The Future of Microsound?

[Rich LePage]

Yeah, these days are def a "when it acts up,
replace it" type of thing - another symptom of much else that's
not as fixable as once was.

It has made some stuff very cheap and reasonably
quiet... but fixable- not! Everyone uses "surface mounted
components" which are almost impossible to repair --if
you can even get parts that will fit. (Mouser and Digikey
are a couple places I've often bought from)

I had left a pair of Audio Technica 4033's at an outside
studio for a few days, someone used them w/o my OK,
and dropped one hard. I sent it to A/T but not repairable
in the end. They tried and sent it back, but it sounded so
diff we refused to keep it.

Just about everything else is same- from your wall oven
to (in my case) a Jeep SUV. Squirrels from hell munched
on its wiring and fried its 2 computers- resulting in not
running at all, big tow bill, and bigger $ to replace both
"modules" and rework the main harness.

When we did the work on the Soundcraft and also on some other
old stuff, we indeed socketed many things, same reasoning as
yours w/the Mod 5. I also had done that for ages on Ampex cards
and on some old UREI pieces - in partic. the "little dipper" filter
set they made, which I used to use a lot.