Oberheim OB-Xa: An Amazing Story of Survival

flickr By kb_cheapmods
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The story via kb_cheapmods:
"I did a buy-it-now of an OB-Xa on ebay around Thanksgiving. It had a nice picture and the price was quite low, though there were oddities: it had NO description and the seller had no reportable selling feedback. But I jumped and did it.

Subsequent emails to the seller after the B-I-N suggested that he was new to selling and not a synth aficionado. He told me everything lit up when turned on, when buttons were pressed that things did change, but he didn't have an amp so couldn't test the sound. His shipping indicated that it would go next-day USPS and the charge was very high. I told him to pack it well and go ahead and ship it. Note that he lived in Maryland and I'm in Los Angeles.

So, I waited and waited and waited. It took about 2 weeks for it to arrive and - hoo, boy - was I scared when I got home that night. It got shipped Parcel Post (that's why it took so long), but the packaging was almost non-existent: the outer box had holes and, as you can see in the pics, there was just about no bubble wrap or anything else. Traveling cross-country, the synth should have been destroyed.

The happy ending: there was no discernable damage to the synth! The cosmetics pretty much match his ebay picture, it did fire up and buttons did change panel settings. After a bit of investigation, I had to replace one tantalum cap on the lower control board to get it to work. Of course, the J-wires need some cleaning, it needs calibration, but all 8 voices are as thick and buzzy as you'd expect."

Be sure to see: How to pack a synth