First impressions internally of the EH16 reissue.

Build quality is much better then the original. Modern clean layout. Only thing I dont like ( personal preference ) is the slide switches are only soldered to the board and not screwed to the case. Unit has Midi and a jack inside labeled CN1 which may be interesting to explore.

I'm not removing the board to explore whats on the other side, but it looks like all the important chips are visible on top anyway.

CPU chip is a Cirrus EP7309 with 48KB of on-chip ram.

Memory chip is a Toshiba TC58DVM72A1FT00 128mbit NAND E2PROM ( this explains the insane delay time )

CODEC is a Crystal CS4221 24bit ADC/DAC I didnt find a link to anything amusing on this chip, if you are really curious I'm sure Cirrus logic has a data sheet for it. Its Yet Another Audio quality CODEC. EH did put the CODEC about as far away from the CPU as they could possible put it which I think is a good decision.

In summary, the only thing the reissue has in common with the original is it looks roughly simular and it should operate about the same except with the new features. Sound wise I bet its nice and clean ( I actually have taken it apart before I've even powered it up so I cant comment on this ) which may or may not be a good thing for you. It does not have the convoluted analog path of the original and I bet the sample rate stays the same even if you change delay time.

Honestly, this is the direction they should have gone. They could have cloned the old unit with minor updates ( like I am doing ) and gotten close to the original, or they could have just gone for a work-alike but with modern guts and thats what they did. I expect more loopers will be intrigued in the huge about of time that can be looped and the interface, while people like me who loved the *sound* of the original, the fact that it gets grimey and mean when you crank up the delay time probably wont like it so much. Of course I'm saying this without having even plugged it in.

I'm not going to bother with pictures of the inside. Imagine what your computer's sound card looks like, now put it in an EH case. There, thats what it looks like.

Who am I kidding. I took a couple pictures and here they are. This is the nice wooden box and the external view of the unit. And here's a quick picture of the insides. Compare this to the photos I have of an original EH16, its very clean and modern and what you should come to expect from the new EH/New Sensor. Very nice build quality.

Updated 02/02/2005