Metric Halo mkiv release

According to what BJ posted on the MH list-serv, it's only the analog stages that will get upgraded --  not the converters.  I might have misread that on the email threads, but I don't think so.

That is consistent with every other hardware upgrade MH has ever done for older units (e.g., 2882, ULN2).

However, I'd be pleased to find out that I'm wrong about the upgrades!!! 

Here is what BJ posted about the upgrade:
"Due to world-wide supply-chain issues it is not currently possible to offer a mkIV Analog upgrade path for existing units."

He hasn't mention any other upgrade paths, so my assumption is that it is analog only.

Are you referring to 2d or 3d? 3d will be required to migrate to mkIV. Also, as mentioned in the news release, the upgrade platform is not available yet pending supply stuff and when available it will initially be for ULN8 and LIO8.

What do you mean by an older unit? The 3d platform was introduced in June 2018. Boxes prior to this were on 2d. If the ULN8/LIO8 "older units" you are referring to were before June 2018 then the owner would have purchased the 3d upgrade kit or they'd still be 2d. If the ULN8/LIO8 were purchased new June 2018 or after they would have been delivered already on the 3d platform.   IF the boxes are 2d then they'd have to be upgraded to 3d then mkIV which would then make the box equal to the newly released mkIV available for purchase now. IF the box is currently 3d and the upgrade kit becomes available (whenever this will be) then it would be the same as the newly released mkIV.   Otherwise, this would be the first time in MH history that current boxes were not able to be upgraded to the latest technology.  Make sense?

He was also asked if there would be any difference between the upgraded boxes and the ones that come as MKIV and he said they would be functionally identical.

Oops! You beat me to it... I thought I was responding to him and must've refreshed and responded to the most recent post which was now yours. Jinx!

The converters are on the analog board so it will be a bit hard not too upgrade them. 

plinker , think of it like this:

In your ULN-8, there's a digital board and an analog board. The 2D --> 3D upgrade was the digital board. The MkIII --> MkIV upgrade is the analog board. The analog board contains the A/D/A section.

An upgraded ULN-8 (3D, MkIV) will be identical to a brand new off-the-shelf ULN-8 (MkIV).

Because of the worldwide chip shortage, the upgrade kits won't be available for some indeterminate amount of time. I'll probably wait until the kits are available and upgrade then. The early bird pricing on the MkIV boxes is really good, IMO, but I just don't have the funds for that at the moment unless I majorly shift my priorities. If I needed to track more than 8ins at a time for an upcoming job, I would find a way to go ahead and do it, but I don't have an upcoming job like that.

I've been around these parts for what, 4 years now? Even with that level of experience, I'm not sure how kosher it is to copy a post from The Purple Site. Nevertheless, BJ Buchalter himself (the MH head) posted a thorough response to some of these issues on GS, and I'm going to copy/paste it here in case some of you are interested and missed it over there. If for some reason this isn't cool, Johnkenn , I apologize - happy to take it down or just delete the whole post. I figured BJ isn't coming over here to participate directly.

As a quick aside beforehand, note below how deeply ingrained BJ is with engineering at his core, rather than marketing. He actually begins his list with the number 0. Unreal, and smh.

-----

Thank you all for the heartfelt feedback.

I’d like to address a few points that have been raised.

0) Differences between the 3d products + mkIV products:
The mkIV products are based on the final 3d Card HW we shipped as upgrades and as part of the 3d Unit. The ULN-8/LIO-8 3d products are final hardware, just as we said.

The ULN-8/LIO-8 3d are fully supported now, and for the foreseeable future. The differences between the new mkIV products and the previous generation is all in the analog board design, and we have been shipping the previous generation analog board design for 12 years as a finalized design.

The Preamps, 3d Card (digital core), Front Panel, and power supply are unchanged from the previous generation. The mkIV analog board has new converters (both A/D and D/A, and new analog circuitry. See below for why these changes were made.

Every mkIV product page has a section that specifically calls out what is different between the new boxes and the previous generation:

mhsecure.com/products/mkIV/ULN8mkIV.html#differences
mhsecure.com/products/mkIV/LIO8mkIV.html#differences
mhsecure.com/products/mkIV/LIO8-4pmkIV.html#differences

1) Shipping a new product.

I’m sure that most of you are aware of the fact that AKM had a fire last year, which destroyed all of their inventory and the fab, with at least 18 months before there would be replacement parts and no firm commitment that they would actually bring back any specific part.

All of our products were based on AKM converters, so we had no choice but to redesign the analog/converter board for our products - the only other alternative would have been to simply stop shipping units.

Independent of the AKM situation, the entire electronics supply chain is incredibly challenging right now, and it is pretty much impossible to make projections of when we will get parts - independent of whether or not the engineering on a product is done.

We have suppliers who have year+ lead times on parts, or are simply not accepting orders. Suppliers are de-committing on confirmed orders (e.g. either re-scheduling deliveries that they had already committed to or cancelling orders).

Based on the experience with making projections on 3d and the backlash that we faced when our performance did not meet certain customers expectations, we decided (and we have explained this in the past on this thread) that we would no longer make forward looking announcements; when we had a completed product, with stock, in house, ready to ship, that’s when we would announce. And that’s what we did for mkIV.

2) What else is in the pipeline?
In view of the proceeding, we are not ready to comment on that. But I think a reasonable question has been raised in the sense that having launched mkIV, it is reasonable to wonder if we be coming out with anything else imminently that would have changed your perspective on purchasing a new mkIV unit now.

Given the state of our supply chain, unless something changes substantially, I don’t see us shipping any new interface models before next summer (2022). If we can possibly speed that up, we will, but the state of the entire global supply chain would have to improve suddenly, dramatically and soon for us to be able to launch any new interface before next summer.

So, we expect to be shipping the following HW products between now and next summer:

Shipping now:
- ULN-8 mkIV
- LIO-8 mkIV
- LIO-8/4p mkIV

Shipping soonish (when the new run of boards are built)
- mkIV Analog + Mute board upgrade for ULN-8
- mkIV Analog + Mute board upgrade for LIO-8
- Mute-board upgrade for existing ULN-8/LIO-8 3d Units

3) GM on the 3d Software. As far as we are concerned, the 3d Software is “Early Access” status because it is missing certain functions that were present in the original 2d software. We are working to get those features restored by Nov 7th. Maybe we’ll miss that goal - making projections is hard.

In the meantime we have been addressing issues that have confronted users, added features far beyond what was in 2d, and maintained our drivers across 4 major system releases and a system architecture change (e.g. Apple Silicon) with functioning software and drivers ready on day 1 for every OS release and new machine shipment, with no upgrade fees, maintenance programs or forced obsolescence; all while providing the users who decided to jump in to the system before it was feature complete with significant discounts.

In any case, as far as launching mkIV goes - as I mention above, the choices were: migrate to new hardware or stop shipping hardware. All the software development work is funded by the sales of hardware; so I think the choice was clear and made in the best interests of our existing customers as well as new ones.

B.J. Buchalter
Metric Halo
www.mhlabs.com

Yeah, totally killer that MH is still committed to making their boxes upgradeable, and you're right that this is the first time the analog board can be upgraded. The fact that it's all field serviceable just continues to rock every time.

Well, I just wanted to publicly note here that BJ reached out to me this morning (at no prompting from me) after seeing this thread and a couple of comments I made on the GS thread. He was super kind and generous, and wanted to let me know that DAW RTL performance is something they are aware of and that they are actively working to address. It has understandably been lower on the list than overall stability and a few other features, but four big points:

• They understand the issue and its importance
• They have a plan to address it
• They are working towards a real solution
• It's pretty high priority for MH

If someone gets the MKIV and is able to shootout its AD against the 3D and any other high end AD converters with some posted recordings that would be much appreciated! DA would be cool to shootout too. Excited to hear what MH has come up with...