Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Discussion about the Korg PolySix synthesizer

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Subject: Re: [PolySix] RE: I have my dream synth - help me get it working!

From: "Chromatest J. Pantsmaker" <chromatest@azburners.org>
Date: 2014-02-24

One possibility is that this polysix was used for parts, with the bad parts from other synths swapped into it.  This way it would ∗look∗ like a complete synth, and with the keyboard defective, it would be difficult to test.  If that were the case (no way to know), then the P6 didn't cause all those chips to go bad.

Just a thought...


On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 7:33 AM, <moondog1311@gmail.com> wrote:


Well, it was a surreal experience to collect it. It was sold as just the keybed being defective, which it most certainly was. Whilst checking it out, discovered that it only managed to get 4 voices at most together, and the only on gate mode rather than envelope mode. When it was home I hooked it up to my scope and I could see that the faulty filters just didn't give the correct saw; kinda like the filter was half closed. And the EGs either were dead or just gated straight on/off. That's the good thing about having one channel that works, it's easy to see exactly what's broken. At least they are socketed!

However, it was cosmetically quite good so I took a gamble and parted with £275 for it. Even with the 10 replacement SSMs (which are hopefully winging their way from China for £120 total) I am still happy at that price. The battery has been replaced and the KLM-367 mended, but truth be told, it looks like a dog's dinner of a repair job. It's behaving itself at the moment, but I will probably swap for a Kiwi 6 at some point in the future.

I have concerns now that something has caused the loss of so many chips. My DMM shows that the PSU is outputting the +15v -15V +5v correctly. Will probably change (at least) the large caps on the PSU board in case they are not filtering spikes correctly. Just hope the voltage regulators are holding up. Will report more when I finally get my SSMs.

It feels good to be part of this exclusive club.

Moon