[Ali-Pacha]

 
Hello Justin
 
The euro is at its highest against the dollar (~1.4)! It's time you sent the request for the payment of the remaining! And too bad if I still have to wait one year or two (18 months at this time)...

A good reason why my finger is on the trigger 

 
Ali

 

[astrostar59]

Hmm, interesting. I would leave it at 25%. There 'may' be reasons to not pay in full for something
you haven't got a date on. And I am not saying it will happen, but leaving a bundle of money
in a small company you have no control over yourself may not be so good an idea.

It is very hard for smaller niche companies to deliver the goods with cash flow and such like.

I do feel though, if Head Amp are now viable and have an order full book into 12 months, they
should sell the traditional way in my view, the client pays and 3 or 4 weeks later they get the item.
Why they are doing this 12 months deposit is rather bonkers in my view. I can see (hope) the BHSE is
great SQ and parts for the money. Does this require us to fund that with free interest free credit? Dunno.

Effectively you guys are funding cash flow of a company you have no shares or directorship in.....

Now I can say I have gone against all my reservations at the moment and paid my 25%.
I would not pay 100%, and I may pull out if my demo is not blowing my socks off!

I kinda hope it does though, emotion ruling my head! Jeeze, just don't tell the wife....

 

[complin]

I hope you are not suggesting that Justin could end up like another SinglePower!!!!
I believe everyone here has found Justin/Headamp a straight up and honourable kind of company.
 
The subscription model is nothing new, been going on for at least a century in all types of commerce as far as I know. Also a very popular model in this century too, its called crowd funding 

 
Quote:

Hmm, interesting. I would leave it at 25%. There 'may' be reasons to not pay in full for something
you haven't got a date on. And I am not saying it will happen, but leaving a bundle of money
in a small company you have no control over yourself may not be so good an idea.

It is very hard for smaller niche companies to deliver the goods with cash flow and such like.

I do feel though, if Head Amp are now viable and have an order full book into 12 months, they
should sell the traditional way in my view, the client pays and 3 or 4 weeks later they get the item.
Why they are doing this 12 months deposit is rather bonkers in my view. I can see (hope) the BHSE is
great SQ and parts for the money. Does this require us to fund that with free interest free credit? Dunno.

Effectively you guys are funding cash flow of a company you have no shares or directorship in.....

Now I can say I have gone against all my reservations at the moment and paid my 25%.
I would not pay 100%, and I may pull out if my demo is not blowing my socks off!

I kinda hope it does though, emotion ruling my head! Jeeze, just don't tell the wife....

 

[Rico613]

There is always the regular distributor / dealer network for those who want to pay double the price.  You'd still have to wait though . . .

 

[David1961]

The reason I know it's possible to make the remaining payment ( for the amps that require a 1/4 deposit ) before Justin asks for that payment, is because when I ordered the Aristaeus ( which I ended up cancelling ) I paid the 1/4 deposit, and then two months later I paid the remaining payment.
Whether Justin still allows the remaining payment to be made in advance, I don't know.

 

[Crashem]

I do feel though, if Head Amp are now viable and have an order full book into 12 months, they
should sell the traditional way in my view, the client pays and 3 or 4 weeks later they get the item.
Why they are doing this 12 months deposit is rather bonkers in my view. I can see (hope) the BHSE is
great SQ and parts for the money. Does this require us to fund that with free interest free credit? Dunno.

Effectively you guys are funding cash flow of a company you have no shares or directorship in.....
 

 
I don't disagree with some of what you are saying, however I do think you are looking at this the wrong way.  I'll put it to you in two ways and hopefully make you feel better about putting down your deposit.
 
1) Practical: I doubt the 25% deposit more than 50% of what Justin has to spend in total on material costs to build the BHSE.  So Headamp needs to come out of pocket for the rest.  If you notice, the number of amps built per run is increasing substantially. Without the deposit, the number of machines built per run would be less and everyone's wait would actually be longer.  While higher numbers might lengthen the time of any particular run by a bit (although it actually will be the opposite if he gets a lot larger), the overall time for everyone should go down. 
 
2) Traditional: I kind of disagree with your traditional comment.  BHSE is essentially a custom product.  It is common with custom products to place a 25-50% deposit down.  For example, you can walk into IKEA and get your furniture that day or, in my recent case, I ordered some custom furniture that they are quoting 12-16 weeks to make.  Now a BHSE is a much more complicated device to source the materials for than furniture.  Read back through the thread and I believe Justin tells us some of the steps and how it adds up to the time required.  Given the care he brings to the manufacture of the product, the time frame doesn't surprise me.  It's not like he is even using pre-fabricated cases.  Given that one snag can delay manufacture significantly, the time frames for the BHSE aren't too surprising although the current run time is probably longer than it would be normally given that he is trying to scale up at same time.

 

[vinyllp33]

Not to mention if the BHSE was sold via normal retail channels it would cost at least $10,000-$12,000, possibly even more.

 

[Maxvla]

It is possible to pay it off early. I paid for my GS-X in full when I ordered it. You'll just need to send Justin a PayPal with the difference once you confirm the amount with him.

 

[britneedadvice]

Not to mention if the BHSE was sold via normal retail channels it would cost at least $10,000-$12,000, possibly even more.

Come off it,I've just bought a VTL S200 for that money.A product that is new to the Market and I got it delivered ( to the UK ) within 2 months of audition! (I think I put up £1000 deposit) This unit is receiving critical acclaim and is in much demand!....and there's a lot more (technically) to it!! So, without getting into the argument of just how good it is(with the 009s) makes you think??!!

 

[britneedadvice]

..............and I failed to mention, the VTL products are sold through a UK Distributor(Kog Audio)

 

[complin]

Afraid never heard of it or seen any of the critical acclaim either?
I don't understand  your point either as if cost has anything to do with it or their marketing Foo?
 
Anyone contemplating buying a BHSE knows it's a premier niche product produced by a boutique manufacturer and the wait time up front so why all the noise?
 
 
Quote:

  Come off it,I've just bought a VTL S200 for that money.A product that is new to the Market and I got it delivered ( to the UK ) within 2 months of audition! (I think I put up £1000 deposit) This unit is receiving critical acclaim and is in much demand!....and there's a lot more (technically) to it!! So, without getting into the argument of just how good it is(with the 009s) makes you think??!!

Never heard of them either and I do live in the UK

  ..............and I failed to mention, the VTL products are sold through a UK Distributor(Kog Audio)

 

[justin w.]

you could always freeze yourself
 

 

[complin]

Neh .... more like this 

 

 

[astrostar59]

I agree with all this guys. I guess I got stung a few years back with a currency conversion company, and lost £80k.

So you must sympathise with my point of view a bit?

Things can and do go wrong, it's life. My view is yes,. boutique, yes great amp, still don't like the payment terms.
Woo manage normal terms.

Hopefully at some point Head-Amp will (rightly) get to a size to become more available on a larger scale
then the payment terms may be 'normal' as in payment 100% delivery 2 weeks like other small to medium
audiophile manufacturers.

But aside from this, if the BHSE is that good at my demo, I will risk it. But I still don't like the terms.....

 

[justin w.]

Hopefully at some point Head-Amp will (rightly) get to a size to become more available on a larger scale
then the payment terms may be 'normal' as in payment 100% delivery 2 weeks like other small to medium
audiophile manufacturers.

 
stax only makes about 30 pairs of SR-009 per month. most of those never leave japan. there are 4 or 5 other companies making amps intended to be used with the exported SR-009s. This is about as small as you can get. Unfortunately, I have seen little to no market left in the U.S. for Stax headphones that are not the SR-009. It is too bad really, because I wouldn't mind building a cheaper electrostatic amp in large numbers.