M-9 and M-5

[bigolsparky]

First of all, for the money these are both great units.  I had an M-5 and an HD500 and was looking to get smaller for my acoustic gig, so I bought an M-9 to replace both.  Size and function for the M-9 are great and it functionally is a great replacement for me.

 

My beef with the M-9 and M-5 is as follows.

 

I purchased the M-9 used (E-Bay) and the power supply was DOA.

 

The power supply is huge (bigger than the 3 amp power supply for my HD500) I bought Velcro to secure the new transformer to my pedalboard.

 

My real beef is that Line 6 utilizes midi connections to update firmware.  Not only that, but in order to update the firmware, I am required to buy a specific midi cable from a third party in order to perform the update.  Line 6 should take a lesson from it's competitors on firmware updates.  Instructing customers to buy a third party's hardware is a testament to their support. 

 

My opinion: Support your own product with your own hardware.

 

 

 

[phil_m]

My real beef is that Line 6 utilizes midi connections to update firmware.  Not only that, but in order to update the firmware, I am required to buy a specific midi cable from a third party in order to perform the update.  Line 6 should take a lesson from it's competitors on firmware updates.  Instructing customers to buy a third party's hardware is a testament to their support.

 

I understand your frustration, to a degree. I would only push back a little and say that a lot of Line 6's competitors are still using MIDI for updates. TC Electronic and Strymon to name a couple, and I'm sure there's some more. Going the USB route is generally more convenient, I agree. It would be nice to have that on the M9. It's no guarantee for a frustration-free update experience, though. Looking at the forums for the products that use USB will show you that pretty quickly. The one thing that's nice with MIDI is that it's an established robust protocol in the musical equipment world that works across a large variety of equipment.