Internal MicroTrack Pictures

[tooldvn]

Cracked mine open last weekend and took some decently hi res pics.   This should help for those wanting to see what components are inside and what may be possible to be modded.  I have found a battery that seems to fit the dimensions, but may be too thick when the back cover is closed... stock is 4.3 mm thick, and the batteries I have found have the same lxw, but are 5-7mm thick depending on the mah.  Another problem: the company onlly sells in quantites of the 1000's, I have some samples on the way, but that may be because I have an engineering job where it would be believeable that I might use them.  Also, you will notice that there is a small circuit board wrapped up with the stock battery.  I believe this may be the voltage converter. Not going to cut it open quite yet.  Anyway, here's the pics:

MT Internal Pics   Enjoy!

-dvn

[corsair]

Well done.. +T

[cybermansrev]

+T
Nice pictures of the MT guts.
Have you modded your MT? since compared to other internal pictures the copper shielding/earthing over the 1/8" inputs on previous pics seems to be totally covering the left one but absent on the right whereas yours seems to partially cover both. Maybe M-Audio actually have been tinkering with the design since the early production run as it was reported that there was different noise levels on R vs L ?

[tooldvn]

Thanks guys..

Nope, not modded yet.  In reference to when M-Audio made upgrades to the shielding I bought this MT in February 2006 FWIW.

The sample batt's still aren't here from China, so not sure when I'll be able to try the mod..  I'll keep the forum posted of that project.

-dvn

[poorlyconditioned]

Cracked mine open last weekend and took some decently hi res pics.   This should help for those wanting to see what components are inside and what may be possible to be modded.  I have found a battery that seems to fit the dimensions, but may be too thick when the back cover is closed... stock is 4.3 mm thick, and the batteries I have found have the same lxw, but are 5-7mm thick depending on the mah.  Another problem: the company onlly sells in quantites of the 1000's, I have some samples on the way, but that may be because I have an engineering job where it would be believeable that I might use them.  Also, you will notice that there is a small circuit board wrapped up with the stock battery.  I believe this may be the voltage converter. Not going to cut it open quite yet.  Anyway, here's the pics:

MT Internal Pics   Enjoy!

-dvn

Great job.

Well, stating the obvious, 12.jpg (underside of the board) is the phantom circuit. 10.jpg shows a nice view of the ADC (AK5365) and the DAC (AKM4381).

I'm trying to find the preamps, maybe in 04.jpg, chips "E53   56Z5", but I've never heard of that.  Are there any other markings/logos on these chips?  If you can, look for any 8 pin chip (four pins on each side), and try to give me all logos/names/numbers on any of these chips.  8 pins are (usually) dual opamps...

Thanks again,  & +t
  Richard

[poorlyconditioned]

Hey, by a total stroke of luck I determined what those opamps are:
  "E53" is short form for "OPA 2353", dual, single supply (+5V), rail to rail, CMOS opamp.

They claim to have pretty good SNR and low noise.  I wonder why they use CMOS though.  Usually bipolar or FETs are used in audio opamps.  The only thing I can think of is to be able to run at 5V.

So, if I had to guess I say this unit runs at 5V completely, both analog and digital stages.  And I would also guess that mods could not help much.   It is *very* hard to run good audio at 5V.  It would be much nicer if the unit stepped up to something like +/- 9 or even +/- 15V though...

  Richard

[udovdh]

Hey, by a total stroke of luck I determined what those opamps are:
  "E53" is short form for "OPA 2353", dual, single supply (+5V), rail to rail, CMOS opamp.

Interesting, good find!

So, if I had to guess I say this unit runs at 5V completely, both analog and digital stages.  And I would also guess that mods could not help much.   It is *very* hard to run good audio at 5V.  It would be much nicer if the unit stepped up to something like +/- 9 or even +/- 15V though...

Did you find the opamps that do the ever present 14 dB (or so) of gain?
I am trying to find out more about the signal path, especially the part(s) before the AKM 5365.
If we could mod the gain down (or up?) a bit that could help, depending on your situation.

[edit]

Hmmm! I see one E53 near the 1/4" jacks. (picture 10, left of the 1/4")
This opamp is dual; so where is the other one? (if it is the one for the ever present 14 dB gain)
Is it on the back side? (near the switch chip MAX4652)
Maybe we can confirm from the gain setting of the opamps these are the ones?

Also: where are the voltage converters to go to 5V from 3.7V of the Li-Ion?
Are they on the MT-PCB or on the small battery PCB?