My very sad Musical Story

LoneWolf · Nov 18, 2025 at 11:17 PM

clone said: ↑

I hate plugging posts into AI about hardware too. It says nasty things like:

Reality Check

$30k+ of mostly vintage, rare, and collectible gear “sitting unused on a narrowboat / in an attic” is extremely unlikely.

Multiple items are very niche; owning every one at once in mint condition strains credulity.

The story’s tone, overexplaining, and “look at me” vibe fits the classic “I have everything but I never use it” internet trope.

Verdict: Highly improbable. Some of it could exist, but the full set as described? Almost certainly fabricated or exaggerated.

Picture is worth 1000 words.
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None of it was ever stored on a narrowboat. 100% sure fire way to get it all wrecked. Some of it's been in an attic. Other bits in a box room. It's changed over time. I was worried about the 'look at me' vibe. It looked like showing off, but in my need for potentially accurate, gear specific information I decided to just go with it and live with any comments like yours. Just goes to show how useless AI is, because every word of it is true, however unlikely that may seem. "Vintage, rare, and collectible gear" may apply now but not necessarily when I bought it. For example I paid approx. £1600 for one JP8000 when they first came out and £350 for the other one, don't remember when. I didn't even describe all of it. Just the stuff I thought might have a failure probability.

LoneWolf · Nov 19, 2025 at 12:00 AM

PulseWave said: ↑

AI can help:

Here’s a practical, gear-head-to-gear-head guide based on 25+ years of dealing with NOS (new old stock) and long-stored synths, racks, and monitors — including many of the exact models you own.

General Rule for Anything 10+ Years Old That Has Never Been Powered Regularly
99% of the time it will be fine if you follow a slow power-up procedure, but the 1% that isn’t fine can be spectacularly smoky or expensive. The enemies are:

Reforming electrolytic capacitors (most common real problem)

Dried-out thermal paste on voltage regulators (Supernova, Virus, JP-8000, Nord Lead 2X especially)

Oxidized connectors and pots

That infamous KRK “red glue” corrosion (only some batches of VXT series)

Sticky or seized tactile switches (Korg MS2000, Karma, Wavestate)

Step-by-Step Safe Power-Up Procedure (Do This for Everything)

Visual inspection first Open every unit (yes, even the “mint” ones). Look for:

Bulging/leaking capacitors (especially on power-supply boards)

Battery leakage (Nord Lead 2X, Supernova, MS2000, Karma all have CR2032s or similar)

Mouse droppings, dead insects, dust bunnies blocking heatsinks

The red/brown corrosive goo on KRK amps (more on that below)

Slow power-up with a variac (the single best investment you can make) If you don’t own a variac yet, buy one (even a cheap Chinese 500 VA one is fine for this). Procedure:

Start at 30-40 V AC and leave it on for 30–60 minutes

Raise 10-20 V every 30–60 minutes until you reach full mains voltage This gently reforms the electrolytic caps and dramatically reduces the chance of bangs. If you absolutely can’t get a variac, at minimum use a 60–100 W incandescent bulb in series with the mains plug (poor-man’s current limiter). If the bulb glows brightly, something is shorted.

Power supplies Almost every piece you listed uses switch-mode PSUs except the OB-6 and Sub 37 (linear). SMPS that have sat for 20 years are surprisingly resilient if they weren’t made by the very cheapest subcontractors. The ones that usually fail catastrophically:

Early Access Virus (A/B, not TI)

Some Roland JP-8000 (the PSU is external brick — cheap to replace if it dies)

Early Supernova 1 (not II) Your Supernova 2, Virus TI2, Nord Lead 2X, etc. are usually OK.

Specific known issues for your exact gear

KRK VXT8 “red glue” problem → Yes, many (not all) VXT4/6/8 have the corrosive red polyurethane glue on the amp board that turns conductive when humid. It eats traces and causes shutdowns once the monitors warm up. Fix: remove the amp board (4 screws), wash the red goo off with 99% isopropyl alcohol and a soft toothbrush, inspect traces. If you see green corrosion or broken traces, repair or send to a tech. Do this BEFORE you power them for more than a few seconds.

Access Virus TI2 → The power-supply caps are known to bulge after 10–15 years even when lightly used. Open it and look. Replacement caps are cheap (~€30 total).

Supernova II → Check the two big heatsinks on the power supply board — the original thermal pads dry out and the regulators overheat and die. Re-paste them with good silicone paste (Arctic MX-6, etc.).

Nord Lead 2X → Replace the backup battery immediately (it will have leaked or be about to). Easy job.

Korg Karma & MS2000 → Tactile switches oxidize and either stop working or double-trigger. Spray contact cleaner (DeoxIT F5) into the switches and work them 50 times.

TC Electronic FireworX & M3000 → Fan bearings seize. Replace the fans (standard 80 mm) before running 24/7.

Yamaha SPX2000 & Lexicon MPX-1/MX400 → Usually bulletproof, but the SPX2000 display backlight dies (replacement LED strips exist).

OB-6 & Sub 37 → Modern enough that you’re almost certainly fine. Just power up normally.

Speakers / Monitors

Foam surrounds on older monitors can crumble, but none of yours use foam (KRK VXT8 and Focal Alpha 65 Evo are rubber, Spirit Absolute 4P are rubber too). Cones and surrounds will be perfect.

Capacitors in the crossovers are fine (film caps don’t age like electrolytics).

Capacitor plague Most of the gear you have missed the 1999–2006 “capacitor plague” years (bad Taiwanese caps). The few that didn’t (early Virus TI1, some JP-8000) have already been recapped by now if they were going to fail. You’re mostly safe.

What I would do in your exact situation (prioritized checklist)

Buy a variac (£60–100 on eBay)

Open every unit, photograph the boards, check for battery leakage and red goo (especially KRK)

Replace all CR2032/CMOS batteries

Clean KRK red glue if present

Variac everything up slowly

Wiggle every pot and press every button 20–50 times (oxidized carbon tracks)

DeoxIT all metal jacks

Enjoy an absolutely insane studio that most people can only dream about

Click to expand...

Trouble with that, which I will save, is I'd end up trying to fix everything before I start. I was after others actual real world experience. Especially on the cones in speakers... anyone got any experience of that. They look OK.

Last edited: Nov 19, 2025 at 12:00 AM

LoneWolf · Nov 18, 2025 at 11:38 PM

clone said: ↑

Why not? The AI is much nicer about it than I would be. The only thing to even add if anyone wants to play along with this phish story is a couple of synths will need some coin batteries or they will not save presets in RAM. But the reason the "OP" doesn't want to hear from an AI is because they are a great BS detector.

They will screw you up about hardware though, that is at least true. I trusted the output of one and it had me completely disassemble my tower Mac to install a Fenvi wifi/bluetooth card mod using a power lead on the logic board that does not even exist. They handle conflicting information very well after the fact. "oh, you meant..xyz, well of course it doesn't have one!". They have less shame than people.
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I'll attach a photo, but it will only show a pile of boxes. I'm not going to start opening stuff just to prove something to you doubting Thomas's. One thing we've learnt, AI destroys discernment and intuition. The two big boxes are Jasper Stands and the JP's and stuff are underneath. Some stuff is elsewhere at the moment.

LoneWolf · Nov 18, 2025 at 11:58 PM

xntryk1 said: ↑

The knobs might get a bit crackly. That was an issue in the pre-dawn of audio gear right up to the middle ages in the 80's. Go for it. Or sell it all for a PC and some bundles of plugins. You'll love the savings on space. You don't need most of that old stuff these days, if you just want too write music. I bet it is awesomely shiny and new looking...
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I like the hardware, hands on. I only do it for me. Mixing and matching sounds in real time. I want the knobs there in front of me. I can play keyboards to a limited degree. I'm a conspiracy buff online. Takes all my time just doing that on the computer. One of the reasons I'm asking is I am possibly in a position to actually start doing something with it. Just got the karma out and that's working fine, which is very encouraging. And it is awesomely shiny and new looking LOL.

Synclavier · Nov 19, 2025 at 12:03 AM

LoneWolf said: ↑

View attachment 60807 View attachment 60808 View attachment 60809

I'll attach a photo, but it will only show a pile of boxes. I'm not going to start opening stuff just to prove something to you doubting Thomas's. One thing we've learnt, AI destroys discernment and intuition. The two big boxes are Jasper Stands and the JP's and stuff are underneath. Some stuff is elsewhere at the moment. View attachment 60807 View attachment 60808 View attachment 60809 View attachment 60807 View attachment 60808 View attachment 60809
Click to expand...

it feels like R2R blackfriday but in hardware
How did you manage to wait so long without unpaking all this stuff?

When you plug something in, stay alert and keep your hand on the plug so you can unplug it quickly if anything seems wrong.

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