M20d Price Drop... :(

[altorna]

This year, the retail price for the M20d has dropped $500.  For those of us who paid last year's price, its disappointing.  I understand that the price needs to reflect the market.  But dropping the price was not the only option.  The M20d is a powerful platform.  Upgrading the operating system to add more value could create more interest and breathe  new life into the product line. 

What do you guys think?

[silverhead]

I think that Yamaha, who purchased Line 6 after the Llive Sound products (StageScape and StageSource) were released, has killed further development of these products in favour of their own competing products, perhaps integrating some Line 6 technology into Yamaha products. But that's just my opinion.

[Rewolf48]

Are you sure this isn't a local price reduction? I am not seeing this in the UK/Europe except for Andertons.

I don't disagree that an update would be very useful (especially one that allow it to be used as a recording interface by switching off mixing functions in return for minimum latency), but I think I recall some comment from Frank Ritchotte where the target market for Yamaha gear would be the sound engineer while Line 6 equipment would be for the self contained band. This left the M20d or a replacement still open for future development.

[mikegant]

The product has inherent problems. The forum discusses many of these, and common sense would suggest they don't sell because of reliability issues. I own one, and I love the concept, i just wish i could rely on the product.

[Smiffy]

Yamaha have put all the "ball park" presets on their TF range which came out a while after they purchased Line 6. I found the move to it real easy, but it does a whole lot more and the build quality seems good.

[ColonelForbin]

Yeah; I just ordered another one from Sweetwater; it will be here tomorrow. And they are currently on sale for addtl $200 off; now $599 new....

(And with 48mos. financing)

 

I paid full price for the first one I bought in 2014. It is now been acting up alot lately; random horrible feedback on all channels; sound dropouts.

 

I have had to power off and back on to get the sound to come back. The feed back thing is horrible. You go to adjust one of the gain trims and everything goes crazy screaming feedback.  

 

It seems to have an issue with sensing the location of the trim position; or something I dunno.

 

The new price seems to indicate it's close out time.. Not sure!

 

Hope the new one lasts as long as this one did.. At least it's covered for two years with SW... Might try to get the old one refurbished. 

 

Cheers!

[scotterp]

I bought a second unit used (hardly) for just over $500 about a year ago - before these low prices appeared -  as a backup for my main unit which I have had since 2013 or so. It is only used a couple times a month (although not lately) but I have only had one issue where one channel was doing the same as described by @ColonelForbin. I had another open channel so moved it over. 

 

Had a friend look into it and perform the "grounding" soldering as described by someone in this forum a couple years ago. It has not acted up since. But I always have the backup available just in case. 

[godsaxe]

I am about to purchase the M20D at the $599 price point.  The only thing holding me back is the limited PC to M20D digital to analog playback. 

 

I want to run a click track and backing tracks from PC/Mac but the M20D seems to only have 2 channels on USB for that?  

 

Any thoughts or experience with simultaneous backing track playback and recording with the M20D?

[silverhead]

The M20d does perform well as an audio interface for recording directly to a PC/DAW. It does perform well as an audio output device for playback of PC audio, so you can use it to play along with your PC-generated click track and backing tracks, but you won’t be able to record your play-along and have it sync’ed with the backing track. There is too much latency.

 

You can also pre-load your backing tracks onto a USB/SD media device and play those using the M20d without your PC connected. This wouldn’t give you a real-time click track though, and there would be no simultaneous recording.

 

The. bottom line is: The M20d is not designed to be an audio interface for recording.

[ColonelForbin]

On 6/16/2020 at 7:44 PM, ColonelForbin said:

Yeah; I just ordered another one from Sweetwater; it will be here tomorrow. And they are currently on sale for addtl $200 off; now $599 new....

(And with 48mos. financing)

 

I paid full price for the first one I bought in 2014. It is now been acting up alot lately; random horrible feedback on all channels; sound dropouts.

 

I have had to power off and back on to get the sound to come back. The feed back thing is horrible. You go to adjust one of the gain trims and everything goes crazy screaming feedback.  

 

It seems to have an issue with sensing the location of the trim position; or something I dunno.

 

The new price seems to indicate it's close out time.. Not sure!

 

Hope the new one lasts as long as this one did.. At least it's covered for two years with SW... Might try to get the old one refurbished. 

 

Cheers!

 

Ok; so I have a follow up; and it's not great...

 

The M20d Sweetwater sent me was defective right out of the box. The screen freeze issue; almost immediately - within the first few minutes of using it.

 

So; since they are awesome, they cross-shipped me a 2nd unit, and...defective, right out of the box.

That one would not write to any SD Card; even cards tested to work in the other M20d units.

 

SO..I called Sweetwater again; to see about getting another one - annnnnndddddd....no more; no mas - the line is 100% officially discontinued.

 

Sadly, I'm going to have to send both of these back.

 

And, so....I have a new Zoom L-20 that arrived Monday!! And we'll be testing it tomorrow at rehearsal. :)

 

I'm going to keep using the LIne6 speakers; I have two L2t and two L3m. The Zoom L-20 has six TRS monitor sends which  eachcan be toggled for headphones or for floor wedges.

The snake we use has four TRS returns, so that will cover the 3 floor monitors; the other sends go to a vertical L3m and to the drum monitor PA.

 

I must say, the Line6 M20 was amazing for several years, and we got ALOT of amazing recordings with it, ran a ton of live sound, and did even more jam recordings and all other manner of stuff with it. I'm going to look at doing a factory reset on my old M20d, and maybe look at getting it serviced by Sweetwater; will see...

 

That being said, Cheers! One door closes; another opens...

[gapchurch]

its too bad ,we have invested so much into the m20d and the line seems to be discontinued. Are there any other options for the L6 Link ? We've bought the complete speaker system but really don't want to lose the ability to shape the live sound that the L6 link allows. We are not really interested in buying a yamaha mixing board after they've  decided to not use the link6. Seems like the customers have been left in the dark and kicked to the curb.

[gapchurch]

On 6/30/2020 at 10:26 PM, godsaxe said:

I am about to purchase the M20D at the $599 price point.  The only thing holding me back is the limited PC to M20D digital to analog playback. 

 

I want to run a click track and backing tracks from PC/Mac but the M20D seems to only have 2 channels on USB for that?  

 

Any thoughts or experience with simultaneous backing track playback and recording with the M20D?

 

Godsaxe if you want to record you could try to add a 2 port focusrite scarlett-2i2   and run it through the monitor, you will get all channels and can shape the sound . We have done this and it works great. You are correct that the PC out only allows 2 channels.  

[JamzOR]

On 6/16/2020 at 8:44 PM, ColonelForbin said:

Yeah; I just ordered another one from Sweetwater; it will be here tomorrow. And they are currently on sale for addtl $200 off; now $599 new....

(And with 48mos. financing)

 

I paid full price for the first one I bought in 2014. It is now been acting up alot lately; random horrible feedback on all channels; sound dropouts.

 

I have had to power off and back on to get the sound to come back. The feed back thing is horrible. You go to adjust one of the gain trims and everything goes crazy screaming feedback.  

 

It seems to have an issue with sensing the location of the trim position; or something I dunno.

 

The new price seems to indicate it's close out time.. Not sure!

 

Hope the new one lasts as long as this one did.. At least it's covered for two years with SW... Might try to get the old one refurbished. 

 

Cheers!

I have that same problem with my original StageScape.

I have 2 news ones that I use as my live mixer and my studio mixer for playing with our live mix.

Anyway that problem you describe seemed to happen to mine after running sound at a venue with terrible voltage/dirty power.

During that sound job, and ever since, that mixer does that thing where it sounds like a 747 is flying through the dive bar :)

It seems that problem is related to phantom power. Adjusting the level on a phantom powered input causes several other channel's level trim to max out full red.

If you can get away with no phantom power, you may be ok. I never got to troubleshoot it completely, but after 3 more years of using it, I started picking up on the phantom power being the common denominator.