Tech Notes from the Field

A quick note to all that I am finally giving up on the Aphex Channel Processor. I have 15 dead units. All power supplies have been replaced at least twice. I made a heavy investment in these and when we moved into our new facilities I brought a few over and purchased the rest. How many? 40? A rock solid processor, IMHO, except for the power supply. Then Rode somewhere in there acquired them. I bought the last batch or power supplies my distributor was able to obtain. All the units are dying again.

Rode purchased Aphex for the licensing. They incorporate the Aphex processing in their Rodecaster device. Kudos on that. Where they lack is supporting the hardware they acquired, and then I learned they had no interest in supporting the hardware. Sell the stock and move on seems to be their motto leaving many broadcasters lacking support and improvement of an excellent piece of hardware. The Covid era did not help much either, but when you cannot even get power supplies for a unit, you know the company does not care. BTW, I have noticed that the web site for Aphex is active again. I still do not get any support.

You may have seen my posts on the power supplies. Some of you have even contacted me. Without a full redesign of the power supply to a more robust unit, the Channel is a boat anchor. I know some have moved to replace with their own consisting of purchasing an off the shelf external supply and using an upconverter for the phantom power. Awesome. A time consuming task, but I give you a lot of credit moving on that. I have considered it, but the trade-off is my time versus what I get in return. Plus, I really do not wish to do 40 units.

What about sending them in for service? Same thing. You cannot just purchase a power supply and drop it in. I would do that myself. I have attempted to shot-gun and replace capacitors on the power supply before. Again, time consuming and not worth the effort as there is an inherent design flaw in power rating. So, if you can do your own work, go for it. For me it is time to move on.

New challenge. Finding a replacement. Dealing with a company which does not want spend money, i.e. does not want to spend money on infrastructure. What is out there that is comparable?

If you have suggestion, please drop a line. I am entertaining all suggestions. I have one already in service, and will post on it soon. I do have expectations which must be met. Stay tuned for the next post on the expectations.

Cheers!

A PS: I have sent a new request regarding support for these units. Surprisingly the URL and domain for Aphex is active. I was redirected 6 months ago. I will post what I find out! Whatever you do, do not go to the Rode website, it is nearly impossible to find a link to Aphex from there even though the own it.