Tascam Model 5
A compact mixer with eight transformer-isolated inputs, four submaster busses, and a real monitor section, for less than $1500.
Overview
Tascam's advertising for the Model 5 leaned hard on one number: less than $1500.00. That figure shows up across the 1976 trade press almost word for word. Modern Recording (August 1976, p.71) and DB Magazine (January 1976, p.17) both carried the same layout. The pitch was blunt about who it was for: recording or reinforcement, at home or on the road. It had eight inputs, four submasters, and a flexible monitor path, all in a box that undercut what a comparable console cost.
The input strip is where the Model 5 earns its keep. Each of the eight channels carries an attenuation control, LED overload indication, and two foldback sends — one tapped before the EQ and fader, one after. That pre/post split matters more than it sounds: a performer can get a headphone feed that doesn't shift every time you move a fader, while a second send stays wedded to the mix. The EQ section is two bands with four selectable frequencies and ±15 dB of boost or cut, which is a working range rather than a token one. Each channel also offers solo, direct out, channel assign, and pan.
The mic inputs are low impedance, balanced, and transformer-isolated. That separates the Model 5 from the budget mixers it was priced against. The four submaster sections each have buss/tape monitor, tape cue, monitor pan and gain for an independent stereo monitor mix, and an echo receive gain. The echo receive can be routed to the monitor buss only or to the program buss as well. That means you can fold an effect return into the monitor mix without printing it to the two-track.
The trade-off for all that capability in a sub-$1500 package is that these are now decades-old units, and the usual caveats apply: tired capacitors, scratchy faders, and switches that have seen a lot of use. Two listings in the Bay Area classifieds of the era describe "very hot rodded" Model 5s offered for best offer, which suggests the modding community found them worth improving rather than discarding. Another seller asked $1,000 for one that "must sell" — a useful data point on what these traded for on the used market, though current prices will depend heavily on condition and whether the unit has been serviced.
The Model 5 is a mixer, not a recorder, and it existed alongside the tape machines that made Tascam's name. Sellers bundled it with the Model 15 and with Tascam's 2, 4, and 8-track recording systems as a package. That tells you how the company expected it to be used: as the front end of a small tape-based setup.
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