Tascam Model 15 (1978)
A 24-in, 8-out console that let an eight-track room grow into a sixteen-track room without selling the board.
Overview
The Model 15 is the console Tascam built for the studio that wasn't finished yet. Tascam's own advertising made the pitch as simple arithmetic: if a room didn't need two-inch compatibility or twenty-four tracks, it didn't have to pay two-inch money. The Model 15 promised "the heart of a 16-track studio" - 24 inputs, 8 outputs, and a 16-track monitor section with a cue system that could be fed by as many as 48 signals simultaneously. For an operator moving up from an 80-8 eight-track rig, that was the whole argument in one page of copy.
Modern Recording (December 1978, p.82) called it one of the most complex mixing consoles the magazine had reviewed to date, which is a fair warning as much as a compliment. The input module alone carried a straight-line fader, a 20 dB microphone attenuation switch, input selection between mic, line, and auxiliary line, an input level trim affecting both mic and line sources, and a four-knob, six-frequency equalizer section. Nothing on that list is exotic by later standards. In 1978, at this price point, all of it together was the point.
The channel count is the story. Twenty-four inputs into eight busses, with full sixteen-track monitoring, meant a band could track a full kit plus overdubs without patching around the console. An engineer could also run a separate monitor mix for the players without touching what went to tape. The cue system's 48-signal capacity sounds like spec-sheet inflation until a session needs it - headphone feeds, echo sends, and monitor paths all drawing from the same board at once.
The "SL" variant followed. Tascam described the 15SL as the "short load" version of the Model 15: an 8-in/8-out configuration with a double 8-track monitoring system and six-position EQ on all inputs, expandable to 24 inputs with full 16-track monitoring. It was the same board with fewer modules populated, so a buyer could get the chassis now and fill it later. The company's copy promised an owner could "start work at 8 and go to 16," and the modular architecture is what made that literal.
Tascam's advertising for the 15SL leaned hard on the preamp design. The mic preamps were all discrete FETs rather than chips. The power supply was housed separately so it could be mounted remotely and keep heat and hum away from the amplifiers. The company rated mic input signal-to-noise at greater than 76 dB on a single channel, weighted, with overall distortion from mic in to line out at 0.03% THD at 1 kHz. Those are honest studio-console numbers for the period.
By Tascam's own account, the Model 15 was not the end of the line. The company announced the Model 16 as a direct update, listing the changes plainly: four-band sweepable EQ, high slew rate chips, phantom supply, sixteen switchable meters, mic phase reversal, stereo mixdown, master metering, and high and low pass filters. Phantom power and sweepable EQ alone would have changed how the board worked in daily sessions.
The board turns up in period studio listings fairly often. Jubal Recording in Duluth expanded from eight to sixteen tracks with a Tascam 90-16 multitrack and a Model 15 console. Dark Star Recording in New Boston ran a 24-by-8 Model 15 alongside an 80-8 and a TEAC four-track. North Texas State University expanded its Model 15 to 24 tracks and added a custom remote for its Ampex two-tracks. Gopher Baroque Productions in Garden Grove worked with a "highly modified" Model 15. Suzanne Ciani's personal-use studio in New York listed a TEAC Tascam Model 15 as its console, feeding an Otari MTR-90 24-track.
That range is the Model 15's real legacy: a jingle house, a farm-country eight-track, a university music school, and a synth composer's private room all landed on the same desk. It wasn't a prestige console. It was the console that made a serious room possible for people who didn't have prestige-console money, and the modular design meant the board could grow with the room instead of being replaced by it.
Today the Model 15 is a large-format modular console from the late '70s and early '80s. Condition depends on the modules, and the separate power supply has to be present and healthy. The base model predates phantom power and sweepable EQ. Parts show up in the period record too - Mix Magazine (February 1991, p.177) listed Model 15 input modules at $250 each, or $200 each in quantities of two or more, with monitor bus modules at $75. That is a 1991 parts listing for a console that had been out of production for roughly a decade.
Similar items on eBay
No exact Tascam MODEL-15 listings are live right now — these searches show current Tascam and similar vintage audio gear on eBay:
As an eBay Partner, we earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support our independent vintage technology research.