It’s probably as simple as, the old chips have been end-of-lined (the H9000 is 8 years old next month) and the new chips are their replacement, which is why new buyers get them with no price increase.
It would be nice to hear that the Eventide team have been hard at work making game-changing new algorithms for their flagship, as their own FAQ promised*, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. That’s not how the past 8 years have gone. It took 7 years just to be able to run legacy algorithms at 96KHz and we’re lucky to get some hand-me-downs from their guitar pedals, albeit without the crucial dual patch presets.
I really don’t understand why the H9000 has been so neglected, but as the saying goes, the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior.
*(From the FAQ) – Are there any new algorithms on the H9000?
“New FUTURE algorithms is the main reason we created the H9000. The decision to migrate from fixed point DSP to ARM was, in large part, driven by our conclusion that creating new ways to effect sound will be more efficient using the tools available for general purpose processors. The ARM platform also makes porting our plug-ins to the H9000 more efficient.”
Re: Chaining more than 4 algorithms
Nov 2019 – “In the nearer term, we are planning to add the ability to connect between DSPs in the next release, so you’ll be able to connect up to 16 effects without tying up analog IO and patchbay connections. This is supported natively in the system, but we don’t have a UI for it just yet.”
Oct 2020 – “I think that ideally, we’d figure out a way to extend the current model so you could have 8 algorithms in an FX chain instead of 4, without restrictions on how they are laid out.”
March 2021 – “Sorry but this won’t be something that will make it to the next H9k firmware release. It is still something that is being discussed and a feature that we’d like to include in a future release. Thanks for your patience.”
