Oh, The Geeky Temptation

     There has been a very old, vacuum-tube portable mixer for sale on eBay for quite some time now.  None of the usual buyers want to touch it: it's been modified.  The price reflects that, too; it's offered for about two-thirds to half the price that model usually commands.

     Here's the thing: as it happens, I know that model pretty well.  The first radio station I worked for had one.  It's built like a tank -- and with one exception, the mods to the eBay one consist of added parts that need to be removed or non-original replacement parts that I have the correct parts for.

     I could buy it, get it back to almost-original condition, keep or sell the handful of expensive microphone transformers someone crammed into it and probably double my money if I sold the thing.

     The problem is, I want one.  I've been looking at them online for years, watching the prices get higher and higher.  And if I buy it, it's one more project that will languish while I put in forty hours a week working and spending the rest of my non-sleeping time cooking, cleaning, reading or writing.  Realistically, the thing to do if I just gotta have one is buy one of the nice examples at a blood-curdling price and enjoy it.

     But the thought of turning this poor, abused clunker back into a keeper is so very tempting.