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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Let me explain.
I use a Samson MPL 1202 for my duo.
One just broke. The nearest place where I can get this repaired is about $40-50 worth of gas and an $85 minimum service charge. Plus to get it back is another $40 worth of gas after repair.
Not to mention the time driving.
I can buy a used one on EBay for that.
So it stands to reason that I should save time and order a used one.
On the other hand, it's a ecological waste. And if we all did that, pretty soon there would eventually be no more units left to repair.
I'd gladly ship it to a repair person for the price of shipping, but I don't know how to find one.
Does anybody here know?
Thanks,
Bob
Bob "Notes" Norton  Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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Joined: Apr 2013
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I think I misunderstood your remarks and sent you a PM on a top notch repair tech. I'm not so sure he's interested in the unit for salvage, I thought you were looking for someone who could repair and get your unit back working like new to keep as a backup.
Either way, you can use his contact info to see if he's interested in yours for salvage.
Charlie
BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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Joined: Jun 2012
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Bob, I can't help, and this is academic only, but is it a Samson MPL 1202 or a 1204?
The reason I ask is that I don't know the Samson MPL 1202 model.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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If it's broke and you can buy a used working one to replace it for less than the repair costs...... buy the used one and just get rid of the broken on at a recycling center.
This is the case for so much of our electronics these days. They are built to be disposable. Cell phones, TV's, music players, all cheaper to by a new one than to fix the old in many cases.
The only time I would consider a repair would be if the gear was really top quality stuff, vintage, and in really good condition aside from what caused it to not work. Old vintage tube amps come to mind.
You said you had a guy who could fix it but you had to drive and spend gas money and time.... doesn't UPS & FEDEX deliver there too?
Bench costs are going up and a good tech is hard to find and they know it and charge accordingly. You either pay the cost or pick up a used one on E-Bay. The downside to E-Bay is you do not know the history of that piece of gear. Spending a bit more to fix your old one might actually make more sense because you know that gear;s history and how it has been taken cared for over the years.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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<<< "I'd gladly ship it to a repair person for the price of shipping, but I don't know how to find one.
Does anybody here know?" >>>
Advertize it on ebay and Craigslist as "Parts Only" sale. Buyer pays the shipping and you get $10-20 dollars.
Charlie
BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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Joined: Dec 2003
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Notes do you have a tech school near you that teaches electronics? Up here we have a number of them, high school and college, and they will repair things for the cost of parts. The high school ones are called Boces http://www.boces.org/ These schools teach high school kids to adults trades like being a chief, electrician, welder, auto mechanic etc. You bring in something that needs fixing and maybe the repair manual and they will use it as a teaching tool. Up here many of the police cars are repaired, both mechanically and collision wise, by Boces saving the taxpayers money while helping the school. If you have schools like this in Florida then you might want to check them out.
Last edited by MarioD; 03/09/17 04:21 AM.
The bumper sticker said "I'm a veterinarian, therefore I can drive like an animal".
Suddenly I realized how many proctologists are on the road.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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It's a 1204 (sorry about the typo)
I'm getting another used one from Ebay, and you are correct, I do not know the history. The advertiser says it's working, so I'll put it in right away and try it.
No we don't have an electronics school around here, but that's a good suggestion.
I e-mailed the person who does my electronics repairs locally (no music gear though) and he doesn't want it and doesn't know who would.
I've emailed the tech who does repair pro audio gear, and if he wants it, I'll gladly send it to him as long as he pays shipping fees.
If not I guess I'll put it up on Ebay for $1.00 plus shipping and see what happens.
If that doesn't work, it gets discarded.
It's a shame that so much gear these days is disposable. Yes as a self-employed person, I know the repair tech needs to charge a lot for his/her time and overhead expenses. It just seems a waste to dispose of a piece of equipment that took so many of the earth's resources to manufacture, only to end up in a landfill.
Notes
Bob "Notes" Norton Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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Look for a place that fixes cell phones and tablets. Most of them have the supplier contacts to get parts and the skills and tools needed to replace parts. Some have kiosks at various malls to deliver and pick up devices and repair offsite. Some of them are also independent cellphone and tablet re-sellers.
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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Yeah... no kidding. You can sell it "as is" and there's a chance someone will buy it.
Years ago... this is no lie.... someone gave me a non-functional RME interface. This was one of the really nice high end multi-channel interfaces. Retail new was around $1500. I looked inside, checked a few things and didn't have any idea what was wrong with it. I called the company and they said they could repair it for around $500 and that included return shipping. Too much for me. So on a whim, I posted it for sale on E-Bay. I kid you not, the bidding ran the price up and someone outbid everyone else and paid $500 for it. He was planning to buy it, fix it and use it for less than the cost of a new one.
You just never know.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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Almost always equipment never really dies. Older equipment can be repaired at the component level and sometimes hard to get IC's can be replaced with a generic chip with only minor alignment needed to bring the unit back to specs.
Service minimums and bench time at the retail level make it economically unfeasible to repair but has nothing to do with what is broke inside the unit.
It's unfortunate but certainly a fact of life.
Charlie
BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 10,785
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Almost always equipment never really dies. Older equipment can be repaired at the component level and sometimes hard to get IC's can be replaced with a generic chip with only minor alignment needed to bring the unit back to specs.
Service minimums and bench time at the retail level make it economically unfeasible to repair but has nothing to do with what is broke inside the unit.
It's unfortunate but certainly a fact of life.
Charlie Agree..... the parts generally only cost a few dollars, but the labor charges are what get you. Yep... it's in all fields now. But that's the reality of the world now. Try to find a plumber who will unclog your pipes for under $100 an hr.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Yes, the hourly bench charge is usually very high.
I do understand it though. The repair person has to pay his/her personal bills (mortgage, car, etc.) and then the shop has a lot of overhead as well.
I also learned by selling BiaB aftermarket products, that the bank, credit card company, tax man, insurance company and just about everyone else wants to be your 'silent partner' and take a piece of whatever income you bring in.
The owner of a Ma and Pa music store is going to take it. He'll give it to the traveling repairman who will either fix and resell or use for parts.
The environmentalist part of me doesn't like to see things of use end in the landfill.
The business side of me doesn't want to pay the repair bill when I can get used gear for less.
Notes
Bob "Notes" Norton Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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I completely get it Notes. A few years ago my EMU 1820M started acting really bad, I PM'd Mac to ask if he wanted it and he said OK. I didn't even ask him about shipping, I just ate it. It was $15 or something.
The thing about landfills is, lets say you keep everything around. Eventually you'll pass on from this life and whoever gets your house is just going to back up a truck and haul everything to the landfill anyway. You might as well enjoy the space right now.
I appreciate the sentiment about landfills but realistically, what can you do? Here in LA they do have specific electronic junk drop off places where they do break the stuff down and recycle what they can. They can take circuit boards and old cell phones and recover some small trace amount of gold for example.
It's either that or we'll start seeing you on an episode of Hoarders. Oh, that's right you don't watch TV. Well, just imagine someone's house completely full of junk piled up like 6 feet high to the point there's a 18" wide path going from the so called living room to the bathroom...
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic)
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They have an electronics recycling program here too - but I'll never do it again. You have to drive to the dump (landfill) wait in line behind a dozen or so diesel spewing trucks for the better part of an hour, get to the gate, where the guy has no idea what to do with your gear, who calls one person after another, and finally asks you to just drop it off here and go. I'm sure it ended in the landfill anyway. My local M&P music store will take it and give it to the guy who fixes gear for most of the local stores. He could probably at least cannibalize some of the small parts. Or put it in the landfill himself  Oh, I'm not going to lose sleep over it, the world won't end even if my mixer takes a million years to return to the earth. I know that if enough people do a little, the end result is a lot. So I do what I can, when I can. When I pass from this life, someone will probably bulldoze the house to the ground. The land is worth a lot more than it was when I bought it. I live on a half acre, one lot away from the east coast of the mainland of Florida. To the east of that is a 2 mile wide lagoon, then a thin barrier island, then the ocean. The trend around here is to tear the old small housed down and build a mega-house in its place. And the house itself will probably end up in the landfill Notes
Bob "Notes" Norton Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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