Teac Model 3
A four-bus mixer built for people who had the talent before they had the money.
Overview
The channel count is the headline: eight inputs, four output busses.
Teac advertised the Model 3 at under $900. The company's own campaign in DB-Magazine (June 1976, p.51) pitched it as three mixers in one - a recording board, a PA board that could do separate stage and house mixes with a third mix for remote recording, and a disco mixer. UK dealer listings in Studio-Sound (December 1976, p.7) put the Model 3 and Model 5 in the Tascam range next to the six-input Model 2, and called the Model 3 a four-output mixer. That same dealer, ITA in London, ran the listing through at least March 1977.
One period review, in HiFi-Stereo (September 1972, p.36), found tone-burst response very good at all frequencies, with no spurious outputs or sustained ringing. The same review rated the efficiency of the Model 3 as moderately low, at roughly 0.5 watts of drive for 90 dB SPL in the octave under test. It also heard a slight mid-range coloration and a detectable loss between 10 kHz and 20 kHz, easily fixed with amplifier tone controls. The publication gave the unit a "B" rating in that comparison. Check the date, though: September 1972 is well before the 1976-77 advertising and dealer listings. Either the Model 3 had a longer production life than the ads alone suggest, or the review covers a different product with the same name. The archive treats the review as period commentary on a mixer called the Model 3, with that caveat attached.
For anyone considering one today, the practical questions are the usual ones for a console of this age, such as whether the faders are scratchy. The four-bus architecture makes it more flexible than its input count suggests.
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