NEW information on JH-3a - Page 140  

All of this would make me personally disinclined to buy UE product even more so.

 

Really, what is contained in the patent is trivial and part of common previous practice (except; instead of feeding multiple drivers in a cabinet enclosure they feed multiple drivers in an earpiece enclosure).

 

UE may have legal right to their position. But if this product was scuttled/redesigned and the preorder customers and marketplace deprived of their product due to this "patent infringement", in my view UE is showing disregard for the very people who are their potential customers, including many here on head-fi.

 

All in all, a sad story from top to bottom...

 

Even so, JHA has an obligation to be honest and transparent with their customers. Irregardless of UE's position in all of this. It's a shame though, I'm still kind of curious about the 3A's sound in relation to top tier custom IEM's.

I'm not sure I understand your point.  If the designs contained in the patent are so common, then how come they haven't been attempted before in an IEM?  IP was one of UE's most valuable assets and Logitech paid for it.  If anything, Jerry shouldn't have agreed to sell UE without some licensing rights to his own inventions.  Presumably, he got paid well enough to leave his old work alone.

i don't know this for a fact as I have not even read the patent but the title reads like what is referred to a "use patent" possibly specific to multi-driver IEM's.

 

It is difficult to throw any blame UE's way at this point or I should say toward UE ownership. A very significant amount of the investment you make in an acquisition if often tied up in the company's patent portfolio. Expecting UE to turn a blind eye is unrealistic. Nobody knows what the actual situation is with regard to the 13's and 16's and the patent's that cover the technology going into those. However you just cannot reasonably expect UE to turn a blind eye to patents that they own.

 

In fact, it probably would have been better for JHA if they did not accept pre-orders with this hanging over their heads. Presuming you as JHA might have in your hip pocket the intention that you will try to negotiate a license to use the technology with UE the last thing you would want to do would be to be out there in the marketplace creating buzz about this product. That, combined with actual sales are the things that invariably drive the license price tag up. 

 

Unfortunately for JHA they have taken some nasty hits for their customer service and communications along the way and likely were not doing their cause much good to begin with. Certainly as of the January date if not sooner, they would have been much better off in my view not taking pre-orders, sending back the funds they had received which would then have let them off the hook for going silent about the issues behind such a decision. Sure there would have been some complaining even at that but they would have been clean at that point. This is a technology business so it would have been hard to side with anybody complaining had JHA taken the action I am suggesting here. This way I don't see how JHA did itself much good and if anything hurt their cause in all respects presuming a desire to move forward using the active crossover technology covered in the patent.

I think it's more likely JHA were not even aware the patent was granted until relatively recently (aka after the first sets were sent out), but once the product started shipping, Logitech's legal department became aware of it and contacted them to take it off the market and/or a licensing agreement could not be worked out. And now we have the redesigned version.
 

Edited by kiseki - 10/11/11 at 5:32pm

not really. When you sell a company like Jerry did you would know full well about the patents deal, that is what lawyers are for!

I agree with ianmedium.

 

There is no way that JHA would not have known that the pending patent was out there. It would have been easier to have negotiated a use license as part of the sale of the company but that has consequences as well as it generally means a lower sale price for the company. It could have been done though. Jerry could have indicated that this was technology that he wished to pursue further and while it would have been an added complication to the sale of the company, if terms could have been included that would have made it attractive, UE's new owners could have gone down that road. That surely would have been better than what I guess JHA must have done initially which was hope that a use patent was not going to be granted in that instance. However use patents are fairly easy to write for patent lawyers and it is rare that one is not granted when competent patent attorneys are involved. Hence not even knowing as much as I am sure JHA must have known, I would not have been willing to bet a plug nickel on Logitec/UE not achieving that patent.

 

In addition there is a fairly long gestation period from filing to granting and even without the certain knowledge JHA had that it had sold that technology it still would have been very easy to determine that an application was working its way through the patent offices.

Wow, this was quite shocking ... it seems they strategically waited until as close to RMAF as possible to reveal all this, so as basically to say "come try it" and then hope reviews would be good enough to dispel fears. 

 

While I don't even fully understand the technology, it's obvious that many here do and purchased on the basis of it being active crossover -- so it's also understandable where the rage is coming from. 

 

Even if the patent issue was finalized in January, at minimum, they knew about this radical change in design 3-4-5 months ago ... yet kept quiet and spoke about the product and amp units as if everything were the same and that the factory had made a mistake with the amps hardware. 

 

Obviously .... just JH16's + a really good amp is almost $1700-1800 anyway ... so if it sounds significantly better than other amp options because it's designed to work perfectly with the 16's, then it's not such a terrible deal on a level of $$$/SQ. 

 

However, it sound isn't the core issue anymore -- it's honesty, integrity and full disclosure. 

 

I really was hoping JH (and customers) would come out of this happy and triumphant, making amends by producing a truly amazing product. It could still be amazing, but in some ways unfortunately, it's not quite the same product anymore.  

 

Is it just me or does it seem like they desperately need to hold an online "we'll-answer-any-question" press conference? 

 

I feel bad for them, but then again, the right thing to do was so obviously to refund everyone's money in JANUARY -- if purely by the fact that it was already delayed and they might not be able to strike a licensing deal with UE. People wouldn't have liked it, but they would have totally understood. 

 

Then, at that point, they could have focused on this new version and demo'd it -- WITHOUT all the delays, anger and frustration hanging over it -- and perhaps it would have been a hit. I get the feeling that this new product, no matter how good, is going to permanently feel tainted to many in this community. It's sad, and I really wish for the best, but ..... darn. 

Edited by Tonyflo - 10/11/11 at 8:40pm

That would have been the wise thing to do. Instead, they basically had us at the end of a fishing line for the last year and a half. We had a vested interest in the project, and we weren't treated as stakeholders. I was within the first 10 people who signed up for the preorder at the original CanJam demo in June of 2010, and I stuck it out a long time, despite endless setbacks, feature removals, and general disappointments. As time went on, I was compromising on spec after spec, but the SOUND is what we're after. I was frankly close to taking the refund for the last few months, but when this last bit of news about the active crossover being taken out and the fact that JHA is still playing proper games with us (in terms of managing expectations and being forthcoming with status info), I just can't in good conscious continue forward with this thing.

I took my refund today because my original expectation of -- having a breakthrough IEM system with a rust-color chassis, 24/192-capable DAC/DSP chip possibly capable of accepting flash updates, 3-way, active crossover, 20-hour battery life, absolutely silent background, and the ability to charge while listening, from a company who treats their customers with dignity and respect -- wasn't nearly met.

I invite JHA to learn and grow. I have been on the edge of my seat for this thing since I became "invested"... and I still expect this device will still sound amazing, but all things considered, well... I can't live this story any more.

@ Thread:

Well said.

 

@Warp:

I will look forward to hearing about your findings post canjam. You certainly are a well trusted member of this community and I aprreaciate any of your honest input. I don't have much time for people implying that you have any other agenda.

 

@Tonyflo:

I agree, I think Jerry does owe the paying customers an explaination/apology. I can appreciate that alot of their business dealing are not our business, but the way it transpired we do deserve some answers.

 

I've enjoyed the (unfinshed) unit and I'm sure the v2 will be impressive but there is a bad taste for sure and in business it doesn't wash out very quickly - depending on actions taken of course.

Occam's razor guys.

Remember the sale to Logitech happened almost a year after Jerry had already left the company. Jerry's return to making IEMs and JHA's first IEM product, JH13, came 2 years after that.

 

Considering all the gaffes in the past and how small JHA really is (I still remember the delays of the original JH13 release), you guys are giving them too much credit on how well run they are, with all the conspiracy theories and assuming they must be on top of all these issues and deliberately misleading everyone.

 

Edited by kiseki - 10/12/11 at 8:22am

 

It was Jerry who designed and filed for Patent (according to the JH release) while owner of UE.

 

You don't 'forget' that you invented something and protected that invention by filing for patent protection and subsequently sell the company who owned the invention (the IP) and then 're-invent' the same thing 6 years later...

 

You just don't forget those kind of things!

Well while I would find it very hard to believe that JHA ownership did not know about patent applications that they themselves filed for while managing UE, I do think there is more of a chance that they fell into the frog in boiling water syndrome. Toss a frog in boiling water and he will hop out right away. Toss a frog in cold water and slowly bring it to a boil and.......frogs legs! You get my meaning I am sure.

 

At the point of trying to work their way through the issues at hand they may just not have understood that the water had come to a boil and that they might just be better off making a clean break by refunding the pre-order funds, not taking any additional pre-order funds, making some sort of concession to those that had provided impressions (I am not even sure those that have would have thought that an issue). They could still in my view have remained silent as to the reasons why and would have been in a much better place as far as the hits they have taken for customer service and communications and would also have improved their position with regard to trying to either pursue licensing further or taking the whole product in a different direction, whatever they wanted to do. 

 

They probably ended up having a negative impact on their sales of 16's to add insult to injury. 

At the bare minimum can we all agree to stop dismissively saying "once the JH3A is released all these problems will be ancient history"?

+1

 

And at the bare minimum, can we all agree that we have a right to be negative and challenging in our statements given that we just keep learning of more misleading examples and seemingly fallacies of statement? 

 

In fact, we should be continually pointing out these examples as they are revealed, an online protest so to speak concerning the ongoing breach of consumer-vendor trust,,, a-hem, investor-vendor trust...

 

Everyone who pre-paid should be paid 1% interest (sucks that that's the going annual market rate), even if it's just a couple dollars, on principal -  for agreeing to pre-order/purcahase a product when, in fact, they unknowingly invested in a development project that was as yet undecided concerning design.

 

And what I really wish is that some of the early, more public-voice proponents of the pre-product back in, what, Spring 2010? , I wish they would come forward and publicly say, 'well this sucks'.  ... and not leave it to the unfortunate customers on this thread.  This is like the weatherman who says it's going to rain a big one, only to come back a day later saying, "clear skies and sunshine" without every acknowledging, "oh, did I say it was going to rain? oops..."

 

 

 

Edited by inthecity - 10/12/11 at 1:28pm