Really? I have to be the buzz kill here?
I dunno. IMHO, I take this as Eventide "jumping the shark" a little. I mean, yeah, hardware sales are an obvious must, bolstered nicely by the algorithm sales. The relatively low price of the H9 platform itself combined with the potential to do more/exclusive algos was a good carrot to dangle in front of the Factor crowd to get them to migrate.
Still, early H9 adopters were left wanting for stacked effects and the Core satisfied their "secondary" needs. An added bonus of this model is/was algos purchased for one unit also appear on the second (and third, and fourth…). So now everyone's got their dual H9s loaded up with their key sounds. In the mean time, have Factor sales dropped off to nil? I kinda doubt it. Have H9 sales dwindled? I kinda doubt this too. So why the need to blow the doors off with a kitchen-sink H9 plus all future algos thrown in to boot?! The only possibility I can conclude is that the algo sales model simply is not working anymore to drive the end-game hardware sales.
One thing that would help this: more algorithms, of course! I'm sure ET is sick of me harping for Uni-Vibe but what about a killer sitar emulator to compete with EHX? How about convolution reverbs (even as unpredictable as they may be)? What about Dynamic Distortion with Forced Feedback?! (And, yes, Virginia, the world always needs more dirt boxes!)
Don't get me wrong; I think the Factors and H9 are the greatest stomps ever devised by mortal man. But even the Max can't get me to bite just yet. The gold-plated Max? Meh. Now, offer some of those algos I mentioned above, I'm all in.
[soapbox = off]
