#65 Focusrite Saffire PRO 40 teardown & repair

Ok, time for some nostalgia. My first "big" interface (as in, not just a little 2in/2out jobbie) was a Saffire PRO 40, that i bought retail, brand new, back in 2011 - spring, if memory serves. I mostly used it as an interface at home, tracked a couple rehearsals with the band i was in at the time, then later it got "demoted" to additional-preamp to a Saffire PRO 26io that i briefly owned, before it got sold off when i got my MOTU 896mk3 Hybrid.

This one i grabbed as faulty off eBay, yet again. Another one of those "too cheap to pass up" sort of deals. The listing contained a confession that the seller had (unsuccessfully) attempted to replace the Firewire chip, and he also provided a photo of the affected area. I won't lie, it kinda hurt a tiny bit to see a couple of torn off pads, and a few others lifted and mangled, but at the same time, it also didn't look to be entirely beyond hope. I figured with some determination and a bunch of patience (for "cosmetic / reconstructive surgery"), it could be returned to full functioning.

#64 Vocaltone D7 microphone (Shure SM57 clone) teardown & measurements

Literally last week, a local friend gave me a heads-up on a ridiculous sale that a big electronics retailer nearby was having, on some knockoff Shure microphone clones (of the SM57 and SM58, specifically) - normal price 39,90e; discounted price 10e(!!!). I grabbed three, right off the bat, with the intent of borrowing a legit SM57 and doing some measurements. But then i figured, why not make an article out of it?

But i've got big(?) plans for these, more or less. There's method to this madness, though...

#63 M-Audio M-Track 2x2M C-series teardown & repair

Boy, that's a lot of M's up there... But yeah, here's another eBay score, bought as faulty. Basically, because it was too cheap to pass up, even if it's unrepairable - a paltry 30eu. The ad said it will no longer power up, save for the phantom-power indicator LED, and won't be detected by a computer. But before troubleshooting, it warrants a thorough inspection, inside and out, wouldn't you say?

#62 Jamo Sub 200 modding

For background / context: https://mehlau.net/audio/multisub_geddes/

I had been off-and-on "hunting" for a twin, for my Jamo Sub 200 that i bought and revived years ago. Partially for SPL reasons, partially for the multi-sub approach mentioned above, and most recently, for actually sitting my couch on top of the subs.

At long last, a couple months back i finally found one locally, and in matching black finish. And with the 5.1 Jamo speakers it came in a set with, to boot! Those might get reused / repurposed later, (i'm thinking, in a manner similar to one of my previous projects).

#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...

#60 MOTU 8M teardown

Well, this one's a "biggie" - i had been lusting after one of these for a few years now, but the price was (and technically still is) on the prohibitive side, retailing at ~$1300-1500, depending where you look. Fortunately though, i've been stalking eBay off and on for one of these, and a used one happened to pop up just the other week, on auction. To my amazement and delight, despite there being at least 6 other "watchers", i was fortunate enough to win it for the opening bid, ie. about half the price of a new one.

#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.

#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.

#57 Apogee Ensemble Firewire pt.2 - the repair

I was considering making the previous post about the repair as well, but once the teardown part of it was done, i decided it had gotten long enough already, so here's the testing and (hopefully) repair of it, separately.

#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...

#55 Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (1st gen) teardown & modding

I had fiddled with one of these a couple years back, but here's another chance to take a look inside a (1st gen) Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, their second-smallest USB audio interface of the range.

#54 Recycled backlight LED strip ambient lighting

What with winter drawing closer, and the days (as in daylight) getting shorter up here in the north, one tends to need to turn on the lights more and earlier than in summertime. And since i'm the gathering type, i figured it's about time i put some previously collected materials to (good?) use.

#53 JMicron JM20330-based mSATA to ZIF-ATA adapter power modding

A few years ago, in the quest for more storage space, power saving, weight reduction and eliminating sensitivity to shock, i decided to upgrade my old iPod Video (5.5G) from the stock 80GB hard-drive to a 256GB SSD, with the aid of an mSATA to ZIF-ATA adapter, and some mods to the "aftermarket" Rockbox firmware.

... Except that recently, for whatever reason, it's been kinda flaky, and ended up giving up altogether. To aid with stability, i had also performed some hardware mods on the power supply side of things (as well as on the iPod's mainboard). The rationale behind that, at least in part, was the source of the above-mentioned mods, so i'll need to transplant those to this newer one as well.

#52 Solar A2.7 & Fishman Fluence Keith Merrow, part two

Aaaaand it's back! Not because of technical issues though. Due to chance, and the limited speed of international shipping, only the day after the owner got his guitar back, did the Fishman rechargeable battery-pack get delivered, just only too late to include it in the previous operation. But no matter, this should be far less involved than that.

#51 Solar A2.7 & Fishman Fluence Keith Merrow & 5-way install

Local guitarist buddy time again (owner of the Fortin Grind and the Warwick bass amp featured here previously) - after taking several swings at it, he got fed up and let me have a go at installing a brand new set of Fishman Fluence Keith Merrow pickups into his Solar A2.7 guitar. Complete with some custom switching and whatnot, to take full advantage of the entire feature set the pickups offer.