Cheap USB

[Szlartibartfast]

Warning to treat your USB port like it's made of glass.

 

So I had my Hx effects for 2 weeks before the plastic bit in the middle of the USB came out (unbeknown to me). I went to plug the cable in and bent the pins = warranty claim and more time without the unit (and had to foot bill for freight both ways to repairer). I had probably only plugged and unplugged half a dozen times, and without any particular strain on the cable I can remember.

 

Interesting thing was the shop said they had recently had a few Helix and HX for the same issue. The repairer said he changes these from time to time as they are very cheap components. Happily the the replacement part is of a higher quality.

 

Seems to be a weird place to cut costs....the unit is next to useless without the ability to update via USB cable.

 

 

[SaschaFranck]

Pretty wellknown problem. Cheap hardware. As with quite some other parts. Unfortunately, I should add - and yes, I'd happily pay 100 bucks more for the unit in case the questionable parts were of durable quality.

Things coming to my mind: XLR out that is not dealing well with phantom power. Joystick that is wearing out quickly (why a joystick at all in case it suits no purpose?) and oviously has sloppy soldering joints on lots of units. Mic preamp not unlikely to burn out in case you activate phantom power in the wrong order. Volume knobs becoming pretty stiff. LEDs that stop working (maybe not as common as the other issues but it happend with my tap tempo LED. These are the things that are getting used (and moved!) a lot, so they'd better be at least pretty decent.

Replacing all of these in favour of at least something more durable would perhaps add around 50-100 bucks (likely less). As said, I'd be more than willing to pay that.