Mackie 32-8-2 USA made? Should I go for it?

You guys blow my head; too many options.

One last question and I think I can make a decision.
Someone mentioned old Tascams.
There is one up for sale an M 600 from the 70s.
They look great but are they any good?

The one is up for sale seems to be recapped in 2012.

Not great.  Keep on the hunt for a D&R.  They are local to you, still excited to help with their vintage products, and a superior product even before any mods or recapping....

I said the Tascam 2600 beat the Mackie in every shoot out, but the downside to the Tascam 2600 is its all -10.

Holms you seam to be jonesing for a board, take a deep breath do some research, look at the routing features and opinions out there, then cut your choices down and wait till you find one near you. In the end it comes down to

Condition

Location

And time you can spend verifying condition!

If you know your options a head of time you will know when to pounce, over all the analog console market is a buyers market and really your probably going to find the 500-1500 euro market it offer the best long term investments.
Also don't forget the cost of wireing! I Paid $750 for the status ( hey recall. Onboard dynamics and automation are fun) but I have spent 5 times that on Wire, connectors and bays ( every connector on everything is coming out to a bay with plenty of room for expansion )

The D&R 4k sounds like a no brainer,buy it! I don't think there is a any other company other than Harrison that will support their old boards like D&R ! Plus your in Europe , so the support is even easier than here in the US, though D&R and its rep ,as DrBill will attest to, has been very impressive over here!
I almost bought a Dayner, if it wouldn't have been a strange mixture of inline and split modules and the seller as flakey as his console layout I would have bought it!
While I do think a JW tricked out Delta would be a touch cleaner, The routing on a real studio Desk will blow you away. If you can find a manual online you will see what separates the real studio desks from the 8 buss home studio kids!
The Routing on the My Status always leaves the guys who have only worked on Mackies, Spirits ect with their jaws on the ground !
I hear " You have inserts on both the big and little fader?"
"They both have dir outs!" "12 busses!"
Just buy the thing!

Short of spending 10 times what your spending, the vast majority of consoles ( including API's) are unbalanced internally so the why go through the extra circuitry or transformers to go from balanced to unbalanced and back?
There is this huge pressure to assume balanced is always best, some times you have to look at the very big picture and realize that when it comes to over all expense that isn't so! I will also wager that every other console you have looked at other than the mic input and maybe a line input is unbalanced as well!
Other than proper grounding of your Patchbays no big deal!

In other words I should not be afraid to do it.
The seller advised me to send him a mail with questions about the console.

First time for me to buy such a big one.
What should I ask for?

Questions which come to my mind.
Maintenance will it be expensive?
Power bill? Watts?
Heat in the room?
Is there a way to check if it is true that it has been recapped?
 
Many questions for a hobbyist like me.

In the end of the day I have to trust the seller, and I have no problem with this.
The seller seems to be a nice guy who is not telling BS.
The best is - he advised me to think about it a few days.
Its a serious decision for me and I hope I won't regret it.

Great advise but it seems like that I won't see the console in person.
I will let do the transport by a dispatcher.
Good old trust and a long phone conversation should work out.
We are not in blah blahh land in Germany, there are laws.
If you sell an item like described it should be in this condition.

I will sleep a night or two about it… lets see.
If I buy it I will post pictures…

I can't sleep and I did read the full manual.
Not understanding it all; but I was surprised about some clever routing options.
Funny was that the headroom at mix down is with 22 db exactly the same as with the cheap A+H ZEDs of today.  

Given that it is true what the seller claims - fully recapped, refurbished PSU.
How long does the caps and OP-Amps last till I have to do it again?
My guesswork is that also the internal wiring will get old too at one day?

You say it he delivers 4 spare modules which he did put out.

Opamps will never "wear out". Caps will dry up eventually, but as Smallbutfine mentions, modern caps will not need replacement for a decade under normal conditions, unless something goes wrong with the circuit.

Internal wiring..  Most consoles for the last 20-30 years have used PCBs rather than cables for most things.  If the console has a cable to do something, it's mostly likely going to be OK for life, unless you have a problem.

Here's another bit of advice..

Get a console because you need it, not because you expect it will improve something.

Most folks have bought into the notion that a console will make your audio sound "better" somehow..  More "analog" or "warmer" or something like that, but the fact is that it's not going to turn any mediocre audio into something great, regardless of what name is on the console..  If you do that, you'll always be wondering if you made the right choice rather than enjoying your new mixer..

But if you need better routing options, or hardware inserts that don't have latency issues, more preamps/EQs/etc, or you need better monitoring capabilities, then get a console and enjoy.