first if the free item
is small enough for one person to EASILY move or carry. If it is not, then
pass on the offer, no matter how good it may sound. This turned into a major
time sink and waste disposal problem.


--
Take care,

Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

VIDEO PRODUCTION . FILM SCANNING . AUDIO RESTORATION
Hear my Kurzweil Creations at: http://www.dv-clips.com/theater.htm
Business sites at:
www.dv-clips.com
www.mwcomms.com
www.adventuresinanimemusic.com
-



If you keep it I'd say it's one cool looking boat anchor g

Analogeezer

Good news!
The mute problem was totally unrelated to the modification removal. I found
it was common to all the boards
with relays. Jumped the C-E pins on one transistor that was driving one of
these relays and that
channel came alive. Hmmm... traced the base feed to pin 5 on the module.
Found pin 5 common to all output modules. Mute circuit! Grey wire goes to
power supply. Discovered that it is a delay turn on speaker protection
circuit. That portion of the power supply had failed during my testing. I
disconnected it for now and the board now works fine.

Take care,

Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

VIDEO PRODUCTION . FILM SCANNING . AUDIO RESTORATION
Hear my Kurzweil Creations at: http://www.dv-clips.com/theater.htm
Business sites at:
www.dv-clips.com
www.mwcomms.com
www.adventuresinanimemusic.com
-

In article k.net writes:

If nothing else, I learned one new lesson: Always ask first if the free item
is small enough for one person to EASILY move or carry. If it is not, then
pass on the offer, no matter how good it may sound. This turned into a major
time sink and waste disposal problem.

Oh, I dunno. I got a call one day from the chief engineer of our local
PBS TV station. He knew that I had an Ampex MM1100 and he had one that
needed to be gone by the end of the week. He offered it to me for free
if I could come over that evening to pick it up. I don't have a truck
or van, and I couldn't hustle up a couple of bodies on that short
notice, so I went over with a tool kit, dismantled, it, and took it
home in pieces. I didn't need a second recorder, but I figured that
the parts would come in handy to keep mine going for another 25 years.




--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

That makes sense, since you have another deck just like it and could use the
parts.
As for me, I could use another COMPACT mixer, and while something this big
would work, it's simply TOO big! Looks impressive as heck though.

I'm slowly refurbishing the module faceplates. That takes time.

As for heavy tonnage offers, I was just offered to large FM broadcast
transmitters by the same guy--these weigh between 800-1000lbs a piece and
measure about 3'w x 30"D x 80" tall.. I don't think those would fit in my
truck anyway. :-)


--
Take care,

Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

VIDEO PRODUCTION . FILM SCANNING . AUDIO RESTORATION
Hear my Kurzweil Creations at: http://www.dv-clips.com/theater.htm
Business sites at:
www.dv-clips.com
www.mwcomms.com
www.adventuresinanimemusic.com
-