OWC Thunderbolt Dock

    Well Kemper Family,

    i think ink this was the culprit to all my latest problems. I'm not 100% sure, but process of elimination has led to this unit.

    1) it's the central hub that all my broke audio units were plugged to
    2) my 2nd monitor was constantly going black like it thought it wasn't online
    3) ISB sticks stopped reading like my iLok
    4) my latest audio unit the Apollo Twin stopped being seen over Thunderbolt
    5) the iMac would reboot every 24 hours from an unrecoverable fault. Since removing the dock it's not done that
    6) when rebooting the iMac would get a white screen for a loooong time

    Quote from db9091

    Well Kemper Family,

    i think ink this was the culprit to all my latest problems. I'm not 100% sure, but process of elimination has led to this unit.

    1) it's the central hub that all my broke audio units were plugged to
    2) my 2nd monitor was constantly going black like it thought it wasn't online
    3) ISB sticks stopped reading like my iLok
    4) my latest audio unit the Apollo Twin stopped being seen over Thunderbolt
    5) the iMac would reboot every 24 hours from an unrecoverable fault. Since removing the dock it's not done that
    6) when rebooting the iMac would get a white screen for a loooong time

    Thanks for posting this. Guess I won't be getting this Thunderbolt dock.

    I think I saw they are on version 3 now. Mine was the first version, maybe? I saw others reporting the same problems and OWC wouldn't admit specifically what was going on, but did admit that "some" were reporting problems and they'd gladly issue a refund.

    OWC is a fantastic company. I love their drives, upgrades, & instructions. Superb support for Mac upgrade!
    But with that first product, it was a total bomb and purchasing V3 still scares me, for no supported reason than anecdotal history.

    It's quite expensive. I now use USB expanders and for Thunderbolt, would find a device that has it's own Thunderbolt if they have an extra port to piggy back the signal.

    That said, for you, give the latest one a try if you NEED it. They will take it back if there is a problem. You'll know if it's a problem pretty quickly (within a week) if you see reboots of your computer, or audio interface that suddenly stops working on an audio channel. ANY thing that breaks is too much of a coincidence after adding new gear.

    I give everyone a pass, but if you ask me, OWC owes Focusrite and Audient some money and I'm sorry for making those Audio Interface products sound like badly made ones when they failed due to no fault of their own. OWC should have apologized for offering this electric chair of a brick for those who had bad units. The only mar on the company I've seen. But it's now forgiven.

    Quote from db9091

    I think I saw they are on version 3 now. Mine was the first version, maybe? I saw others reporting the same problems and OWC wouldn't admit specifically what was going on, but did admit that "some" were reporting problems and they'd gladly issue a refund.

    OWC is a fantastic company. I love their drives, upgrades, & instructions. Superb support for Mac upgrade!
    But with that first product, it was a total bomb and purchasing V3 still scares me, for no supported reason than anecdotal history.

    It's quite expensive. I now use USB expanders and for Thunderbolt, would find a device that has it's own Thunderbolt if they have an extra port to piggy back the signal.

    That said, for you, give the latest one a try if you NEED it. They will take it back if there is a problem. You'll know if it's a problem pretty quickly (within a week) if you see reboots of your computer, or audio interface that suddenly stops working on an audio channel. ANY thing that breaks is too much of a coincidence after adding new gear.

    I give everyone a pass, but if you ask me, OWC owes Focusrite and Audient some money and I'm sorry for making those Audio Interface products sound like badly made ones when they failed due to no fault of their own. OWC should have apologized for offering this electric chair of a brick for those who had bad units. The only mar on the company I've seen. But it's now forgiven.

    You're saying other units died after you connected to it?

    No way am I giving them any of my money.

    Yeah. The first to go was the Focusrite Clarett Audio channel. One of them. Not both. Dead. Worked when first setup, then it just fizzled. I figured 'bad unit', bitched about it, and returned it. It cost $500 so I bought then Audient for $600 which honestly sounded better but had less features. It had an audio channel die after initially working.

    I started thinking "this is too much of a coincidence, maybe it's a voltage issue" so I took stock, checked out the Amps and Voltage and the lines they were on. Check.

    Then I realized my iMac was rebooting on it's own a lot and randomly. So I started pulling everything off it. Rebooting stopped. Then I had bought an Apollo $900 and put it on and it worked fine. Then I added everything bit by bit. When I added the OWC unit the iMac rebooted within a few hours. I took it back off and sent it back in. Read up on it and others reported it damaging equipment. So that was icing to an already proven cake.

    I'm sure the Focusrite Rep on the forum that was not happy with my post was pulling his hair out, but I did go back and report what I thought the culprit was. I'm a scientist. Initial hypothesis wrong. Amended hypothesis. But I apologized. What unit do you know expects to fry from it's Thunderbolt port?

    Maybe something companies should protect against?