How we gonna play our discs in the next future?!

[barfle]

This a good place to buy refurbished cassette decks, VCRs and other old electronics:
https://porterelectronics.com/

I could probably spend a week poking around there!

 

[MidiMagic]

Business schools are saying that when the patent or copyright expires, invent a totally different product and stop supporting the old one.

 

[Aging quadie]

I found a Tascam 122MKII cassette deck online but it had major transport issues. (I already had a 122 MKIII but that later model did not support dbx noise reduction, necessary for certain digitization projects.) When I brought it into an Indianapolis repair shop, the technician discovered Technics no longer stocked the necessary parts. He suggested I find another 122MKII damaged by a power surge. I did, and fifteen months later it was back in my rack.

The moral: Never assume repair parts will always be available for vintage gear. Any guesses about what Oppo will have in stock during the next decade?

 

[DuncanS]

I found a Tascam 122MKII cassette deck online but it had major transport issues. (I already had a 122 MKIII but that later model did not support dbx noise reduction, necessary for certain digitization projects.) When I brought it into an Indianapolis repair shop, the technician discovered Technics no longer stocked the necessary parts. He suggested I find another 122MKII damaged by a power surge. I did, and fifteen months later it was back in my rack.

The moral: Never assume repair parts will always be available for vintage gear. Any guesses about what Oppo will have in stock during the next decade?

Even back 40 years ago, I had a Sony Tuner which I took in for repair, they couldn't get the proprietary chip that had failed as Sony stopped production after a couple of years. In the electronic circuits I'm designing now (not for domestic kit), we ask for 15 year guarantees for manufacturing of the IC, but not all semiconductor manufacturers will. There has been a fair amount of semiconductor company take-overs in the last few years and that normally kills of useful devices as the consolidation & integration process happens. So we just have to hope they keep making them. A problem with domestic equipment is that if the processor/ROM fails there is nowhere to get the firmware from.