New OB-X8 with OLD firmware

[X-Minus-1]

Hi all,  I finally ordered the OB-X8 I’ve been scoping out all summer and it arrived a couple days back.  Beautiful, of course!  Much Kudos to Tom and the whole team that brought this to life.  As an engineer, I really appreciate the effort this requires and especially the care and attention to detail that is so evident.  All the enhancements are well considered and give us a gorgeous flexible instrument that retains a strong character and personality.

So the reason for my post:  My OB-X8 was ordered last week from a major American retailer and has a serial number exceeding 2450.  Yet, I was very surprised by the firmware and global variable state.  The installed firmware is only 1.0.0.3 — probably two years out-of-date!  And even the globals were not set to default states.  For instance, the master tuning was off by one-semitone, the knob mode was set to ‘jump’, and the sustain pedal was set to ‘hold’.

Doesn’t this seem odd, coming from the factory?  Has anyone else had this experience?

[g3o2]

Some food for thought. Who is to say that your x8 comes from the factory when it was actually resold by a retailer? Maybe it was a previously returned device by a former customer. Whether that device should have been displayed as B stock or not is another discussion, but you should admit the possibility. This is practically unavoidable these days with so many people using and abusing of their right to return devices they have never really intended to keep in a first place or that they did not enjoy. It happened to me with a Prophet 10 desktop, some knobs being easier to turn than others. As long as the device works just fine, you will be fine. If you think it does not then don’t lose time and send it back to or complain with the retailer.

[X-Minus-1]

That is possible, although the packaging looks pretty original to me.

I would like a comment from Oberheim on what serial number range I should expect for a recent shipment.  (I know the retailer was out of stock a couple weeks ago.)  I also expect a reply as to whether it is common to ship with very old firmware.

[g3o2]

Then I’d suggest that you send a mail to Oberheim support.

[Matthias Adloff]

It is common practice to sell B-stock and demo units as new, at least in the European market.
I had this happen several times, with a Moog One 16, with a Sequential Pro-3 and with a Rupert Neve MasterBussProcessor.
The retailers check for damages and so on, and if they see nothing, they sell as new. If not, they label the unit as B-stock. This leads to the question "what is new?": The longer you think about that, the harder it becomes to find an answer.

In 2020 I found out that my Moog (which has been sold to me by Thomann Germany as new) has been in use for a few days already. From the OS workspace settings I could even trace that back to the former owner and had a very nice conversation with him. I still was upset and eventually spoke to the European Moog sales representative about it. He simply stated: "The unit actually IS new". Most higher end stuff has already a few dozen hours when leaving the factory due to QC and burn-in tests. So it simply doesn't matter if they have been shipped a few miles more, or have been carefully unpacked and repacked for demoing or evaluation. And higher end gear does not age any when soon. We're not talking about iPhones or underwear, we're talking about studio gear.
Thomann allowed me to return the unit, but it was almost completely error free (despite the software, of course), and this did not happen too often with Moog Ones, to say the least.

Anyways, if you see any traces of the former usage, this would be another case. Then try to get a rebate or return the unit. If not, well, you will have no disadvantage.

[ckettering]

Same here. Ordered new from B&H Photo, had the same early firmware update. Just updated to 2.0.0.1 and having tuning calibration issues with the OB-X voices.

[X-Minus-1]

Ok, following up on this thread, I have contacted both Oberheim and Sweetwater.  Both were helpful even though the customer service departments have limited information.

From Oberheim, I was told that the OS 2.0 started shipping at serial number 2621.  They were not able to determine which units may have shipped with OS 1.1.  Perhaps it was only desktop units?  Anyway, still a bit odd that my late-model unit shipped with OS 1.0, but another commenter on this thread (thanks!) also has experienced the same.

Sweetwater was not able to trace the history of my unit specifically, but said that they have been continually receiving OB-X8 shipments in small batches that are shipped on to customers in short order.  Of course it is their policy to clearly identify demo or B-stock units.  Everything seems consistent there.  And the packaging of my OB-X8 appeared factory-fresh to me.

In conclusion, I don’t think there is any issue with my OB-X8, other than a little extra mystery.  That is, why were many important global parameters set to non-default state?  Maybe this was part of a final factory inspection, and the tech just forgot to clear the settings at the end.  I have completely updated my firmware, settings, calibrations, patches and my OB-X8 is working beautifully, so I am happy with my purchase.