Hi !
If there´s a need for 3374 chips, there´s no hope.
Up to now, I never had a blown 3374 in my Xpander,- but I´m on the waitlist for 3374 @vintage planet for years and like many others are.
CEM3372 are much easier to find.
In addition to vintage planet, which is still a great and helpfull ressource,- Senzo is a nice guy ( ! ) and I apprecate very much this place is existing,- you should check Technology Transplant and Hongkong Superseller ebay shops regulary,- but I´ve never seen any 3374 chips there up to now.
The case:
Buying vintage gear @ebay, you always buy "private" and because of being "vintage" w/ no warranty and no return.
You agree on this if you bid !
If someone is doing this, he should be prepared for issues unless it´s made evident the item is in working condition electronically (!!!).
But there´s no guarantee w/ vintage gear, (tack)-switches and pots will be without issues or the unit won´t blow up the next time you power it up after arrival.
No seller can guarantee this won´t happen, even he took care on servicing the unit before he´s selling it.
If someone want´s a mint condition piece of vintage gear, a Xpander or Matrix12 in this case, he should buy a refurbished one,- and pay the price !
Refurbishing a Xpander or a Matrix-12 means a big time investment in search for all the available parts, investing money for the parts and doing all the work yourself if you have the technical skills and own the tools necessary.
If you cannot do it yourself, you have to invest more money to pay a experienced tech to do it.
Noone can expect to buy a piece of gear which cost over 10.000.- bucks in the past for 2.000 - 3.000 $ now and it´s like new,- that´s stupid.
The validation of $ a quarter of a century ago and today is a big difference.
The manufacturing of dyno-synths like Matrix-12 and Prophet 10 / T-8 killed small companies like Oberheim and Sequential in the past because of the costs and the sales.
Xpanders and Matrix-12 are very special examples anyway,- some parts inside cannot be replaced , even if the former owner had in mind to do this but can´t.
These are the CEM3374, the rotarys and the displays.
Also, I´m not sure about the switches and numeric key pad.
Actually, I doubt the display replacement of Steve Lenham will appear near future.
If someone has a trashed Xpander or Matrix-12, today, the best way is to buy a 2nd one to make one out of two or to do some resarch in which other synths you´ll find the components you need to get it working and buy these to pull the parts which are unavailable new.
Switches and rotarys as well as displays are 2nd row IMO,- the workaround is to use bankloader and editing software to use a electronically working machine in the studio.
b.t.w.,- if someone needs processors for Xpander/Matrix-12,- you´ll find ´em in Matrix-1000s (and eventually Matrix-6,- I´m not sure).
envia94 schrieb:
Hi,
Try:
http://www.vintageplanet.nl
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/xpantastic/msearch?query=cem3374&charset=windows-1252
And, follow www.ebay.com, www.ebay.co.uk, www.ebay.de, www.ebay.nl, www.ebay.jp etc. It may take months to find this chip, but you never know...
Good luck!