Well my friends it appears that I am back to square one regarding the Studer B-67 recorder. I actually went to see and check out the recorder close up on Saturday. Mind you, during several phone conversations with the seller he noted that the B-67 was in great shape with no obvious flaws. Although he shared that he had played a 3 Dog Night tape about one month ago and found the sound excellent and the recorder in great shape, he said he had no music that I would want to hear. I quickly informed him I have a number ofl 2 track tapes I would bring along for the demostration. Could it be he thought I would purchase the recorder without testing it first even if I had to listen to 3 Dog night?????
When I got to the gentleman's townhouse he had the B-67 sitting in the hallway so that I could see it. I asked him to plug it in so that we could both check it out. Since he already had a home recorded tape (3 Dog Night) on the machine I decided to start with that first. Besides, I wanted to find out more about this group or band. Needless to say the recorder ran slow at all speeds. As I attempted to try to find the problem I began to smell a strange odor. I first became acquainted with this smell when I majored in electronics back in 1975. I never forgot the smell of a can capacitor going bad. I asked the gentleman if he caught the smell and he said he did not. He unplugged the recorder for a few minutes then plugged it back in.. The recorder continued to run slow. Again I began to note that smell and again the seller said he could not smell anything but quickly cut the machine off.
Well to make a long story short, there is no way this guy did not know this machine had problems. This was not a problem that just cropped up within the last month. It just goes to show, if we can't trust people with a tape recorder we can actually access and test, how can we trust most of the sellers on Ebay to give us a good honest deal? I never did get a chance to put either of my 2 track tapes on the B-67. By the way, the guy was most apologetic, noting he had no idea what was wrong and that the recorder was working perfectly the last time he used it (smile).
I offered to purchase the unit with a substantial reduction in price in "as is" condition. Even had there been no apparent problems I had planned to send the unit off for inspection and a close look at all of the major capacitors and possible replacement. That's it guys. I will update you later once I see what this guys plans are. Thanks for listening.
Bob W.