#48 JBL Charge 3 Bluetooth speaker teardown

This JBL Charge 3 came in last week in need of a micro-USB (charging) connector replacement. First thing i did was to look up how to take apart the thing, and the good people at iFixit had a comprehensible enough guide.

The connector board is totally separate from the mainboard, so the "repair" part was trivial, and done within minutes. But the more interesting stuff lies deeper inside. Sure, my photography may never get to be quite as pretty as iFixit's, but on the other hand, you're not here (just) for pretty pictures, are you? You're here to see what makes things tick. Or at least that's the curiosity that drives me to take apart stuff like this.

#47 Joyo ZoMBie guitar amplifier teardown

My bandmate got his hands on this Joyo ZoMBie about a week or two back; it was sold as faulty. No idea how or why, but there's something dicky with the tone control - on some power-ups it works fine, but sometimes quits working (ie. sounds like the setting got stuck at some random point along the travel of the knob), no matter how much you twist it. Power cycling sometimes helps, but inconsistently, and even if it does, it just "gives up" again, sooner or later.

#46 Tivoli Henry Kloss Model One teardown & repair

A client brought in this Tivoli Model One the other day, with symptoms of (lots of) noise. Once again, i went against the mantra of "don't turn it on; take it apaaaah't", but this time, for good reason - the thing isn't mine.

#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. 

#44 Ram Audio S6000 teardown & repair (rebranded as LD Systems SP 6K)

A good buddy and neighbour of mine had one of his amps kick the bucket in the middle of a gig (one i was helping out on, as well). On the bright side, noone noticed, only when turning-off time came. The beast in question was one of his two LD Systems SP 6K amps (rebadged Ram Audio S6000).

#43 Focusrite Scarlett 18i6 teardown

As it turns out, i hadn't done (or at least documented) a teardown of this little guy, even though i've been using it for the last two years or so. Even though, as it turns out, i bought this a few months after starting this blog. Either way, i just put it up for sale (due to upgrading to the Scarlett 18i20 i inspected the other week). So i figured i might as well snap a few photos before it goes to its next owner (whomever that may be).

#42 Presonus Audiobox 1818VSL - revisited and revived!

[Part one can be found right over here]

Through a mix of patience, persistence and good luck, i managed to get my grubby mits on another, fully functional Audiobox 1818VSL, for considerably less than the 1-2 pricey ones available on eBay in Europe.

#41 Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 (1st gen) teardown & repair(?)

A local friend bought this slightly battle-scarred Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 off a buddy of his. The reported issue was some random / intermittent noise affecting only the inputs. Time will tell if that was conveyed to me accurately, or if it's a more global issue. First thing's first though - having a wee little look-see on the inside.

#40 Fake "Beats" Bluetooth speaker teardown & mod

I got this handed in by a local friend the other day. It was apparently bought in Singapore a good few years ago, hasn't been used in quite a while, and i guess(?) the charging cable (slightly less usual mini-USB) got misplaced or something.

#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?