Korg Forums

sabin333 · Joined: 20 Feb 2015 Posts: 6

Hi. I'm thinking about buying an R3, but:

1) It's aging hardware
a) I'm worried about if repairs are still possible since it's old
2) I've heard that the R3 had poor build quality in the first place....

Any thoughts?

Cause I'm in love with the sound and interface, I'd just love some advice. Thanks! Smile

OpAmp · Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2015 7:15 pm Post subject:

Hi,

If the price is reasonable and you can try it out to check everything is still fine, I would buy it.

1. Sure it is aging... But that applies to all equipment. Repairs, mmh difficult question. I think analog problems can still be fixed by experienced techs. Things like a bad connector, a knob, button... Digital side, things like a broken DSP or memory module or ... (for whatever reason) In the first place, I wonder whether this has been repaired ever... Meaning desoldering that component and putting a new one? I doubt that. But how often does that occur?

2. Build quality. I don't own one. Touched it a few times. Seemed ok to me then.

Bye.
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mesoboy · Full Member Joined: 23 Jan 2010 Posts: 121

On the earlier models (serial numbers <6000ish) there was an issue with an unstable tempo - the tempo would jump around 0.5 - 1 bpm which plays havoc with patches that use delays (there is a strange warbly retrigging that occurs). It can be fixed with a simple capacitor. There are a couple of threads dealing with this:

http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=38899
http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=66324

alfredokiwi · Senior Member Joined: 07 Sep 2011 Posts: 268

Yes you can buy it with confidence there are not overheating issues on the DSP, memories and both processors. The R3 remains cool inside the most important of all.

Overheating issues on the internal components including memories, logic ICs, ASIC devices, voltage regulators, etc. are the main causes about failures on digital devices. The R3 is free of all that.
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LordVampyre · Joined: 29 Jan 2015 Posts: 37 Location: Southern Missouri

I bought a 2nd hand R3 and Ive been having an absolute blast with it.
Ive had no issues of any kind.

I do wish there was a way to change the color of the displays though. Im color blind and its often hard to tell what is there. Thats my only minor complaint and its not the R3's fault I cant see colors.