#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...

 

 

#67 Audient iD22 part 2: the repair

 And now, getting back to the issue affecting this unit... As pointed out in the ad, the LT3439 apparently used to have a piddly little heatsink glued on top of it, but it got detached. Now, there's a chicken-and-egg type mystery here - did the heatsink glue fail because the chip overheated in the first place? Or did the chip get fried because the heatsink fell off? Regardless, investigation showed that one of the two switching transistors inside the chip seems to be stuck in a conducting state, despite the transistor itself not being shorted, though. But since it handles all the power for the analog circuitry, it's no shocker (no pun intended) that only the digital ins & outs work. 

#66 Audient iD22 teardown

Despite having hoped to nab an Audient interface for some time now, only quite recently did i manage to get my hands on one. Since i'm a cynical... [ahem] person, after having heard several notable(?) audio engineering channels over on Youtube ranting and raving about these, and the "Audient console preamps", and the "discrete JFET DI" and whatnot, my curiosity was indeed itching to see if and how the reality lives up to all the hype and marketing. 

#58 Behringer FirePower FCA1616 teardown

Long time no see, eh? Well, what can you do when the new job's kicking you in the rear end? Regardless, new patient on the table this time around - A not-that-often-encountered Behringer audio interface (now discontinued, "obviously"). I took the gamble on it primarily because it was cheap, secondly because i wanted to take a peek under the hood, and somewhat connected to that, curious about if and what "magic mojo" might the touted Midas preamps contain.

#45 Pedal pandemonium, part one - Fortin Grind

A local guitarist friend of mine recently upgraded his rig to a Fractal AX8, and as such, a couple of his overdrive pedals got relegated to (mostly) sitting on a shelf. Knowing some of my interests, he offered to lend them to me, to have a look on the inside, out of sheer curiosity.

First on the chopping block (as it were), a Fortin Grind. 

#32 M-Audio (Avid) Fast Track C600 teardown & repair

This little bugger, an M-Audio / Avid Fast Track C600, was listed as faulty on eBay - description said it would no longer power up, regardless of it being bus-powered or having its own external power supply connected. Got it shipped for 30eu / $30, so why not?