Best place to buy a Duo/Duo-R/Duo/RX

[Svengo]

New Guy here

I've owned a TG-16 in the past and a sweet Duo that I regretted selling as soon as it was gone and I'm looking to get back into the console again. I'd really like to pick up a nice Duo but I'd be fine with a Duo-R or RX. It's simple enough to click on that buy it now button on Ebay but you'd think those things were made of gold for the price the really nice ones are going for. It looks like you can get a pretty dirty and scratched but working Duo-R for a little less than $300 but I'd sure like a nice one. I really want a TurboDuo though but am I just going to have to give in and pony up the money some of the nice ones are priced at these days?

I'd appreciate any advice. 

THX

[Tatsujin]

Best place to buy a Duo/Duo-R/Duo/RX?

Right here in this very forum

[Punch]

I'm in the hunt too my friend, but I'm searching an US Turbo Duo/Turbografx-CD for an decent price.

Good luck!

[turboswimbz]

Best place to buy a Duo/Duo-R/Duo/RX?

Right here in this very forum

Try mr. Keith courage, he may have a nice fixed up one.  If not contribute here a bit and 1 will prob. Come up for sale which will be much better than dealing with lamebay

[esadajr]

they maybe a bit pricey these days, but totally worth it. I'm choosing a DuoR over a PS3 anyday

[Aggie Tsubi]

If I wasn't already hooked up with a Duo-RX and a TG-16 (just lacking a SuperGrafx), I'd probably look here on the board. Seems like just about everybody offers nice condition stuff at fair prices.

My Duo-RX came from a Japan Yahoo auction, though. I don't have any idea how much they're going for on there these days, but maybe it's worth looking into? The value of the yen recently dropped, so that helps. Although I had an unfair advantage in that my fiance bought it for me with the help of a friend with a personal middleman, so I don't think he paid middleman fees at all.

[PunkicCyborg]

Good luck on your search. Doujindance on ebay has raised his prices but I know he does quality work in his RGB mods. I got mine from him a couple years ago. I also see nice deals on Duos on yahoo japan auctions but you have to do a little more research on how to use a proxy service. If you are patient though you'll find a nice deal here.

[Svengo]

Good luck on your search. Doujindance on ebay has raised his prices but I know he does quality work in his RGB mods. I got mine from him a couple years ago. I also see nice deals on Duos on yahoo japan auctions but you have to do a little more research on how to use a proxy service. If you are patient though you'll find a nice deal here.

That's exactly what I ended up doing. I did a bit of research on Doujindance and it seemed he has really good feedback and does really nice work with his RGB mods, cleaning the systems up etc...  I just ordered it but from the pictures it looks nice and clean with an RGB mod, new laser and SCART cable. It should work out great since I already have several other systems hooked up with an RGB SCART to component adapter as well.

It's been a long time since I've had a duo and I'm stoked about getting one again. I still even have several cd games left from the last time I had one.

[PunkicCyborg]

Great news! post up some pics in action when you get it!

[HercTNT]

Be careful with the doujidance stuff. My system was not so well made from him. Thesteve had to fix some serious issues with his work. The whole inside of the system was coated in some black soot as well. Not trying to rock the boat, just being honest about my expirience.

[Black Tiger]

Be careful with the doujidance stuff. My system was not so well made from him. Thesteve had to fix some serious issues with his work. The whole inside of the system was coated in some black soot as well. Not trying to rock the boat, just being honest about my expirience.

Lol, maybe thats why he started showing pics and videos of each unit inside and out.

I bought an rgb modded Duo-R from him a couple years or so ago and couldnt get component from it with my transcoder. But it wouldnt work with any modified systens, only my unmodified Genesis and AES systems.

So far, my latest Duo-R from him with s-video and rgb out from the standard Duo AV port works well (not going to even try the rgb). I did notice some weird visual anomolies the other day, but havent tried my other Apolloboy modded console to see if its just the TV or not.

[HercTNT]

my system lost ability to play most hucard and cd's as well as would only output in component and not rgb despite the rgb mod. Thesteve found some poor solder joints as well as poor placement of wires.

[Svengo]

I'm sure with as many systems as the guy has sold over the years there are bound to be some issues (as evidenced by a couple of stories above). It looks like he mostly deals in PC-engine stuff but I believe a week or so ago I saw him list a Japanese Panasonic 3DO and an N64 that were both RGB modded as well. The guy has 768 E-Bay feedback all 100% positive and pretty good reviews on other sites as well. Does that mean I'm 100% guaranteed an issue-free transaction here? Nope not at all but given all of that there's a pretty good chance it will turn out well.

I'll say this for him so far, I paid this morning and I had a tracking number this afternoon.

I'll let you guys know how it turns out.  

[Svengo]

So it showed up this afternoon (yay for Saturday delivery (for now) from the Post Office). I sure can't complain about the time it took to get here (it sure wasn't cheap shipping though).

He cleaned the system and controller really well with only hints of yellow left in a few places and the unit itself has almost no scratches except for a few on the bottom. The controller is nice and works well and the d-pad and buttons feel nice and tight. He even included a pc-engine hu-card Youkai Douchuuki which is a pretty fun game. He lets you know up front that he doesn't provide a power supply with it and that's fine as the weight would have added to the shipping cost. In addition to the RGB mod it has a nicely done region switch hidden under the hu-card door and the hu-card slot and cd drive work very well.

Now the only real and pretty significant bummer here is the quality of the video output. I would call it pretty disappointing.
I've hooked it up via the included RGB scart cable which I'm using with a scart to component adapter I use for some of my other consoles as well as with the composite cable. The unit is definitely outputting RGB as the picture exhibits much of the same qualities as my other consoles that output RGB but the picture itself leaves a lot to be desired.
There's pretty significant banding in the picture much like I'd see when using my old NES hooked up with a composite cable and moving sprites seem to have a very odd not very solid look (for lack of a better term) to them. The colors themselves seem ok via the RGB output (maybe they're a touch over-saturated). I remember my previous US duo as having pretty good composite output but I didn't even try it for very long as it was pretty bad.

I'm using a power supply from my Sega CDX which from what I could tell should work fine. I see the back of the Duo-r is labeled 9V and the CDX adapter is labeled as outputting 9.5V and I would think it should be ok but it would be great if the issue was simply too much juice to the unit. Don't the the Japanese outlets output 100V vs the US 110V? If so I wouldn't think that would be an issue here but I certainly could be wrong.

I'd welcome any input that anyone here has.

[HercTNT]

Jail bars in rgb are common. The steve in the mods forums seems to have figured out a fix for the jail bars. My duo's output looks great despite the jailbars in the back ground. make sure its not your tv or a setting that needs to be adjusted. If not, it can be fixed. we have members here that can make it sparkle