S4 Durability

[gmaister22]

I do love my S4... feels really solid

[Paka Ono]

Voted Average.

I had to RMA my first one and it never left my bedroom

[jezalenko]

I had to RMA my first one and it never left my bedroom

Agreed. I'm currently in the process of sending back my S4, one of the loop endcoders is faulty. It's a very dispointing experience, seeing as everyone else almost never has hardware problems with theirs.

But I'll stick with NI for the time being, if my next product from them is faulty, then I may look elsewhere....

[Razehell]

Agreed. I'm currently in the process of sending back my S4, one of the loop endcoders is faulty. It's a very dispointing experience, seeing as everyone else almost never has hardware problems with theirs.

But I'll stick with NI for the time being, if my next product from them is faulty, then I may look elsewhere....

Even though I had to send my S4 in, I have no grips with NI. I definitely put mine through its paces.
Also another thing to mention is that I got one from one of the first batches put out for retail.
Hopefully since the early productions they have used improved components learning from RMA and the sort.
They don't want to pay for shipping both ways and fix all the units that break under warranty.

[jezalenko]

I bought mine a few weeks ago

I know they proably make a huge number of units, but it's annoying to get one of the very few which stuff up

[groovemixer]

I'm curious to know how many they actually sold. That would give us a better way of seeing how reliable they are. There is always gonna be defects that are missed in anything manufactured.

So far mine is holding up, I love it! Going back to my EVO5 this week to prep for a gig (I will be using both S4 & EVO5) I miss using the S4 already!

[Jane]

When I got mine, one of the fx buttons was a bit unresponsive. Was annoyed by it but put up with it as don't use them too much.

On the whole have rather loved it and used it every Friday for about 4 months. Sadly now, the left sync button and the 2 cue button above it both are also now becoming rather unresponsive which is pretty annoying as I use both quite a lot (I sync and unsync a lot as I move through many genres and bpms) and am always using my cue buttons, so this is getting rather upsetting (especially as I've got a alrge ammount of summer shows coming up).

I really love traktor and much much prefer my S4 to cdjs (one simple biggie being the simplicity of doing quick searches by typing it out with the keyboard as I get a lot of varying requests, so much easier to search than scrolling through things), but this sticking of the buttons isn't great to have to deal with in a job environment, especially if it's going to get worse.

Has anyone else had similar probs, and if so did their replacements if they got them work fine ?

[RockingClub]

Never had problems with the S4 yet (except of latency issues caused the Traktor software; but they're fixed now).

The only thing I'm not totally happy with is that my pitch faders always tend to be a little bit stiff when I touch them to adjust the bpm. I increase the pressure on them and then they will suddenly jump some millimetres up/down and move on smoothly. But with this jumping start it's always hard to adjust the bpm minimally except you concentrate a lot to prevent it from jumping (e.g. by using the other hand as a stopper).
Maybe it's just a sign of not having been used that much yet, but I would be interested if it feels the same way with your units...

[JZed]

I love my S4 to death, I love everything about it EXCEPT the build quality. I bought mine back in Dec 2011 and within a few months some of the knobs were gettign loose. My latest problem that started about a month or two ago is buttons sticking, mostly the browse and effects on/off. Anything I use often on that thing seems to degenerate at an alarming rate and I'm not overly rough with it either.

However, I still love it... Just wish it was built tougher. Gave it an average

[JSM]

I have both, my first S4 was RMA'd for wobbly FX rotaries (and i don't even use them since scammo's map was released).
The replacement came with no LED's active ... the one I have now seems fine, although It was sold yesterday because I'm fed up of it not working with USB3 etc. and I forgot the details on the shift, cue, play buttons were wearing away.

The Denon on the other hand, built like a tank, but a little tight if you've got big fingers ... you can't run Timecode through it either, hence the S4 purchase .... and I still would like a full 24bit soundcard in it.

both have their faults, but i think in the long run, the Denon will last longer