Hey,

I am looking at a neotek elan v1 for sale in philly. I am building a three room studio and it seems like probably the best i can find that i can afford.

I was wondering what to look for for terms of maintenance and reliability. im still waiting for the tech to tell me what is up with it. It has apparently sat for 2 years and the logic system (routing, is giving some issues,) but the PSU has been rebuilt and all the strips work



thanks

my other question is that these are just elites with fixed eq and less routing correct?

What is a reasonable offer for one if it needs some work?

Know good neotek techs in philly area?

I keep my eyes open for Elans at all times. Perfect for DAW front ends and summing mixing, which is how I would use them. I haven't seen one for less than about $8000 and have gone as high as $12000, which starts to rub up against lower Elite prices. I've seen Series 1 more often than Elans, and in the same price range, but they are more than I have space or need for. I am super into a 16Ch. Tabletop Elan, but I just don't think they cranked out a lot of them.

If this was close to Portland for local pickup, I'd probably jump on it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/274760352709?h ... SwXKhgeHsi

I think the price is around 5k or 6k.

The series one is a lot darker i think? I did a record at headroom in philly and their neotek was dark.

I guess specifically what are the things I’m looking when buying a larger used console?

I've never really heard anyone describe any Neotek as "dark" but I haven't used a Series 1. If I'm not wrong the Series 1 pres are very similar to the Sytek preamp design and I sure as shit wouldn't describe that as dark. I'll defer to other people about it though. I've entered a stage where if the gear doesn't put a fairly colorful tone stamp on it, I'm not as interested. But then again, I'd hard to argue with just clean/strong/quiet.

As far as purchasing consoles, most of my expertise has been procuring Live sound boards for work, but I'd say a Rebuilt or upgraded power supply can be a plus. All the cap work having been done recently is a plus. If it comes with any specialized, expensive wiring harnesses like ELCO, of DB25 etc, that's gonna be nice. Shipping sucks balls, so if you can avoid that. If it is something you can visit before buying, it isn't a bad idea to go with a signal generator of some kind and test all the ins and outs. If you can't you are really taking a dudes word for it when he (or she.. geeez) tells you "Powered on, Everything works"

Series one consoles are by no means dark.

i think im gonna do the elan, the logic needs to be rebuilt but its also under 5k for 28 channels

bikefvcker wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:33 pm i think im gonna do the elan, the logic needs to be rebuilt but its also under 5k for 28 channels

There's probably a good reason it's cheap.

How old is it?

Has it been re-capped?

Has it had other regular maintenance done to it?

If it's been sitting for a few years and has known issues, it will almost certainly have other issues. If it hasn't been recapped, it will almost certainly need to be etc....

Not trying to talk you out of it but if you're buying an older console, be prepared to spend a pile of money getting it up and running.

Channel 28 doesn’t work. Rebuilt psu, partially recapped.
Lots of extra caps and parts.
The routing logic needs a rebuild but the rest of it works, the ribbon cable got damaged