Qu series near EOL?

[litti]

I bet I’m not the only one thinking aabout this, as it’s been ages since the last firmware upgrade : is the Qu series approaching its end of life?

[volounteer]

@litti

personally I think the Qu will fill a useful niche for a long time
but that depends on the market demand and the competition so it might end sooner than I expect

I see our device running for many more years even if they come out with newer ones
unless they put some kind of timebomb in the firmware to force us to change like one amateur company did with some pc software we used and that I do NOT think AH would even consider doing unlike that very small company run by a couple of amateurs

But in the middle run we will be moving to some newer AH device to replace the old Qu as nothing lasts forever

[litti]

bumping this in hope to get a reply from the admins

[volounteer]

@litti

I suspect they will give you the same non committal answer they always have about dates of things happening.

[KeithJ A&H]

Hi @litti ,

At V1.95 and including all the interim releases, the Qu series has had more firmware updates than any other digital console we’ve ever produced.
So it may not have had an update for a while, and there is nothing imminently planned, but that doesn’t equate to being EOL’d.
Every product will get to the point where demand drops of course, or it’s no longer up to the job, but neither of these apply to the Qu.
They are still probably the easiest digital consoles to learn (and teach) on the market, especially if coming from analogue, and instead of being a flash-in-the-pan, they’ve turned into a kind of staple-workhorse-utility console for many (being reliable, fanless and solidly built – we’ve seen people using and abusing them every day for years now!).
A comment I see quite a bit online actually is “just get a Qu…”, which is pretty cool.

So no, no EOL until engineers and venues stop buying them!

Cheers,
Keith.

[MarkPAman]

< Written before I’d seen Kieth’s post >

My guess is that we’ll not see any more firmware updates, but that the Qu series will continue to be made for a long time to come (until A&H have a new product to take its place). But I could be completely wrong!

I’m sure it will continue to be supported for a long time after it becomes EOL.

[litti]

Thanks for the replies, I just hope that a new firmware update introduces hi-pass possibility on outputs

[MarkPAman]

You are not alone in wanting that! 😉

[fxk]

It’s like choosing a mate – people are pretty well set in their ways long before you meet them. So many people get into a relationship and turn the other into a “project” to meet their needs. That never works.

Buying into a console line hoping that some new release will give the things one dreams of is as futile as getting into a relationship as a project.

We’ve all dreamed of the QU with off-line editor, downward expanders, the ability to daisy chain consoles, use the QU-SB as a stagebox, and the list goes on. Don’t hold your breath. Remember, software updates either fix problems, or offers new features. One is needed, the other is not. Both cost money, yet we expect A&H and others to improve the software gratis. Good way to lose a company. Although many of those things are on my wish list, I still can put a decent show together using a QU series mixer as is.

The QU is what it is. If you need something else, buy something else.

As far as EOL…
EOL happens when the whiz-kids can produce something for a market segment that outperforms the current product at a cheaper production cost.

EOL is about repair and support, or lack thereof.

[volounteer]

@litti

I doubt it.
Market forces may cause the price to come down, but the Qu is a solid device that will last a long time.

OTOH market forces might force more features at that segment to compete so the SQ may come down a level as new gear happens and the Qu pushes into the FX market range.

Running out of updates says they finally got it all done right. So why start over by replacing it?
Use that polish with an incentive to buy like discount for new users, or some freebie and the Qu could last a long time.

I would expect that they are looking at all options at all levels of the market and are busy working on the next devices for what they see as the most profitable segment to compete in.

And as always they are not going to tell you their plans until they announce something .

This is a tough game and they have to be better at picking features and price point along with marketing and support for anything new in order to keep succeeding.

[nzsimon]

As a distributor I fully expected the QU to die when the SQ was released. Funnily enough while sales of SQ took off so did sales of Qu

[Mike C]

As a distributor I fully expected the QU to die when the SQ was released. Funnily enough while sales of SQ took off so did sales of Qu

Two different boards, price points, features, not everyone needs what an SQ offers in their given application and in some cases the extra features would just get in the way.

[Author]

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