Waitlist Email

William Mims said:
Helix hasn't had an update in a good while... Have Axe FX III, and my new FM9 just kicked my Helix to the Reverb curb.
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Yeah. I guess it was April
bigcupholder said:
Resting on their laurels in terms of being larger and heavier? The FM9 is almost the same size as a Helix despite having fewer footswitches and no expression pedal. Also the Helix has 6 different form factors if you count the pod go (not sure what that is to be honest).

Unless you meant "resting on their laurels" for amp modeling I'm really not sure that makes any sense. The newer amp models in the Helix are definitely better than the older ones, but they haven't updated any of the old ones as far as I can tell. So I'd agree if that's what you meant.
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Yes I am speaking specifically about the hardware. Not software.
 
You know what would be really cool of the guys at FAS? It would be really cool if they would send out an email once a week, maybe on Friday, letting people know how many are ahead of them. That would be cool. Hint hint.
 
AHeatley said:
You know what would be really cool of the guys at FAS? It would be really cool if they would send out an email once a week, maybe on Friday, letting people know how many are ahead of them. That would be cool. Hint hint.
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I wouldn’t hold my breath.

A lot of people wouldn’t like knowing once they found out, plus, that would give away proprietary and company-confidential strategic information when it got into competitor’s hands.
 
Greg Ferguson said:
A lot of people wouldn’t like knowing once they found out
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I think this is more the reason. It could be done without revealing anything strategic. They could say current stock level would get through an approximate date range of the waitlist. I think maybe some would extrapolate and maybe cancel?
 
mj3 said:
I think this is more the reason. It could be done without revealing anything strategic. They could say current stock level would get through an approximate date range of the waitlist. I think maybe some would extrapolate and maybe cancel?
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With a regular and repeating message saying how far someone is from getting an invitation, it’d be easy to chart the progress of shipping over time. That would tell how many units are being sold, and how many parts are being ordered, over that same period. Knowing that, they can figure out the profit per device.

If a competitor subscribed to the mailing list at set periods, say monthly, then from the multiple messages they received they’d know how many products still needed to be delivered. Knowing that, plus the profit per device, they’d get an idea of what FAS stands to make over a year.

It’s a small industry with tight margins, and Fractal doesn’t have a big backer like Yamaha behind them, so they play very smart, and keep the information to themselves.
 
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boyedav said:
And when the FM3 waitlist started, there was no other floor unit available from FAS. The AX8 was no longer shipping, and its wait list was transferred to the FM3. The FM3 was also their first floor unit based on the newer paradigm. Several factors related to demand for the FM3 that aren't shared by the FM9.

Like many others, I don't expect to be waiting nearly as long for the FM9. There's no way of knowing of course, especially with the state of the world right now, but FAS seem better than most at adapting.
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I agree that things are very different now for the FM9 than back when the FM3 was announced.

I'm curious about the concept of an AX8 wait list being transferred to the FM3. I bought my AX8 in 2018 and recall purchasing it directly without a wait. That implies there was no waitlist for the AX8 after it stopped shipping.
 
Lopp said:
I'm curious about the concept of an AX8 wait list being transferred to the FM3. I bought my AX8 in 2018 and recall purchasing it directly without a wait. That implies there was no waitlist for the AX8.
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Back in my day...

There was a period at the end of the AX8 production run where people couldn't purchase and Fractal started a wait list. That extended for some period, I don't remember for how long, but when FAS announced the FM3, they said the people on the AX8 list were rolled over to the FM3 list, presumably at the front.

Yes, it really happened.

Really. :)
 
Greg Ferguson said:
Back in my day...

There was a period at the end of the AX8 production run where people couldn't purchase and Fractal started a wait list. That extended for some period, I don't remember for how long, but when FAS announced the FM3, they said the people on the AX8 list were rolled over to the FM3 list, presumably at the front.

Yes, it really happened.

Really. :)
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Thanks for the info. Yeah, I actually considered that scenario, but discounted it because it seemed more likely that Fractal would not start a wait list for a product they discontinued. There must have been other forces at play.

EDIT: That makes me happier about buying the AX8 when I did, because the 3 buttons on the FM3 would not be enough for me, as I wanted an entirely self-contained unit without adding extra footswitches. The used prices of the AX8 must have bubbled for a while.
 
Here's my prediction: I have an 8/29 waitlist date. Extrapolating from the data I've seen, I am going to go out on a limb and predict receiving an invite by mid-November.

Of course, I'm probably entirely wrong.
 
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