I was lucky enough to find a number of panels from the 79-88 era, I didn’t buy them initially because they were vintage, but because they were cheap. [Actually everything good I ended up with was because of opportunity or because of not knowing/caring what i was getting, if there was something specific I wanted it would of course be hideously expensive and rare…]
Admittedly the oldest panels still look like hell, I also got a lot of the dirty CalArts patch cables for about 50 cents/cable. But at least most of them had consistent color codes as to length. I also had some of the more expensive STS stuff, mostly also from earlier times (the “Oakland” era) but in my experience it just didn’t sound as good (despite the oscillators being much more precise in high registers, lower noise etc.) The biggest difference was in the audio mixers and VCA’s, the noise (which was always low to begin with) was gone but so was the warmth and character. But then I’d also say the '79 oscillators (kit) sound warmer than the 83 ones (factory). So over the years I got rid of most STS and kept the older stuff because I didn’t have to worry about things disappearing in the mix or how it played with everything else.
And the really cool thing on the old systems is if something goes wrong you can just contact Kevin for repairs, he actually had a lot of input on the design (second only to Serge), he’s extremely reasonable and hands down the nicest person in the business, he does a number of useful minor mods as well.
Anyway, I don’t know what prices on the old systems run or even if they come up very often, but even a few years ago they were surprisingly inexpensive. OTOH I have never seen an actual 74-76 system, what I am talking about is the slightly later era (beginning in 1978) where the modules were more or less finalized. I consider my system fixed and would not get any more panels even if a genuine 1974 system showed up, so this is mostly for others to consider.
