Prophet 600 that doesnt work

[Gringo Starr]

A friend of mine has a friend who is selling a Prophet 600 for $500. However it doesnt work. And I doubt he knows why. Could fixing an old broken synth like this cost thousands of dollars? I do live in L.A. so I'm sure there are place to get this fixed. Would this purchase be to risky?

[backindauk]

Originally Posted by Gringo Starr

A friend of mine has a friend who is selling a Prophet 600 for $500. However it doesnt work. And I doubt he knows why. Could fixing an old broken synth like this cost thousands of dollars? I do live in L.A. so I'm sure there are place to get this fixed. Would this purchase be to risky?

I've repaired quite a few of those. Maybe i can assist. $500 for something that might need a few hours work on it might be a bad decision. If it's just a power supply needing a bit of TLC then it might be a bargain

What are the symptoms? Does is power up? Does it produce any sound? Is everything else fine? - cosmetics, keyboard etc?

Andrew

[Gringo Starr]

I'll have to go check it out. My friend just told me about it. I found one on the internet selling for $1600. So it looks like it could be risky. I imagine repairs on these synths could easily go over $1,000.

[backindauk]

Originally Posted by Gringo Starr

I'll have to go check it out. My friend just told me about it. I found one on the internet selling for $1600. So it looks like it could be risky. I imagine repairs on these synths could easily go over $1,000.

$1600?!?!? Woah. Has it got bids? A lot of eBay sellers are on crack ($8500 for an OK condition Jupiter 8 etc)

Get some pics and a description of the fault and i'll advise further and probable causes. I may even be able to help you find a tech near you.



Andrew

[Gringo Starr]

Originally Posted by backindauk

$1600?!?!? Woah. Has it got bids? A lot of eBay sellers are on crack ($8500 for an OK condition Jupiter 8 etc)

Get some pics and a description of the fault and i'll advise further and probably causes. I may even be able to help you find a tech near you.



Andrew

Will do. Thanks!

[bloopbleep]

I saw that ad too and yeah sound risky but it quite mint cosmetically from the picture posted. This was posted for the same price over last summer I assume this didn't sell or if so then they never got it didn't get arround to fix it either.

[Derp]

I'm not really a tech or anything like that, but from opening up mine to swap out the OS EPROM, I imagine it couldn't be too hard to fix as everything is clearly laid out and there's no SMD involved. Might be worth the risk. Find out as much as you can about it.

[backindauk]

Originally Posted by Derp

I'm not really a tech or anything like that, but from opening up mine to swap out the OS EPROM, I imagine it couldn't be too hard to fix as everything is clearly laid out and there's no SMD involved. Might be worth the risk. Find out as much as you can about it.

The key sentence is the last one: find out as much as possible - this is the same for any vintage gear (working or not)

Most of the time it is just capacitors, trimpots and maybe some CMOS that are on the way out - all low cost parts. Voltage regulators in power supplies also fail, and sockets often need to be replaced with high quality ones.

While it's not that difficult to repair a synth like the Prophet 600, it can be fiddly.

Also, Surface Mount components are not that much more difficult to replace providing you have the right tools (SMT rework station or suitable soldering iron) But then again as a general rule, they also do not fail as often as older through hole components. The manufacturing techniques for all components have improved somewhat since the 1980s and the mean time between failure of many components has increased substantially since SMT has become more popular and become the norm in modern electronics

[minime123]

repairs can be tricky and/or costly. common problems include bad CEM chips (which are costly to replace), bad keypad membranes, etc.
find out whats wrong with it and cross your fingers that you can repair it for a reasonable price or just buy one thats already working. good luck!
mini