#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...

 

 

#59 MOTU 828 mk2 teardown

Even though this is the 4th or 5th of these units that has gone through my hands, looks like i never documented a teardown of one - shame on me! Time to rectify that issue then, wouldn't you say? I grabbed this one off eBay for about 60 bucks or so, delivered. On one hand, because it was pretty dirt cheap at this money, and on the other hand, because it will be involved in a project idea i had a good few years ago. And yes, "as usual" (by now), this one had a busted Firewire connection, but for my own (nefarious?) purposes, i don't need that anyway.