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When a Software Upgrade Renders Your Equipment Useless (Rant)


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Well, Chord Electronics is one such high end company that stopped USB driver development very shortly after their Qute EX was discontinued, only to be replaced by the 2Qute which is 2.0 compliant. The QuteHD was released in 2012 btw, followed by the EX in 2014. Pretty shitty for those of us stuck with a Yosemite driver.

 

Older Chord products use USB interface licensed from M2Tech - which is same as the first hiFace. Driver for these is included in the official Linux kernel and thus should work for quite a while to the future too.

 

If you want to use a player on Mac and output to such DAC, solution is to use for example NAA with it. I just tested and my good'ol M2Tech hiFace works with microRendu as a NAA. Of course it should work with the other microRendu functions too.

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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Older Chord products use USB interface licensed from M2Tech - which is same as the first hiFace. Driver for these is included in the official Linux kernel and thus should work for quite a while to the future too.

 

If you want to use a player on Mac and output to such DAC, solution is to use for example NAA with it. I just tested and my good'ol M2Tech hiFace works with microRendu as a NAA. Of course it should work with the other microRendu functions too.

 

Well, it's my understanding Chord hired away the driver guy from M2Tech to work on theirs exclusively. IIRC that was after Mavericks was released. Obviously Yosemite was next and that was the last driver that was developed. Didn't work for me in El Capitan. Haven't bothered to check since Sierra.

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I agree that it is frustrating to find that your device is no longer supported but if you use something which requires a custom driver don't you have a responsibility to check to be sure the driver is available before upgrading your OS?

Nvidia ION running JRiver 21 on Win 7

- USB to Firestone Audio Bravo USB to SPDIF Converter. Optical to miniDSP NanoDigi eq/crossover. SPDIF to 2 Cambridge Audio DacMagics. Analogue to Audio Refinement Pre-5 to 2 M&K V-75 powered subwoofers & Audio Refinement Multi-2 power amp to Focal Chorus 716s.

- Intel NUC on Win 10 as JRiver 21 DLNA renderer. USB to Breeze Audio DU-U8 USB to SPDIF converter. SPDIF to Anthem MRX-520. Mirage OMD-5: left, right & surrounds. Mirage OMD-C1: center. SVS-SB-2000: subwoofer.

- Raspberry Pi2 with HifiBerry Dac+Pro on Volumio DLNA renderer to Rega Mira 3 to Dali Zensor 1s.

- Raspberry Pi2 with HifiBerry Dac+Standard on Volumio DLNA renderer to NAD 312 to PSB Alphas.

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I agree that it is frustrating to find that your device is no longer supported but if you use something which requires a custom driver don't you have a responsibility to check to be sure the driver is available before upgrading your OS?

On a small scale, yes. But in the larger picture, computers die and new computers are purchased with new operating systems. There is more to this than a single user not updating his OS.

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

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On a small scale, yes. But in the larger picture, computers die and new computers are purchased with new operating systems. There is more to this than a single user not updating his OS.

 

This issue goes way beyond audio. I've been burned by NAS dying with no way to access disks -- that's one of the reasons I've become more of a fan of Linux / FOSS over time -- you aren't prevented from downgrading or for example ZFS filesystem, have been able to migrate from Solaris to OpenIndiana to Ubuntu

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

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It's frustrating, I agree but the OP decided to put a new OS on his PC and that's what prompted me to respond the way that I did.

 

To the larger point which you address, if I bought new tires for my car and the motor crapped out on me, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that I can put those tires on my replacement car.

Nvidia ION running JRiver 21 on Win 7

- USB to Firestone Audio Bravo USB to SPDIF Converter. Optical to miniDSP NanoDigi eq/crossover. SPDIF to 2 Cambridge Audio DacMagics. Analogue to Audio Refinement Pre-5 to 2 M&K V-75 powered subwoofers & Audio Refinement Multi-2 power amp to Focal Chorus 716s.

- Intel NUC on Win 10 as JRiver 21 DLNA renderer. USB to Breeze Audio DU-U8 USB to SPDIF converter. SPDIF to Anthem MRX-520. Mirage OMD-5: left, right & surrounds. Mirage OMD-C1: center. SVS-SB-2000: subwoofer.

- Raspberry Pi2 with HifiBerry Dac+Pro on Volumio DLNA renderer to Rega Mira 3 to Dali Zensor 1s.

- Raspberry Pi2 with HifiBerry Dac+Standard on Volumio DLNA renderer to NAD 312 to PSB Alphas.

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It's frustrating, I agree but the OP decided to put a new OS on his PC and that's what prompted me to respond the way that I did.

 

To the larger point which you address, if I bought new tires for my car and the motor crapped out on me, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that I can put those tires on my replacement car.

 

Not a Jeep person apparently - I would definitely expect to find a way to use those tires...

 

-Paul

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat DAC.

Robert A. Heinlein

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I agree that it is frustrating to find that your device is no longer supported but if you use something which requires a custom driver don't you have a responsibility to check to be sure the driver is available before upgrading your OS?

 

Responsibility? Interesting take on that. I felt blindsided the 1st time the Chord driver broke. In fact, I think a lot of us were surprised and very disappointed. Big lesson learned. That being said, in Chord's case, they sold a boatload of their Qute HD and EX series DACs and stopped USB driver support only after a couple of years. IMO that is a lousy way to do business. They most certainly lost me as a customer and I sincerely doubt they care.

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At some point it got a hardware upgrade. I had that TT and that's not the original arm; it looks like a Premier MMT. Nice combo!

 

It is a newer version of the MMT made by the same folks that made the MMt, Jelco. Good solid arm.

 

PS. This table was sold originally without tonearm but a lot of SME's made their way onto it.

David

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It is a newer version of the MMT made by the same folks that made the MMt, Jelco. Good solid arm.

 

PS. This table was sold originally without tonearm but a lot of SME's made their way onto it.

 

Thanks for your reply. I realized only after posting that I had the 272 while yours is a 121. Mine had a factory arm.

 

I once had an MMT on a "new generation" AR table and really liked it with a Grace F9.

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Well, it's my understanding Chord hired away the driver guy from M2Tech to work on theirs exclusively. IIRC that was after Mavericks was released. Obviously Yosemite was next and that was the last driver that was developed. Didn't work for me in El Capitan. Haven't bothered to check since Sierra.

 

Switch to Linux and worry less... My hiFace is perfectly usable still with latest Linux versions. :)

 

But Apple has especially bad habit of breaking compatibility with lot of hardware/software products over time.

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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It's frustrating, I agree but the OP decided to put a new OS on his PC and that's what prompted me to respond the way that I did.

 

To the larger point which you address, if I bought new tires for my car and the motor crapped out on me, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that I can put those tires on my replacement car.

 

At some point in time, one is more or less forced to upgrade the OS. The larger issue here is, in my opinion, a company manufacturing and selling a product on the market, and less than 3 years later that product no longer operates on the dominant OS in the market, because they aren't interested in producing an up-to-date driver. We are not talking about an out-of-date product that is a decade or more old; this is a product I purchased new from the manufacturer LESS THAN 3 YEARS AGO! Hell will freeze over before I consider buying one of their products in the future.

Jeff

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"To the larger point which you address, if I bought new tires for my car and the motor crapped out on me, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that I can put those tires on my replacement car."

 

And by the way, that's a garbage analogy.

Jeff

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I have an ALO Audio Island headphone amplifier. Once I upgraded my laptop to Windows 10, The Island no longer worked. So I went to the ALO website, hoping that there is an upgraded driver for Windows 10. But there's nothing on their website regarding tech support, downloads, etc. So, I searched around and found a contact phone number. I called multiple times and got no answer, each time leaving a voicemail and my number. Never got a return call. So I kept calling, and finally today, someone picked up the phone, and it went like this:

 

Me: I have The Island headphone amp, and when I upgraded my laptop to Windows 10, my Island stopped working.

ALO: The Island had been discontinued, and isn't supported for Windows 10.

 

Me: Are there plans for developing a driver that will work with Windows 10?

ALO: No.

 

Me: Do you know of any 3rd-party driver solutions, or any solution at all I can look for?

ALO: No, I'm afraid not.

 

Me: So, basically what you're telling me is, this piece of equipment I bought from you not all that long ago is now just a paperweight.

ALO: I'm sorry, but yes.

 

This is so infuriating to me. I realize The Island isn't a very expensive piece of equipment. I love this hobby, but I'm not a wealthy person, and I'm not one who updates my equipment every time a new product comes to market. I also have what I think are reasonable expectations regarding the lifespan of audio equipment. But I purchased this headphone amp only about two or three years ago, and for it to be rendered useless because the company chooses to not develop a driver for a Windows upgrade is very frustrating.

 

I, for one, won't be considering any future purchases from ALO Audio. In the computer audio age, if your company won't update drivers to keep up with Windows upgrades, to keep the equipment operable, you won't get my business in the future.

 

Am I being unreasonable here?

 

Also, is there a solution available of which I am unaware? Thanks.

 

I had the same issue with my soundcard, it wasn't compatible with windows 10, i searched the net and found someone posted a simple workaround. Have you searched?

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Switch to Linux and worry less... My hiFace is perfectly usable still with latest Linux versions. :)

 

But Apple has especially bad habit of breaking compatibility with lot of hardware/software products over time.

 

Seriously? Your proof here other than apparently Macs are very expensive where you live? :)

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat DAC.

Robert A. Heinlein

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Seriously? Your proof here other than apparently Macs are very expensive where you live? :)

 

I don't know if Macs are expensive here or not, we have three. And I don't know how it is relevant. But as we've seen that for example audio device drivers commonly break on new macOS releases. And same happens for example all the time with Nvidia CUDA support/toolkit as result of either macOS update or Xcode update.

 

But the point is that once you get your driver to be part of the Linux kernel, it stays there for very long time with very little effort. Usually when someone breaks something there, the one who introduces the breakage also needs to fix it. So there are lot of drivers for hardware where the manufacturer has already gone extinct or lost interest.

 

Some examples from sound devices:

- Gravis Ultrasound (ISA sound cards from early 90's, the company disappeared in 1997 as result of acquisition)

- Aureal sound cards (PCI cards from late 90's, company went bankrupt in 2000 after Creative Labs sued them)

- Aztech sound cards (for example ones based on AZF3328)

- Terratec DMX 6Fire

- M2Tech hiFace 1

- Digigram VXpocket

...

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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Seriously? Your proof here other than apparently Macs are very expensive where you live? :)

 

Apple has long very publicly had a policy of obsolescing software and hardware more rapidly than Microsoft, for example.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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I don't know if Macs are expensive here or not, we have three. And I don't know how it is relevant. But as we've seen that for example audio device drivers commonly break on new macOS releases. And same happens for example all the time with Nvidia CUDA support/toolkit as result of either macOS update or Xcode update.

 

But the point is that once you get your driver to be part of the Linux kernel, it stays there for very long time with very little effort. Usually when someone breaks something there, the one who introduces the breakage also needs to fix it. So there are lot of drivers for hardware where the manufacturer has already gone extinct or lost interest.

 

Some examples from sound devices:

- Gravis Ultrasound (ISA sound cards from early 90's, the company disappeared in 1997 as result of acquisition)

- Aureal sound cards (PCI cards from late 90's, company went bankrupt in 2000 after Creative Labs sued them)

- Aztech sound cards (for example ones based on AZF3328)

- Terratec DMX 6Fire

- M2Tech hiFace 1

- Digigram VXpocket

...

 

We had that conversation before, and if things are still the same, Macs are crazy expensive where you live. I was joshing you a bit there.

 

On the other paw, I see your point about Linux, but I do not think it is substantially better or worse than with Macs or Windows machines. I had loads of driver grief when Linux switched from 31 or 32 bit to 64.

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat DAC.

Robert A. Heinlein

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Apple has long very publicly had a policy of obsolescing software and hardware more rapidly than Microsoft, for example.

 

Not exactly - Apple adopts new hardware, and then publishes they are going to stop providing older hardware, but support for that older hardware usually goes on for a long time.

 

The last Macbooks with DVD drives were still being sold 18 months ago, and you can still easily buy a DVD drive for any Mac from Apple. You can also share the DVD drive in any Mac with another Mac over a network. Built in, and fully supported.

 

You can in fact, attach an ancient SCSI drive (with an appropriate connector) to a modern Mac and read the data off it. I would think that the much hyped "Apple abandons support for hardware faster than anyone else" is pretty much nonsense.

 

In the Audiophile world, driven mostly by the HiFace fuss about the Italians not updating their drivers in a timely manner.

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat DAC.

Robert A. Heinlein

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Not exactly - Apple adopts new hardware, and then publishes they are going to stop providing older hardware, but support for that older hardware usually goes on for a long time.

 

The last Macbooks with DVD drives were still being sold 18 months ago, and you can still easily buy a DVD drive for any Mac from Apple. You can also share the DVD drive in any Mac with another Mac over a network. Built in, and fully supported.

 

You can in fact, attach an ancient SCSI drive (with an appropriate connector) to a modern Mac and read the data off it. I would think that the much hyped "Apple abandons support for hardware faster than anyone else" is pretty much nonsense.

 

In the Audiophile world, driven mostly by the HiFace fuss about the Italians not updating their drivers in a timely manner.

 

I'm not criticizing them for what have in most instances turned out to be trend setting moves that were eventually followed by others (and this also extends to such things as adopting USB Audio 2.0 standards/drivers into the OS years before MS), but there are floppy disks, silver disks, a couple of different iterations of MagSafe connectors and USB ports being replaced by USB-C, FireWire replaced by Thunderbolt, 30-pin connector for iPhone replaced by Lightning, and now no miniplug port....

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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I don't know if Macs are expensive here or not, we have three. And I don't know how it is relevant. But as we've seen that for example audio device drivers commonly break on new macOS releases. And same happens for example all the time with Nvidia CUDA support/toolkit as result of either macOS update or Xcode update.

 

But the point is that once you get your driver to be part of the Linux kernel, it stays there for very long time with very little effort. Usually when someone breaks something there, the one who introduces the breakage also needs to fix it. So there are lot of drivers for hardware where the manufacturer has already gone extinct or lost interest.

 

Some examples from sound devices:

- Gravis Ultrasound (ISA sound cards from early 90's, the company disappeared in 1997 as result of acquisition)

- Aureal sound cards (PCI cards from late 90's, company went bankrupt in 2000 after Creative Labs sued them)

- Aztech sound cards (for example ones based on AZF3328)

- Terratec DMX 6Fire

- M2Tech hiFace 1

- Digigram VXpocket

...

 

 

See. ... This is the point. Miska is a computer genius. There are other folks here who are computer experts. Their posts read like code.

 

"Oh I use the FUGU 63 with a VXpocket and then plug in a Fishback and Teratec DMX 6Fire and, oh yes, the AXF3328" This is incomprehensible to the guy who just wants his expensive purchase to work.

 

Computer Audio is for serious hobbyists - may they enjoy their hobby.

 

Digital Audio, however, should work all the time anytime without the drama. (IMO)

In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake ~ Sayre's Law

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We had that conversation before, and if things are still the same, Macs are crazy expensive where you live. I was joshing you a bit there.

 

I think the Euro pricing is the same across Europe, just VAT percentage varies by country. Finland has 24% VAT, which is among the highest. (Sweden (25%), Denmark (25%), Norway (25%), Croatia (25%) and Hungary (27%) have higher VAT rate)

 

On the other paw, I see your point about Linux, but I do not think it is substantially better or worse than with Macs or Windows machines. I had loads of driver grief when Linux switched from 31 or 32 bit to 64.

 

The major difference is who is doing the driver maintenance. For Mac/Windows the device manufacturer is doing driver maintenance in most cases. On Linux it is mostly someone else, plus the driver source code is available. Nvidia and AMD have their own closed-source Linux drivers, but for both there's an open source alternative too. For example for Intel GPUs, network interfaces, etc. the Linux drivers are open source and developed by Intel.

 

Also there is no way for some hardware manufacturer to get their driver included in macOS, unless Apple begins to use that particular piece of hardware for their own products. On Windows, it is possible, especially since Windows 10. For Linux, getting your device driver included in Linux kernel is not that hard, although you have to be prepared for tight scrutiny on code review/quality/style. That is also an advantage, because it is much harder to get crap included, because everybody can see how you've done your work.

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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