This tale took SUCH a turn!! The MX-8 from California is fine. I also ordered one from That State Up North. They got here the same day. The one from TSUN was wrapped in bubble wrap but only around the body of it, none of it in the direction from rack ears to rack ears. Well, apparently that box was set on end in the truck and something fell on it, causing impact of enough force that the front panel is now bowed out by 3/8" inch. The front buttons on this thing are held in place by the tension of that front panel being screwed tightly against the face, so 2 of those buttons fell out. (Those buttons push contacts so I can press them.)

When I powered it up, all I heard was buzzing from the power transformer. NO display at all, nothing responding. Immediately I took pictures of the damaged unit and the box that clearly showed it was damaged. I sent them to the seller, who reported it to Reverb, so I got my money back and he will get his from the USPS. They also told me that since it was damaged that I need not send it back. Once I heard all that, I took the thing apart. What I found was the nuts that hold the transformer were loose. I tightened those up. I also found the CMOS battery laying in the case. I replaced that with a new one. I hit the power again. This time the buzz was gone but still no display. Now, this guy had sent me photos of this thing powered up with a bright display. I moved the cable on the display and the display flashed. So again I powered down, pulled the power from the wall, and took that cable off, sprayed both the plug and the pins with tuner cleaner, spread the pins slightly with needle nosed pliers, and got it back together. I powered it up and everything is fine. I did a factory reset on both of them and the gibberish on the display panel reset to what it is supposed to look like, so I now have TWO of these. At some point I am going to try and figure out a way to apply gentle pressure on that front panel to get it nice and flat again, but my main thing is that it works.

I also did not know until now that there were 2 different form factors for these things. The later revision went to a wall wort transformer rather than a hard wired power cord, and they changed the button design from 1/2" square buttons to smaller ones.

The bottom one is the older rev.



This is how bad the front panel was bent from the impact. That should not have a gap!



And just a short PS. I bought a Yamaha TX81z sound module yesterday from a guy in Columbus. He is a FOH guy in that part of the state, and on Oct 6th he will be mixing Tommy Emmanuel.

Last edited by eddie1261; 09/26/21 08:17 AM.