Moog Music Forum

Hey everyone, first time poster here.

After many years of lusting after one, I finally decided that it's time I have my own Voyager. I plan on picking one up in the next couple weeks, and was originally planning on purchasing new, but I figure if I can find a good deal on a used one I might as well take the opportunity.

So I guess my question is: Is there anything you think I should look out for when considering a used Voyager? More specifically, I'd obviously prefer to have the 3.X hardware upgrade, but I don't remember exactly when that occurred. After what time would any Voyager produced have this upgrade? Do all Select Series have the latest hardware? Same question with the upgraded (quieter) backlighting, when did that change happen?

I'd really appreciate any insight. Thanks in advance!

If you email the serial # to moog, they should be able to tell you if it needs any upgrades.

I'm selling a Voyager Select Electric Blue. Serial number SS 0845. Synth was out of the box for a few hours and then repacked to sell. It is absolutely mint. $2200, plus $60 for shipping. Paypal accepted (buyer pays fees) cashier's check preferred. Please let me know if you are interested.

You should really play the voyager before buying. They are all different. I
don't know why, but Moogs Voyager release policy reminds me a bit to
microsoft's, where the early buyer gets a product in alpha or beta state.

e.g. my voyager had a cheap huazin keyboard (EMC was so friendly to replace it,
i just had to pay the shipping), some voyagers have backlight hum, some (also
brand new voyagers) are delivered uncalibrated (and there's no public and
official document about calibration) and others have a faulty pitch wheel
controller. I don't know if this is a problem with all select series, but at
mine the backlight foil does not really stick on the cabinet. There are air
bubbles under the foil which look really ugly! And there are also some ...
ahem.... "bugs" on the analog board which are completely undocumentated (for
the public). Rudi Linhard (Lintronics) offers a so called
"Slewrate-Modification" where slow opamps are replaced. But Moog Music never
gave a statement about this. You have to use a scope (or good ears) to find out
if your voyager has weak waveforms or not.

Don't get me wrong, i love my voyager (like i love all of my musical
instruments), but if you don't want bad surprises, you really have to play with
the machine before buying it. I bought my synth without seeing it before and i
was far too often dissapointed...

The result is, that i would never ever buy a new moog product out of the box
again.

psicolor wrote:I don't know why, but Moogs Voyager release policy reminds me a bit to microsoft's, where the early buyer gets a product in alpha or beta state.

Well Moog isn't alone as this has been the modus operandi of everybody else since the early 1970s. I can name many products from ARP, Moog, Sequential Circuits, Oberheim, Alesis, New England Digital, Fairlight, Emu, Korg, Yamaha, Roland, even Buchla that "upgraded" their products after release.

Some of it is driven by component obsolescence - these days you're lucky if a VLSI active component (esp SMT parts) has a market life of 5 years. Some of it by improvements that were not apparent at the time of release. If they were perfectionist then their product would never get out the door, they wouldn't generate sales revenue, the lack of sales revenue wouldn't fund their payroll, and the organization would collapse from lack of revenue.

Thanks, i didn't know about this bad habit.

The Voyager was my first analog synth and before i bought it, i expected to
receive an instrument which works out of the box. I expected that when you
spend 3000 Euros for a brand-new monophonic synthesizer, the company makes
shure that the product leaves their house in really good quality. Too bad i
lived in a dream world....

But I think i am not the only one who lived in this dream world, and any
customer would profit if he knows, what he can expect and what not. Also the
companys would benefit, because the customers will not be that disappointed.

The conclusion would be to never ever buy ANY synthesizer out of the box. Good
to know for future acquisitions.

Just make sure it has the quiet 2 technology in it and the latest hardware OS... I got fooled like this, the seller sold it to me as hardware 3 OS, and indeed my OS had all the banks and showed OS 3... a year later I found out it had the older hardware in it after all, so I had to upgrade to make room for the quiet 2 tech...