I’ve been offered a none working DX7 for “around £50” (which is abou 50EUR in today’s economy). The fault is that it doesn’t power on but it hasn’t been looked at or a repair attempted so hopefully could just be a dodgy fuse or power connector.
What do I need to look out for when I look at this synth and decide if I want to buy it. Are there any known issues that could cause this fault. More importantly, is this a fair price for it?
Eddie
So, tell me punk… do you feel lucky?
I’ve bought a few things that were broken (We’ll prob about 1/3 my stuff was purchased broken) and in general, I like the odds.
I’ve had a few things that had a blown fuse.. and I’ve had a few that were totally fu#@ed and I had to bin.. but generally if you buy something thats not working, you should be paying F$#k all for it.. And going by my dumb exchange rate, 50 quid is a bit on the high side, considering I see working DX7’s sell for about $300 - $400 Australian dollars.
Good luck.
Mike
Agreed. They don’t know (or need to know, wink wink) that even if it fails you can still use it s a cheap keybed 
I’m thinking £50 is a bit much, but if it happens to work i’d be very pleased with it. The fact that he hasn’t had it checked out could mean it’s an easy fix (I’m suspicious of a lot of people selling things on ebay as “possible quick fix”) as they could well have been checked out and found to be b*ll*x*d so they’ve been chucked on ebay.
The £50 was just a figure pulled out of the air when I asked for some idea of how much he wants for it. Apparently he payed £200 for it a few years ago. What I offer him will depend on condition, whether it’s flight cased and if it has the cartridges. I also have no idea whether it’s a MK1 or MK11.
If it’s not any good then I can always stick it on ebay as spares or repairs so would probably be able to get most of my money back for it anyway.
E
If you get a chance to look inside that usually tells a lot. If there’s nothing to be seen, there’s a fair chance of a single faulty component. Big burned area on the other hand…
In any case there is info out there:
http://www.maths.abdn.ac.uk/~bensondj/html/dx7.html
Both service manual and circuit diagram. 
Always wanted a DX7, would be nice to know how it compares to my VZ-10M…
I think it’s expensive for a defective DX7. You should be able to get the price down.
I would:
Think of how much it would cost this person to get it fixed.
Subtract that from the current market value of a DX7.
Then take off about 25% and offer that.
The UK market for used keyboards is always a lot more pricey than North America though, so maybe the amount is right on the money.
someone get me such deal in uk pls , i’d take d50, sy77 or anything… 