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Bad idea to go for this craigslist ad ? (mostly-functional Alesis Qs8.2 for $200)


vifitflag909

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I've been thinking of buying one of these synths for awhile and not had the money. I'm really running a tight budget. I found one in my area for $200 because some of the lower keys are unresponsive. He said it could easily be used as a 76-key synth (perfectly fine with me for now as long as I can get to the low octaves) and it'll probably just take a cleaning to fix it. I don't mind paying for a fix eventually if I know the board isn't totally defunct. I don't have much experience in keyboards or keyboard repair so I wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting my money on a totally shot keyboard, thinking that it easily could be fixed. Here's the ad, let me know what you think:

 

http://albany.craigslist.org/msg/1395938949.html

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Can't be to bad. It could also be a bad connection at a ribbon cable. Buy it and take it apart and post some pictures. I'm sure we all can help you get it figured out or figure that you need to take it in.

 

Sound wise, I stopped looking at the Alesis stuff about that "new silver look" time because everything that I had with the Alesis name on it prior too quit working or just plain sucked. I do remember playing one of there keyboards in a pawn shop though and was surprised that it sounded fairly good, but thats a long long time ago.

 

Over all for $200 you can't go wrong, but if you need to get it repaired it may become a $400-600 piece.

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I actually got a QS8.2 a while back for $100. Ended up flipping it for about $150 after I gave up on my attempts to fix it up. The right side had been bashed in (almost looked like it had fallen a good distance) and a few keys didn't work. I was able to fix the right side, but a few of the keys at the lower end were still unresponsive.

 

The key contacts are a bit of a bear to get to. I should have taken pictures. That said, I think there were about 20-30 screws that needed to be taken out before you could get to the board that has the key contacts. It isn't that hard to take apart and put back together as long as you keep track of what screws go where. I suppose it's more of a pain than your average keyboard because of the weighted keybed assembly.

 

That said, even after cleaning the contacts, I didn't have much luck getting the keys to register any better. I have a feeling the contacts in that particular model just start to go after a while. It still might be worth it for $200 though, as the sounds are pretty cool and a good number of the keys work.

 

At worst, you could do what I considered doing; tear out the keybed and turn it into a MIDI-controlled sound module. :)

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Honestly this craiglist ad might be for that exact same keyboard, fierywater. It's located in Bennington, VT not too far from Sunderland, and he says it's in worn cosmetic condition and has been in storage for a bit. Could be a completely different keyboard, but it's not too farfetched. Hmm...

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Actually, Bennington is where the buyer was from. I sold it to someone from there about two months ago. Not sure how he could gather that it's been in storage for a year, considering that I bought it at a Guitar Center last Memorial Day sale.

 

I suppose it's possible that there's two problematic QS8.2 keyboards in Bennington. That said, all signs point to that being the same one. :p

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