Not really sure why everyone's debating what the naked resistors will cost LHL. They offered a perk, set a price and some people bought it and others didn't - nobody was forced. The market has cleared, so why the ex-post analysis? If Larry, Gavin and crew make a decent profit off of us, then I'm happy for them! They provide great products, they operate unlike any other audio firm I've dealt with across my many years in the audiophile hobby and they're genuinely nice guys who know what they're talking about. In fact if they didn't make a profit off of us, then I'd really be worried.
The talk about Ponzi schemes drives me nuts as well. A Ponzi scheme is just that, a scheme, and is an illegal way to cheat investors out of their money, using newly invested money to pay out older investors their supposed "gains", which in reality do not exist. If people are using "Ponzi" to describe a scenario where LHL is using the money contributed by one group to help fund not only the production of that product but also the development of other products, then that's called business. Even if they are using the money of new contributors to offset the production costs of prior contributors then there's nothing illegal about that. Heck, even if they get themselves short on cash and can't fulfill all of their commitments they won't get thrown in jail the way a financial fraudster might, that's simply called bad business and will get them a ton of bad press and maybe some people some refunds (read the terms of IGG if you want the full details).
Many people (including me) have said it before, and we'll surely have to say it again, but if anyone was looking for a product that would 100% get there on time and not have development hiccups/headaches along the way, then go buy from retail stock and stay away from crowd-funding/crowd-developing.
Off my soapbox now.
Cheers and happy listening
