Sorry to read your misfortune.
Althought this is very sad that upgrade possibilities are sliming down or that prices stay high, I wouldn't be as arsh on them as you, unless the product do not deliver the quality audio or stability we would expect from Apogee.

I'd be curious as to what would be your favorite alternative product.
I'm a long time RME happy user but at some point I may need to step up my setup...

Sorry to hear that Todd. BUT, Being the recording genius you are it's just a bad itch to scratch and the company be damned! I still have my old 200 / 196. It's been relegated to the standalone converter for the Eleven rack so I can drop it in in analog for a no latency experience when tracking stuff.....I got it with a ProTools HD card so ...is it out of date?? Uh..yeah....does it work? Like a champ...

Well, the master plan was to be able to upgrade modules over time and Apogee explicitly advertised the system as "future proof," so I now consider them an untrustworthy company. It may not be a huge deal, since I typically only need more than two channels only when I'm recording drums or a whole band. Still, I was hoping to expand this baby at some point when finances allowed, and that looks unlikely.

My secondary unit, that I slave into the Apogee for channels 3-10, is an old MOTU 896HD upgraded by the folks at Black Lion.

Todzilla, post: 450527, member: 11932 wrote: Still, I was hoping to expand this baby at some point when finances allowed, and that looks unlikely.

You never know, when you're ready, you may find used units and modules since I'm sure you're not the only one in the situation and others may want to switch to another product...
Also, you may communicate with apogee and expose your problem. They might offer a trade in...

This is unfortunate. When you base a purchase - and sometimes an expensive one - on the premise that it will be flexible and that you'll be able to expand on it in the future, only to find out you can't, yeah, that one stings.
I think we've all learned by now - some of us the hard way, unfortunately - that there isn't anything that is truly "future proof".
Funny though, how some gear that is approaching 60 years old can still be used without any difficulty at all. Through all the high tech changes that have occurred, many pieces are still totally viable today - some even highly sought after.
I would have expected more out of Apogee.
Have you been in contact with them about this? Probably they wouldn't do anything to help, nor would they care, but it's worth a shot to at least let them know that they've lost a customer. I find it hard to believe that you'd be the only one feeling frustrated about this.
Gawd....LOL (I'm not laughing at you, Todd, I do feel your frustration )... I was just thinking how Kurt (Kurt Foster ) would react to this thread. And in 3...2...1...
;)

DonnyThompson, post: 450551, member: 46114 wrote: I was just thinking how Kurt (Kurt Foster ) would react to this thread. And in 3...2...1...
;)

yeah, i saw this yesterday. i'm not one for rubbing salt into a wound so all i will offer is, it sucks ..... and that's all i have to say about that.

Todzilla, post: 450527, member: 11932 wrote: Well, the master plan was to be able to upgrade modules over time and Apogee explicitly advertised the system as "future proof," so I now consider them an untrustworthy company. It may not be a huge deal, since I typically only need more than two channels only when I'm recording drums or a whole band. Still, I was hoping to expand this baby at some point when finances allowed, and that looks unlikely.

My secondary unit, that I slave into the Apogee for channels 3-10, is an old MOTU 896HD upgraded by the folks at Black Lion.

I bought a computer advertised as "easy to upgrade" that had a propietary plug for the motherboard and psu. Making it impossible to upgrade either individually. Many people who bought the computer were angry as I was about this, since Psu is one of the first most common upgrades to a computer.

I think it's lame that apogee and UA both came out with mk2 versions of their interfaces very quickly after the first. I barely finished installing an Apollo in my cousins studio and the new mk2 came out with its improved comverters and other minor tweaks.

Wether it's cell phones, software, or hardware, companies really should be more open about when new products are due. Otherwise it's really unfair to expect the average soundguy to do market anylisis, and technology trends of the future.

For instance, mytek told me last fall that this fall they're expecting to release the new 8ch interface. The current (10yr old) model is still available full price. Though mytek did tell me last year they offer upgrade discounts and trade ins, if I needed something right away.

I love the sound of the apogee Rosetta. I just don't like my comverters dictating which OS I need to use, which can limit software selection, and limit extreme hardware configurations like large Ram capacities.

To be honest Todd I think you have every right to be angry. It's very deceptive advertising.

kmetal, post: 450567, member: 37533 wrote: To be honest Todd I think you have every right to be angry.

imo it behooves manufacturers to support legacy pieces. at least in the high end. i can understand a cycle of planned obsolescence on a box that cost 50 bucks new but the more expensive pieces come to many of us at a dear cost. not all of us are clearing over 200k a year. we're "artists". what's so hard to understand about that?

Kurt Foster, post: 450590, member: 7836 wrote: imo it behooves manufacturers to support legacy pieces. at least in the high end. i can understand a cycle of planned obsolescence on a box that cost 50 bucks new but the more expensive pieces come to many of us at a dear cost. not all of us are clearing over 200k a year. we're "artists". what's so hard to understand about that?

This makes me think of a TV commercial that's currently running (I still watch over-the-air). The insurance company says, "You chose the wrong insurance plan." The customer says, "No, I chose the wrong insurance company."

Kurt Foster, post: 450590, member: 7836 wrote: imo it behooves manufacturers to support legacy pieces. at least in the high end. i can understand a cycle of planned obsolescence on a box that cost 50 bucks new but the more expensive pieces come to many of us at a dear cost. not all of us are clearing over 200k a year. we're "artists". what's so hard to understand about that?

Totally. And the symphony is their flagship unit, there's no excuses at that level of gear.

bouldersound, post: 450600, member: 38959 wrote: This makes me think of a TV commercial that's currently running (I still watch over-the-air). The insurance company says, "You chose the wrong insurance plan." The customer says, "No, I chose the wrong insurance company."

I've heard these complaints about antelope. I'm surprised by the symphony since apogee doesn't have a history of this that I'm aware of. I know when things went from 32 to 64 bit OS, my boss had to get a new pcie card for the Rosetta, but he could at least still use the Rosetta he had.

Kurt Foster, post: 450590, member: 7836 wrote: imo it behooves manufacturers to support legacy pieces. at least in the high end. i can understand a cycle of planned obsolescence on a box that cost 50 bucks new but the more expensive pieces come to many of us at a dear cost. not all of us are clearing over 200k a year. we're "artists". what's so hard to understand about that?

I understand that it can be difficult to anticipate every single tech advancement, especially in the age that we live in, where things can move -or seem to move -so fast.
But smart minds at these companies have got to figure out a way to anticipate changes and advances in technology and support these changes.
As Kurt said, its one thing to be locked into obsolescence if you buy a piece of gear for $50-$100, but quite another to shell out thousands of dollars on a piece, especially if that gear is being touted as "future proof"- and - particularly if that fool-proof factor is being built into the price when you buy that piece.

I have a buddy who purchased a Roland multichannel I/O that was designed to be used with Sonar. This wasn't all that long ago, either; maybe three years ago, and after one of the recent W10 updates, he discovered that his system wasn't recognizing the Roland device anymore. He went to the Roland/Sonar forum to see if he could perhaps get support from other users, only to find that others were having the same issues. He contacted Roland to see if there were updated drivers available, and was told "not at this time". He then asked if there was going to be an update written to work with the latest W10 update, and was told that there were no plans to write new drivers... no patch updates, nothing. So now, he's got a piece he paid over $1000 for that's completely useless, and unless he keeps rolling back his W10 OS to a previous version, he can't use the device.
I don't believe Windows can be blamed for this, they are going to continue writing their OS updates, so the responsibility falls on the device manufacturer to upgrade/re-code their drivers so that their device will work with the current OS changes.
He spends around 2-3k a year on gear; I would seriously doubt if he would ever purchase anything made by Roland ever again. Will Roland miss his money? Probably not, he's just one guy with a limited budget, a home recording songwriter... they don't care about him. But if you multiply that by a hundred other dissatisfied customers - or maybe even a thousand, it starts to add up.
These companies don't realize the disservice they are doing to themselves. They are shooting themselves in the foot, because there's another advantage to technology these days - it's the ability for people to talk to each other, forums where thousands of people gather (and even more who are lurking) who are reading and researching and talking about what these companies are doing to their customer base.
So whether it's Apogee, or Roland... the word gets out sooner or later, and these days, it's a lot sooner than they think. ;)

IMO
-d