Teac Model 2

Name: Teac Model 2
Brand: Teac

A compact six-in, four-out mixer that became the quiet backbone of countless home and project studios.

Overview

The Model 2 is a six-input, four-output mixing console. It shows up in the record less as a headline product than as a workhorse - the board sitting between the tape machine and the microphones in dozens of small studios that couldn't justify a big console.

Teac's own advertising positioned it as one piece of a complete home multitrack rig, alongside the A-3340S four-track recorder with Simul-sync and the A-3300S2T half-track mastering deck. The pitch was straightforward. The Model 2 was sold as a "super flexible 6-in, 4-out mixer with pan and multiple patch points," meant to give a home recordist the routing to actually finish a session rather than fight the gear. It was never marketed as a flagship. It was the connective tissue that made a Teac-based system work as a system.

The surviving documentation shows the Model 2 earning its keep in real rooms rather than on spec sheets. A studio directory from the period lists it at Koala Studio in Los Angeles, where it ran alongside a TEAC A-2340SX, and at Moffett Manor Recorders in Costa Mesa, which paired a Model 2 with a Dokorder four-track. Harbor Center Guitars in San Rafael used one with a TEAC 2340 four-track. Studio II Recordings in Hayward ran a Model 2 into a TEAC 3340S. The pattern repeats: small rooms, modest tape machines, and a Model 2 holding the signal path together.

There was a revision, too. By 1982, at least one company was advertising upgrade services for the Model 2A, claiming improvements in slew rate, lower noise, and better drive capability. That suggests the mixer had enough of an installed base to support aftermarket modification. Audio (August 1978, p.30) described the Model 2A as designed for multi-channel recording, with treble and bass controls, color-coded push/push channel-assignment buttons, and a straight-line fader as the level control.

Pricing from the period puts it firmly in the affordable tier. A Bay Area dealer listing from the late 1970s shows the Model 2 at $269, sitting near the A-2340 four-track at $589 and the 3340S at $950. For a home recordist assembling a first multitrack rig, the mixer was one of the smaller line items.

Collectors and project-studio operators who still run these note that the Model 2's appeal is its simplicity and its patch points, not its transparency or headroom. It's a routing tool. The alternative in that period was a Tascam Model 3 or Model 5 board. The Model 2 sat at the entry point of the Teac/Tascam mixer range, and it shows up in studio listings next to both of those larger boards.