I am writing this as feedback for Light Harmonic and Larry mainly as I don’t know who their latest representatives are. It used to be Jarek I think.
Firstly I think the silly carping at other members especially if you are not a backer who put down USD 2000 odd is damaging to us who did and do not want LH or LHL to declare bankruptcy as then we can really kiss our money goodbye. There is still hope and please do not destroy it for us.
I am an original backer of Geek Wave (much as I dislike the silly name). I did due diligence before I backed them reading up all the good reviews in various audio magazines that reviewed their previous products which were glowing.
The main reason I chose to back them was firstly there was no other good DAP on the market at that time and secondly because they uniquely offered and I think still do a replaceable battery. My partner has had to throw away three expensive mobile phones because the Lithium batteries were not replaceable by the companies. I won’t name them but they are three separate famous name brands. I also had to throw away two of my fav DAPs before I backed WAVE for the same reason.
Ok I still hope I will get a workable WAVE.
I do not and will not use online streaming, wifi or blue tooth or any audio encoding higher than FLAC 96, simply because the others are too expensive and the tiny difference they may make to my aging ears is not worth the price tag they charge. I already have an electronic musical collection of about 1 Terabyte I would like to be able to play. I rarely add to this now unless it is something extremely unusually good or new in the world of performance or composition. I ignore mediocre stuff. Some are transfers from CDs from the original first release of CDs because the interpretations are unique and the performers now deceased so they will not ever be improved on. In the last 10 years I mostly have bought downloads but a few good things are still not available on downloads which seems very strange given that these are forefront award winning CD labels and I reluctantly buy a few physical CDs which I have great trouble in ripping as my computers no longer have CD Drives.
Given what I have said about my needs if Larry and his audio engineers cannot get certain very complex audio software audio to do streaming…I don’t care and I would be happy with less, as long as it works and is robust.
In my classical world it is not so much about high quality of sound but interpretations. Some of the pre-stereo recordings are actually better at presenting some classical music compositions than some modern soulless high tech recordings.
For example some performers are too fast and some too slow; some go for details of each phrase but lose sight of the overarching whole of the composition; some introduce effects that were never there in the original score, etc etc. there are so many other parameters by which a good classical music performance recording is judged; others some are too closely miked and have no space or air around the music, others are too remote, or the venue acoustically bad for that type of music and so on.
I have found the GO2 I think it is called a small very hot running box in a bright metal red cover from LH has served me well almost 24 hours a day over 3 years connecting my laptop as source of music files to my Sony pretty old Sony compact unit which has wooden speaker cases not those modern plastic junk ones.
So Larry if you are ready to supply some folk with a slightly less fancy product we would accept that rather than wait for streaming and other stuff we will never use anyway. I am 72 years old and would like to make some sue of the WAVE before I pass on to celestial fields.
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I have lost money on other IG funded products mainly because according to the campaign owners the Chinese manufactures were unable to meet the demand or quality or supplied parts of lower quality without telling the campaign owners and the products failed in the trials or had to be shipped backwards and forwards by backers for replacement parts. Given the world financial situation at the start of 2019 I doubt the situation for manufacturers is going to get any better in China, probably worse rather to meet specifications of the IG designers high hopes and standards. It’s no good hoping they will and making us suffer so manufacture something that works at least robustly rather than some high tech spec product that will fail in the end pretty quickly. I am not going to buy another DAP. I cannot afford it. If I don’t get the WAVE I will go without; so please, writers in this thread don’t talk the product into being written off by your negativity. It’s our, the backers’ money not yours and our hopes not yours. This is not a forum for you simply to have fun in venting clever aleck remarks and sniping at one another. Thank you.
