OK, no smartass answers allowed...

Inquiring minds want to know:

What EXACTLY does Digidesign do with all the gear that gets traded in through their upgrade programs?

I sent them an email asking this very same question and they never responded.

Feel free to link to a thread if this has been talked about before. I did a search, but did not find anything.

jaymes

ahhh, man... and I had a great smart ass answer. heh

Why would they respond to that question?

If you were Digi Design,

Would you care to explain that these things go to some far off cave in Iceland for storage, so in the future when the next caveman comes of age,

The humans will bow before the silver and blue faceplate's and digi will rein supreme over all mankind.

Or, they could just throw them in the trash,

Sorry,
I couldn't resist.

I'd like to think they recycle some of the plastics and metals...

Hey heartfelt, don't you have some new toys you're still playing with?

Well, I knew that they wouldn't...but if they are reselling this stuff somewhere, I want to know where and for how much!

I imagine they trash it. Planned obsolescence. It's good business for them.

1.) Removes "competing" older PT systems from the market that could hurt NEW sales of products.

2.) Keeps existing PT users in the Digidesign pipeline. Keeps users away from competitors because it's cheaper to stay in the PT family rather than jump ship to another DAW.

I'm sure they have it figured out how much money they get from each customer over the years with upgrades and trade-ins, and I guess it's extremely profitable.

Why would they want to sell you an older, used PT system for a fraction of the price of a new system?

Trust me, I'm positive they trash the stuff.

I can imagine dozens of AE's now wanting to go thru Digi's trash cans at this point. "Hey, I found an 888 I/O!"

I wonder if anyone from Digi can anonymously verify this? Comon' digi guys...your secret identity is safe with us!

This would be a dumpster I would like to find. All I really want is an 002 rack. And maybe a Command 8 too.

I heard they have an educational program in India that it goes to. But maybe that is corporate spin and it just gets dumped on an Asian recycling operation. At least they have some form of takeback program...it should be the law that every manufacturer has to clean up after their own mess. That'll get'em making green products.

James is likely right... Cisco and other equipment companies do exactly that. Recycle what you can and trash the rest.. I've heard that Cisco even buys up stuff off of ebay.

Sure thing. NVIDIA has their 90 day trade in program too.

It is a solid business model to increase sales.

I wonder if TROJAN does that?

I work at a company who offers a "trade up" program from time to time...

and to my knowledge we do exactly that, trash the traded in items... no recycling even, just the trash. I don't believe that the outcome is a secret or I wouldn't post it on this site.

Generally it's been my experience that a company who is selling a product directly is capable of running this type of program because by offering the sale directly they save a load of money anyways.... So the trade up "discount" ends up essentially being at or near wholesale pricing...

it's kind of a win-win. The company sells more products at wholesale, and you don't have to go through the process of selling your stuff to upgrade, etc..
A decent company will make the "trade in" value higher than what street price on the older equipment would be... and then "POOF!" the customer gets a decent deal on upgrading...

I can tell you for a fact that when you trade in an old system to a retailer they're required to rip out the power supply and send the unit back to digi. So I'm sure that digi just tosses the stuff.

It makes me sick to think of all that perfectly usable gear going to waste. It's a shame! How can I put a stop to this?

Don't upgrade! I have the original Mbox and the first run of Digi 002R, recently BLA modded. Not moving up until foreced to. How soo will that happen???

I will be getting an Mbox Micro soon for laptop playback, and to avoid paying $75 for PT 7.4 upgrade...

L

i don't know for sure, but i have noticed my dealer just recently received stock of some refurb HD PCI systems. bundling a new interface with refurb HD cards. no plug in pack, but its a full warrenty product and saves some money. Maybe some of this is from trade ins?

Chain yourself to a HD3 rig as a form of political protest!

I'd have to get that HD rig first! See the Catch 22 this is?

Visions of putting the guts of the old into a new cosmetic body and selling them for 2x's the price comes to mind.

See?

"You CAN'T HANDLE the truth!!!!"

i was just picturing some sort of Soilent Green Audio manufacturing

they stick it up their holes and it comes back out in the form of an 003 or whatever crap they sell these days.

power supplies cost as much as a bag of popcorn, and not the expensive stuff you get at the movies.