I owned a trident tsm that did a lot of bay area work in the 90's.
think it did pointer sisters and P. collins against all odds before me (it was at american in la)
saw that auction as well. i don't see how you could go wrong. i love tsm's. very rock&roll with nice trannie sounds.
above is very correct re: risk of overflexing the channle slot "tray"
ship it with all modules in for stability. carrying it that way is difficult though during load in (it weighs tons fully loaded!!!)
a tsm smokes an 80 any day! first time i had to work on an 80 (when my tsm was booked out and i couldn't get in) i was sorely dissapointed.
the little plastic eq faders go dodgy often but all my long throws were p&g and were great.
love the split config during mixdown.
funny thing about mine: you could record running the pres really hot and it sounded great.
but the line in's were finicky and prone to overloading and distorting easily (they have a variable input pot for line in on each channel, as i recall which i'd have to trim down.)
the vintage desk i have now doesn't have this problem and i can slam anything up it's keister without it complaining (maybe it's gay!)
i actually considered going for that tiki desk when i saw that... problem is, i'd have to cut a hole through the wall in my live room to get it in! (no joke, it's massive!!!)
there was a company that handle all those little sliders and parts and it was a fairly easy board to work on. mine was in great nick amd i had hardly any maintainance issues. but we also did preemptive tech-ing regularly.
get the extender board if you buy it. your tech will hate you otherwise!
i'd go for it if it's in good shape and you have room for the big old lady!!!