Maybe the built-in effects tie-in with Cubase was putting off purchasers who use other DAWs? Odd, but sometimes having a feature that you can’t use is worse than not having the feature at all. If they continue to receive updated drivers along with the MR816X, though, maybe it would be worth it to buy one of them on clearance. Maybe someone from Steinberg can answer. Will they continue to receiving driver support for new operating systems alongside the MR816X updates?
Ah, now we’ll see how SB and Yamaha arg going to handle their end game for this ‘new’ hardware business…
Ideally I’d like to see 5 more years of OS driver support for he 816 csx and continued integration into Cubase/Nuendo. I’d probably be philosophical if we got 3 years.
But I’m worried that they’ll want to end it quickly … especially due to it’s Firewire foundation. That’s been my past experience with Yamaha but maybe the SB/Yamaha combination will realize that this is where their reputation as a serious hardware platform will be built. It’s not how many new gizmos you can pump out, but how much value they give users over time… and that demands ongoing support past the date the units stop shipping.
Of course we are continuing to sell and provide full customer support for the MR816 CSX as it is one of our great FireWire audio interfaces.
This also means that we will keep on offering maintenance updates for your convenience.
However, it turned out that few distributors decided to streamline their supply of Steinberg products by discontinuing the local availability of some products such as the MR816 CSX. For these regions the MR816 X remains available through the retail channel.
I hope this information leaves you with a sense of security regarding our product sustainability.