Hi, it's tear down time. If you've been following me on Twitter, you'll know that. I got this new Focusrite Scarlett solo Usb audio interface to replace my Painting in the Ass Road Ai1 which I've been having quite a few issues with which started with uh, Zencaster which I used to record the Amp Hour, uh, podcast. It started not to recognize it and more recently I've had issues with this thing where I'm doing like a screen capture recording or something and it'll just like the Michael just drop out completely and I've had to actually reshoot um, several videos now like a screen capture.

Whether I'm doing a screen capture, or like adding a voice over to a video or something like that, it's just dropped out. and it's not the software. It seems to be something to do with the Usb interface, the drivers. Whatever.

I've tried updating the firmware and no luck. I'm jack of it. So everyone recommended the Focus, right? Uh, there's a two channel version, but I don't need that. I've only I only have it need a single microphone input, but they're basically identical.

Uh, price? Near identical size. The road is a little bit, uh, smaller and they've both got balanced. Uh, 6.5 millimeter quarter inch for you yanks? Um. output.

Usbc input's got a Kensington lock. Why you need that? I don't know. Is somebody going to steal your thing? Maybe. Anyway, near identical functionality, except the Focusrite does have the extra Um instrument input.

You know, if you're doing vocals and guitar at the same time, it's like popular for that, but I'm only using it for its Phantom power. here. it's got some airy, fairy, uh, arty fatty tube sounding thing or something. I don't know.

I don't care. Um. Anyway, uh yeah. Phantom Power microphone input.

That's all I use it for monitor. uh, output here for driving. because, uh, because the balanced outputs here go to my focal, uh, Cms40 studio monitor speakers. And I don't use the direct monitor thing.

I'm not someone who likes to listen to my own voice. Trust me, I've when I've you've edited 2 000 videos of your own voice, you get sick of your own voice. Not that I have a radio voice. Anyway, I'm infamous for my voice.

and I, I've actually been recognized on the street by my voice and not they actually heard me and they go, that's Dave. Yeah, all right. Anyway, direct monitor, um, output, and uh, headphones and um, nice feeling monitor controls on these and, uh, microphone gain settings. They feel like, you know, not not loosey-goosey nice and solid.

I like that nice and firm. A bit better than the roads. But anyway, let's do a teardown on both of these and see what's what. Yeah, so as you can see, like near identical size there, but the road is slightly smaller.

But of course this one has the extra instrument input. So anyway, yep, let's crack it open. Uh, we do. There's uh, I've lifted it up a little bit.

There's two screws on the back here, I think under these feet, there's not four. There's only two. Which is weird. So I have done a tear down of the road before.

Um, they're way back. But it was. I think dodgy. video quality.

I'm going to use my Tagano here. Yep, there we go. Phillips. Oh, these are bloody self tappers.

Are you kidding me? Unbelievable. That's like why self tappers? Oh come on. if you don't believe me, there's nothing under there. There you go.

It's only got them on the back. So I presume that once this comes out, it'll just slide out the front. And because there's nothing holding the rear ones in. But anyway, self tappers.

So oh oh yeah. Yep. There we go. Ah, we're in.

We're in. like Flynn. Check it out. There we go.

That's nice. There it is. There's the bottom side there. Uh, no, it's not warped.

That's just my lens at wide angle here on my Tagano microscope. And there you go. Yeah, that's where the screws went out. It felt like they were going into plastic.

So there you go. All right. So first of all, it's a double-sided load. So yeah, we've got a ribbon cable going off to oh, what looks like the front panel.

There just looks like a single sided phenolic base. Jobby. None of that Fr4 rubbish. We've got obviously a bunch of bypass caps on here, so we're going to have a little, uh, pain in the ass package on the top side there.

I'm going to go to a couple of Sl8s, but let's uh, let's flippity-doo-dah and have a look. Oh, there we go. Xmos. There you go.

Oh, Xmos processor down there. Oh, that's interesting. You don't get to see the Xmos, but uh, hey. check this out.

Ribbon cable shielded. That's a nice attention to detail. Although it's not. Is it grounded? No.

it's just flapping around in the breeze I think. But anyway, that's a nice looking layout. I don't know what's going. uh, debug.

Okay, so that's a debug header. Um, it's interesting that they've obviously got a custom little, uh, bed of nails. um, you know, or uh, probe custom probe that goes into there to do program debug and stuff like that factory? uh, debug. and uh, well, I presume programming.

Um, although you might you know you could buy the processor pre-programmed I guess. Focusrite Audio engineering by the way. Um, the Focusrite. I do believe and don't quote me, but I do believe it has a slightly better dynamic range.

Like an extra 3db or something. Better dynamic range than the rode Ai one. So there you go. So yeah, there's that lead board.

Yeah, I thought it'd only be used for the lens. Why waste money on that double-sided Fr4 rubbish? When you can get, uh, the phenolic base, um, they've You know they're screwed in there because this thing does have um, leads around here that light up uh, green, yellow and then red for peak. I'd love to see like a like a little bar graph on there. Like a five or six lead bar graph.

That'd be really nice. but uh, there's not many bar graph um Usb interface ones on the market. So anyway, um, are they burns? No, we don't have any part number on the pots so I can't tell you about the pots. Yeah yeah, it's a pot.

It's got Vr and there's the other pot in there as well. that's a dual jang yeah, dual gang jobby. And yes, this is the Gen 3 by the way, 105 degrees C rated caps. What brand are they? Oh yeah, uh.

crap's on? Okay, yes, you know it's built down to a price. Yeah, what do you expect off you? uh, Neutrik fanboys? There you go. It is a genuine new trick. Excellent.

Well done right? So here's our microphone input. Let's have a look down here as I oh, is that a little that looks like a little common mode choke? Is it? Yeah, I do believe we have a common node mode choke. That's a nice attention to detail. keep out the high frequency nasties and then uh, looks like the mic amplifier is a Jrc21022.

There you go. Ultra low noise, dual op amp. Uh, what's uh? 1.5 nano volts per root. Hertz? That's not too shabby.

It's all bipolar. I'm not. that Cmos rubbish. getting around the right orientation don't want all the electrons to fall out when it's upside down.

So we've got some test points down in there there for our there's our preamp. Yep, preamp. Positive and negative test points. So that's our balanced amp.

Yeah, so that's our mic. Plus and minus input. They've got inductors on the rails too. That's uh.

that's nice touch. Don't know why D2 is missing up there, anyone know? And uh, did there you go? R78 R79 Missing. I don't know. Maybe it's uh, something they had at the design stage.

I don't know. Is there another? Oh no. Well, there is another model, but it's It's physically different to this. It's like the dual channel input or whatnot.

So yeah, not sure what the deal is. Not sure why we've got our dual transistor stage there. what's going on anyway? And there's 8065s there. We could have a look at that Once again, Japan Radio Corp.

They get almost every design winning. You know, low-cost gear and so well, even the higher-end gear. They're just just everywhere. Anyway, Hi again.

Uh. Wide bandwidth dual Op amp 10 meg game bandwidth product. No workers, right? So I'd presume that they're the Um output drivers for our line outs here. so they would they would have to be.

Let's get our ribbon out. Absolutely no surprises for finding the Uh Cirrus Tech Cs4272. There, Cirrus Tech are in pretty much everything in the Uh audio domain. So let's have a look.

that's a 24-bit Jobby 192 kilohertz. Now that 96 kilohertz? Rubbish. 114 db dynamic range? Uh, differential. Of course it's got integrated volume control, selectable digital filters all the rest of it.

You know it's I2s. Yeah, so that's a 24-bit D2a and a D 192 kilohertz. Now that 96 kilohertz? Uh, Rubbish. 100 and minus 100 Uh Db Thd for the Da.

Oh well for both. Uh, and both. 114 db dynamic range for both. Yeah, I do believe the dynamic ranges are slightly better.

As I said than the Road Jobby. it's got a high pass filter in there. see that would have been nice. I would have loved because I actually for my microphone input to stop my mic rattling.

You know, when I move it, you know, shake the desk or whatever. Or you know, the pole shakes. I accidentally bump it or whatever. Don't want to get these, you know, low frequency transits.

I've actually got an external inline Xlr uh, high pass filter in there or a low cut filter for you low-cut fan boys. And yeah, it'd be nice to implement that in this. Be nice if they had just an extra button on the front that implemented that because it does it inside the chip, so that would have been cool. Anyway, it's got all the requisite goodness.

no workers, I don't know. There's another pair of those uh, Ad65 Op amps. Again, maybe they're No, they're for the output. Yeah, they're for the output here.

Given the uh, okay, these must be uh, drivers for no, oh maybe these get or oh, that's for the monitor. I think that's for the um, when you hit the monitor, the yeah, the monitor button that will switch that. That's right, that will mix in. Yeah, there for the mix in.

So they will actually drive the and mix in with the other outputs here. So when you have the direct monitor switch, that's right. That's what's happening there. There's our Usb power supply.

They're generating V bus there and looks like yeah, that's a little switch. I don't know what that one is. Not really fast. Okay, it doesn't look like there's any common mode chokes there on the Usb power input.

So because I've had kind of a bit of an issue with this, it's a bit somewhat worse than the road in terms of ground loops when you unbalance the outputs. So it's another switcher over there. 3.3 plus one volt is it? They need one volt for the Xmos. And of course, there's a 74hc 595 serial expander in there because you know I don't have enough digital.

I o on uh here. So you gotta like expand it out. So all the 595 fanboys go wild. I know I do.

I'm a fanboy. Love the 595. Anyway, there's our headphone amplifier Mpms 3425. Okay, I can't find any ready info on that.

If I do find it later, I'll include it in an overlay. So yeah, and well, that's about all she wrote: really. uh, where's our Phantom Power amplifier? Is that tucked down under there? Perhaps minus six plus five Va? No, that's voltage analog. Oh, we forgot on the back.

Haha. There's stuff on the back. Okay, so our X-mas uh, processor down there. that's our, that's Usb to I Squared C.

Uh, basically where it's going to talk to our uh, Cirrus Logic chip up here. And so that's an Xmos processor. Interesting choice. None of that, uh, you know, St and other Arm rubbish that they have these days.

So let's have a squeeze. I do believe it's the 200 series. So multi-channel Audio Platform 2 V2 Hardware manual, multi-core micro controller device, analog input audio channels, digital import, midi it's got Usp. It's got flash, It's got multi deport maps and what.

Anyway, this is the user manual, so this is not the data sheet for the chip. I couldn't get the exact one. So the X Core 200. Uh, eight analog audio, eight output.

Um, eight input analog audio channels. So a two tile X Core 200 device. So yeah, it's what was it 208 or something that we had here? I think yeah, we've got like it looks like it says Gt205. So I presume.

we've got the X Core 205 here, providing eight logical calls total up to a thousand mips. Compute Power: Awesome. A total of 53 General purpose I O, and they still needed the uh oh well, not on this side. I don't think we've got that higher pin count here, but yeah, they still needed the 595 expander.

That's great. Anyway, there you go. It's going to have a Usb input. It's got some srams, got one-time programmable memory, and yeah, Jtag interface and all the rest of it analog audio input channels.

Anyway, back on the bottom here, that's our lead board interface there. What have we got? Ah no. I thought that was Mikroel for a second. No, uh, 25 L A Okay, so that's um, I squared C memory.

They've put the little mark on there to tell you that it's been programmed. I would suspect. As I said, that's the bottom bypassing of our Xmos processor. Another 8065 dual Op amp there, and uh, Jrc is another Jrc 2122, a low noise op amp.

Ah, okay. it looks like we've got some diode protection happening there. Oh, almost missed one 405 3 Analog Mux Classic. Um, yeah.

old school No. still use these days. I mean, you know. Geez, I was using them when I was a kid a long, long time ago in a Galaxy far far away.

That movie probably came out at the same time I was using one of these. That cap there is a Yes con. so we've got crapson and yascon. It stills a lot of confidence, doesn't it? Oh boy, doesn't matter like they're not going to sound any different.

But you know, if you want to recap it with your you know, 100 capacitors, go for it. I guarantee you if you pay like 100 bucks for some audio grade capacitors, you're gonna hear the difference. Just don't expect your friends to. Anyway, there you go.

I've probably seen it all now and that's uh, that's not too shabby at all. Um, interesting choice with the Um. X-mas pro. I better stick that back in, otherwise I'm just going to forget and I'm going to screw it back together and I'm going to wonder why it's not damn well working.

So yeah, that's uh, pretty much what I expected. I didn't expect the X-master processor. that was kind of the only uh, surprise in there. And uh yeah, they went for the double-sided load.

Couldn't you know when you got the small form factor like this? it is, uh, it's surprisingly hard because that that top part. You know it's pretty well populated. You know you might think if you're going home Pcb designer you might think I can fit all that on the top layer. Oh yeah, give it a go.

Yeah, trust me. Um yeah. they would have had to go bottom side anyway. probably just for you know, the bypassing on here.

Anyway, once you do, once you get, once you decide that you got, oh, a couple of caps on the bottom layer. well you know all bets are off then. uh, but yeah, that's just pretty groovy. I like that.

Not bad for the cost. The Scarlet Solo. You know it's not using uh, world-class caps in there by any stretch of the imagination, but no, it's nicely laid out, seems to do the job, and I have no doubt that that will meet its, uh, performance requirements. So yeah, that's in interesting.

let's do the road. Of course. The big difference here. made in Australia? Bloody Beauty.

Um, yeah. absolutely like. and it feels like this feels more rugged than the, uh, focus, right? Let's focus, right? Okay, but yeah, this just feels like a beefier bit of kit. So anyway, let's get into this.

I can't remember. Did I know, Um, yeah, they lever out, doesn't it? Oh yeah, there we go. Too Easy. There we go.

That's some nice design. And yes, I do have an invite to the Road Factory here in Sydney, so I'm going to get around to that one day. But it was organized and then, well, you know, covert happened. Anyway, that's plastic on the bottom there.

but uh. everything else. Metal threaded metal inserts. Yeah.

better than that self tapper in the plastic rubbish. Satisfying sound of metal going clank. Yeah. Beautiful.

Bobby Desla. Look at that. There you go. It's pretty sweet.

I remember doing this. That's right, I remember, um, some flux residue on the solder joints there. but that's okay. Check this out.

This is all machine. This is all machined aluminium. Now that aluminum rubbish here in Australia. That's right.

that used something a little bit different, didn't it? So let's lift this board out. They're all metal threaded inserts. Very nice look at that. I would say this is a bit nicer than the Focus, right? Not by much, You know? 45 80s.

There you go. Yeah, Classic 45 80s. There's lots of 4580 fanboys out there. That's three of them.

Isn't it? Bloody light. and all surface mount are polymer electrodes. You can tell that they're not, uh, the electrolyte kind. the liquid electrolyte because you don't see a vent cap on top.

So yeah, that's a bit nicer. Once again. yeah, 595 as well. Absolutely fantastic.

Anyway, uh yeah, we've got an Uh St. Jobby. What's that I can't remember? Oh yeah, there we go. 32f070 processor.

you know. yawn. The Xmos was a bit more exciting there. Uh, what do we got That looks like I got a little heatsink there that looks like discreet power there.

Check those out. Yeah, I think we've got some discrete transistors. Uh, wrapped around the 45 80 here. That's interesting.

Um, is that the that's the headphone amplifier? Is it discrete transistor Headphone amplifier? 6287? What is that? Anyway, the main chippy is an Nau 88 L25. huh? Ah, Nouverton. Okay, yep. Ultra low power audio codec for headphone headset applications: 124 Db Class G Headphone: Oh, Headphone drive Advanced headset features.

Oh okay, so they're using a headphone audio interface. So Advanced: Dsp Engine Dynamic Range Compressor: Uh Audio Codec: Okay. Sampling rate from eight kilohertz to 192. okay.

Dac with auto Attenuate: 124 Db Signal noise ratio: 113 Dbc Uh oh With with auto mute 101 Db signal noise ratio A Weighted: what's the dynamic range doesn't say Anyway, that's it's. just a yeah yeah. Okay, yeah. Mike: Import Adc Okay, it's just that's an interesting choice.

Um, whereas your Cirrus Logic is your more more traditional choice there. So okay. Yep, yeah, I don't think I took the board out last time and I won't do it again. They might have some uh, stuff on the bottom, but uh, there you go.

That's interesting in that you know it's significantly different. They've used, well, a more traditional process of the St processor there. but you know. Discrete headphone Amplifier Discrete transistor amplifier.

That's interesting and then interesting choice for the Adc. So there you go. They're significantly different and significantly different. Uh, construction.

I think the road is slightly cheaper and which is amazing considering that it's made in Australia and it's in like this machined like you know, diecast case right? Um, and so yeah. it's like you've got to say, like the the road feels like a better quality, more rugged that kind of thing. But yeah, I I think technically it's uh, it's lower cost. Oh, I didn't have a look on the top there.

There you go. Not much doing. I haven't used any of that connector rubbish there, just straight over. But yeah, that's that's interesting.

But yeah, I don't know why I'm getting all the issues uh, that I do, uh, just compatibility with uh, Zen caster and all sorts of issues. So yeah, but um, there you go. There's an interesting comparison between two different units. We'll put them side by side.

There you go. That got your plastic chassis here. You got your machined alloy case here in the Road Mic made in Australia. I'm sure that is it.

made in China. Focusrite designed in England. made in China? Yeah, go figure. Um, but yeah, I think the Focusrite is either the same price or you know, a couple of bucks more or something.

Uh, you know, I'm sure prices vary in your country, but um, yeah. basically. um, both the same specs and uh, you know this. Both of them are pretty decent quality considering that this is pretty much bottom of the line uh, unit.

Both of them are about, well, 180 Aussie bucks or something like that. So yeah, not bad value at all. and both of them work superbly. Except yeah, I've had compatibility issues with the Road One only recently, like I used it for a couple of years.

No problems whatsoever. and then something changed. I don't know, windows changed or something. And yeah, I've had issues even with the updated, the firmware updating.

I don't know about the focus, right? If it can do firmware updating over Usb, I got no idea but the Rode one. Oh, beautiful firmware updating. You just download the little, uh, firmware update program and it just it. It just does it.

Nice user interface, it tells you what your old version is. New one. Do you want to update? Yep. Boom.

Done. Absolutely fantastic. So yeah, terrific. But that's there you go.

That's an interesting difference. You know both of them. Yeah, new tricks as well. Both from use, you know, proper connectors.

Um, you know, cheap quality. uh, caps in here, but for the price? like yeah, what do you expect? Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that little interesting comparison between the Focusrite, Scarlett Solo and the Rode A I1. If you liked it, please give it a big a thumbs up. As always, discuss down below: catch you next time.

They've got a separate Pcb for that, so that kind of makes sense because this sort of form factor when you've got either. either you get a right angle version of this. I don't know. Like if they were available in a right angle, then you'd think that they'd use the right angle.

But then the problem becomes. um, trying to get the thing in. When you lower it into the case, it's harder because you, uh, you know, because it's got to stick out the front of the case like that. So maybe having a but look look They've got a custom plastic bracket and everything on the back of that that is really quite nice.

Yeah, the other thing is is that if you have a look here you can see that the connectors go below the capacitors down in there. So this is your this is your 3d envelope design and this is sometimes you know if you've got to do all this manually. It's rather tricky. Rotor probably using Altium Designer, but you know any high-end packages these days including Rtm Designer have a 3d Drc 3d design rule checking.

So if you go to all the effort to 3d model your components and it is a lot of effort If you're just you know, doing a one-off like so you know, guilty as charged, I don't bother a lot of the time. Um, although when I worked at Altium you know we had people who who did 3d models for us. So you just go, oh can you give us a 3d model for this year? No worries, comes back, you know, 10 minutes later and it's done. But for a company like Rode who manufactured, designed and manufactured a lot of different products, I'm not sure how many they have, but they would have a huge catalogue of parts and you want to reuse.

As a designer at Rode, you wouldn't necessarily know you'd be encouraged. You should be encouraged anyway. Or as a professional you should just know this is that you want to reuse the existing parts in your catalog so you don't want to have yet another reel of components because they manufacture their own boards so they've got. They'd have their own in-house pick and place machines probably and you know they'd all be loaded up for components you don't want.

And when you design a new product, the last thing you want to do is use yet another component that you've got a stock purchase stock store put on. The pick and place machines change over everything else. so they're trying to reuse as many parts as possible. so doing a 3d model for every single component would be very beneficial to them.

And then when you did that, you could say like import not only the main board down here, but you can import this board with 3d models of these 3d models of the ribbon cable, 3d models of all these connectors and these plastics and everything else and you could do the knobs. You could do everything and you could see at the design stage that that that that capacitor is not going to fail. With that you can be 100 confident that's going to work because the software will give you like it'll just flag it and say these two components are touching. You know when you put this board in you know it can like software, insert the board and it knows that they're going to fail and you know it really is a very valuable tool and can save a lot of respin.

And you know, get it right the first time. I'm not going to bother to take the board out because I don't think there's anything on the bottom side of that board that would surprise me because you want to minimize you. You wouldn't go double-sided load unless you absolutely have to. You wouldn't have components on the bottom because that increases your production thing.

You've got to flip it over. You've got to glue components. A lot of extra production effort required to put components on the bottom side. So only if you had like high density Bgas or something that required, uh, decoupling on the bottom of the board, would you, uh, consider that.

or unless you're doing some ultra miniature thing, this thing didn't need to be ultra miniature. It's obviously like it is quite small and compact and I just love the. um, the machined case is just, you know, a case, but at least that top surface has been machined out, so maybe it's cast and then they might machine it down the rim, down or something like that. I don't know.

Anyway, it it is a beautiful case. I'm very impressed.