Any opinions on whether this is a good investment, assuming a reasonable price? Never seen one with all white switches and red glide/decay switches:
I can’t see it because the link has been blocked by eBay in my country…
This is an excerpt from eBay: “Unfortunately, access to this particular item has been blocked due to legal restrictions in some countries.”
edit: The issue is resolved, I was trying to view it on my iPad with a browser, but on my Mac it shows up…
Well the main reason to get it one of those would be for the original discreet osc boards but he says it was updated at some point to the newer ones… Oh well…
The smaller red buttons are original, larger ones not.
The serial number is missing - should be an aged paper strip above the power cord. This one does have the latest ua726 oscillator board, the trimpot access holes were added for the additional trimpots. It may not be original but it will stay in tune better. Won’t sound much different either. I have heard three RAMs in person, all with different oscillator boards (discrete, 3046, ua726) and they all sounded the same.
There are a few out there with white or black switches. Two reasons for this - Moog simply ran out of them and substituted others, or this was towards the end of the Trumansburg era when money was tight and suppliers were dealing with them on a COD basis only. Likely the latter.
This one has both white AND black switches. Someone did a poor repair job on the hinge on the front panel 'cause those screws were underneath the panel not on top. Besides the RA Moog/Trumansburg association, the filter boards on the RAMs sounded really good. I think the only reason they are worth more is because of the Trumansburg connection. The early Musonics-Moog also had the good filter boards yet don’t command as much $$$.
Just remember that the early ones were 110VAC only, there is no facility for 220VAC in UK or other countries.
Dident know the black and white switches could be original.
Normally this one wont go as much as the last RA mini on ebay, that one went around 7500$$$$
While I can hear differences in oscillator designs often, I think a far greater credit needs to be given for the VCF/VCA board of those early models.
They ran the signals hotter into them and it caused a warm distortion.
A year or so ago someone sent me an early RA filter board for restoration.
I sent it back after I was done and he was happy.
Then he sent in a later filter board and I did the same type of service and sent it back.
The client was unhappy.
He said it sounded good and all, but just not like his other board.
So I had him send in his later board and modified it to the early RA specs and sent it back.
He was very happy then.
So there’s definitely something about those earlier filter boards, but there’s also many updates later Minis had that early ones didn’t.
It’s a mixed bag to own one- some things are better, some things are worse.
One huge difference in reliability is that very early Minis only used one set of contacts on most of their switches.
Later ones used double contacts and they were more reliable over time.
Sold for 3000$ on ebay with buy it now…