#61 MOTU 896 mk3 Hybrid teardown (post-recap)

Since relatively recently acquiring the MOTU 8M, once i got around to swapping it out for the 896 mk3 in my recording rack, i figured it might be worth doing a quick teardown of the latter, before i sell it off. I've done a really brief one over on the BadCaps.net forums when i first bought it, but it deserves some higher-res photos and a more detailed documentation of its guts. Do keep in mind that it got re-capped as soon as i got my hands on (or into?) it, so the electrolytics are not stock. But
without further ado...

#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.

#56 Apogee Ensemble Firewire teardown

[[[ Repair can be found here ]]]

This came up on eBay the other week as faulty - inputs 1/2 and outputs 1/2 seemingly dead. First instinct was, 'obviously', look up photos online in the hope of finding some internal shots. A few minutes later, bingo: four CS4272's in there. Now, what're the odds one of them is handling the bad pair of ins & outs? Quite a bit higher than the analog input of one, and the analog output of another to be bad, wouldn't you say? But let's not get ahead of ourselves (too much), and take things one step at a time...

#39 M-Audio Profire 2626 teardown and repair

Ebay strikes again - this time, a pretty damn cheap (to acquire) M-Audio Profire 2626 Firewire audio interface. I maintain it's still the cheapest way, to this day, to get 24 inputs and outputs to and from a computer. Most other 1U (rackmount) interfaces will give you 8 mic preamps but only one bank of ADAT. The ones with two sets of ADAT I/O will cost you a pretty penny, though.

Either way, this was sold as "not detected by the computer", so my bet's on the Firewire chip being toast, "as usual". Can you see a pattern emerging here?

#36 TC Electronic Digital Konnekt x32 teardown and repair

We're having a "productive" period, as it turns out. This time around a TC Electronic Digital Konnekt x32 audio interface / digital patchbay is on the chopping block. Or on the operating table, rather - i do indeed hope to repair, rather than dismember and mutilate this thing.

I managed to catch this, along with a twin of its, for under $200 / 200e delivered, as a "job lot", both sold as untested / faulty. The first one was shown powered up and possibly working fine (several LEDs on the front panel being lit), so potentially fine, pending tests. This second one though, not quite so much - only the blue LED halo surrounding the power button lit.

#35 Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 DSP teardown and repair

Yet another sold-as-faulty eBay catch - a nice little Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 DSP Firewire audio interface. The listing said:

"I bought this online and it is not working or it is not compatible with my computer. My computer is not recognising this audio interface. So I am selling it as not working."

 Fine by me. The photo of the back showed the Firewire port as looking quite pristine, so it wasn't a case of connector-inserted-upside-down. And for the price i won the auction for, it was worth the gamble. A frontal photo did show it powered up, so at the very least, it wasn't dead.

#34 MOTU Traveler mk3 teardown and repair

Hunting for faulty stuff on eBay has been fruitful yet again: this time, a MOTU Traveler mk3 Firewire audio interface. The reported issue was by now, the "classic", dead Firewire.

A pretty comprehensive little package, with loads of features shoehorned into quite a compact package - 1RU thickness / height, but only about 80% of the width.

#15 Alesis io|26 repair & modding

So, i got my hands on one of these Alesis io|26 interfaces for pretty cheap (50 bucks delivered). "Of course", i bought it as faulty (can you see a pattern yet?), with the already "classic" issue of dead Firewire chip (the ubiquitous Texas Instruments TSB41AB2).

I went for it mainly for two reasons. First, because i knew it was based on the TC Applied Technologies Dice II chip, and as such, should have flexible enough mixing / routing options; second, due to the ADAT inputs available. The sort of "added bonus", one might say, were the gain adjustments for the 8 analog (mic/line) inputs.