#86 Condenser Cavalcade - AKG Perception 150 / P170 / P17, Behringer BA-19A

You know me, i can't pass up a silly-good deal when i see one. That's how i ended up grabbing the other week, two AKG small-diaphragm condensers (the black P170 and P17) and a Behringer BA19A boundary-microphone. Yeah, i know, i know, but an equivalent total retail cost of ~250eu got quickly whittled down to 120eu (shipped!). 

The Perception 150 i've had for a good few years now, and i figured i'd include it here, to see if and how the insides of AKG's lower end of SDC's have evolved over the years.

#85 Harley Benton HB-80R teardown & modding

Right, so i had been on the hunt for the cheapest way i could get a 1x12" or 2x12" guitar cab for a while now - mainly because i landed a toasted Celestion Greenback for free some months ago, and a recone kit is arguably affordable. Budget being a prime concern, i was compelled to look locally, and a couple weeks ago finally pulled the trigger on this thing.

#84 Cymatic LP-16 teardown & repair

So this Cymatic LP-16 16-channel backing track player came in the other week, from a loyal and "repeat" customer, with the description of "turns on but doesn't output any audio". Additionally, it had possibly been tested also with an AC(!!!) plug-pack. Either way, by the time it got into my hands, it was completely dead. 

#83 Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 gen2 teardown & repair

I know it's been quite a while, but i haven't given this up! Life just gets in the way, i'm sure you know how it is... Regardless, this time we'll be taking a dive into yet another "as faulty" acquisition - an utterly pristine-looking Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 gen2.

#82 RME ADI-8 DS teardown and repair

 A seller on eBay had had a couple of these units listed as faulty for a few weeks, and once i had a bit of spare cash, i decided to take the dive and snap these up. The impetus was two-fold - on one hand, as it turns out, there seems to be a bit of a "disease" going around with power supplies in RME rack units; and on the other hand not long ago, i had noticed an ad from a person in this area actually looking to buy exactly one of these units.

Some extra motivation was prompted by looking up some prices for this thing. Borderline-eyewatering, i'd say. It seems to have retailed somewhere in the 1500e area at launch (1280GBP in 2003), and still selling for anything between 500-800e used (on Reverb.com or Milk Audio Store). Gulp.....

The shipping time was spent more or less being anxious whether i had bought a couple of lemons (for all i knew, the power supplies were missing altogether), or whether i would manage to catch a break and manage to fix these up easily and make some extra cash for the holidays.

#81 MOTU Traveler teardown & upgrade

As a follow-up to the recently posted MOTU Ultralite teardown, i had to grab this as soon as it popped up in my search results, because it had a price i couldn't ignore or refuse, and it had the ideal feature set for recording my band's jams and rehearsals. While the former had most of the features i needed in the 828mk2 i had been using, but in a smaller form factor, this Traveler packs more of the features i need (two extra mic preamps, while retaining the -10dBV/+4dBu line inputs with optional 6dB boost), in an intermediate form factor, as well as having a full 53dB of gain available on the mic preamps, but without weirdo custom potentiometers to wear out. Just about best of all worlds, really, especially for the paltry 85e this cost me. And as the cherry on top, it even has a separate battery input - hello, fully mobile recording sessions...

 

 

#80 MOTU Ultralite teardown

In an interesting turn of events, i actually did NOT get this one as faulty. It was more to relieve one of my 828mk2's from rehearsal-place-recording duty, and on the other hand, i managed to get it for quite cheap. In the context of, faulty ones had similar asking prices, so there's that.

#79 Focusrite Saffire 6 USB 2.0 repair

 Ok, this is gonna be a bit of a quickie. Basically, i got this one ridiculously cheap as well, with the intention of repairing it and gifting it to the new singer in my significant other's band, in order to facilitate more productive creative work. Just like the first one i did a teardown on and then modded, this was sold as faulty, but with more... obvious issues, let's call them.

#78 Focusrite Saffire 6 USB 2.0 modding (adding a battery)

And here we are, on the third and final(?) part of the modding journey involving this little fella. As presented in the previous post, i managed to "persuade" the thing to power up fully despite not being attached to a computer, only to a USB-connected 5V source. But now, the time has come to integrate what is virtually a "power-bank", within the enclosure, and thus have the Saffire be entirely "self-sufficient", as it were.

#77 MOTU Ultralite mk3 Hybrid part one: teardown

Yet another score from the "morgue" - this time around, a feature-packed little bundle of audio joy, namely a MOTU Ultralite mk3 Hybrid. This was up for sale as "no longer powering up", and for a two-figure price, i couldn't pass it up.