Great question. It would be great if @Tulon (Ryan) himself were available to address such questions directly. I'm thinking his input might help to inspire more confidence, and I hope that is not a stretch.
I'm assuming he's making entire weeks batches at a time before shipping. The 12 week lead time was as of 11/3/2023, I'm assuming it has only increased with the holidays and amount of attention this headphone has gotten recently.
Figured it had to be useful for this Epic Quest.
I would say, that is not even too bad for a one-man operation and global demand.
Wonder how many they have on order. So Zeos dropped a review on the Phonitor 2 (won't power the Tungsten FYI) and mentioned Ryan is making about 5 Tungsten per week if I heard correctly. From what he said he only opens for about that many each time which is probably why it sold out in 2-3 min.
A note on Zeos's review of the Phonitor 2 and Tungsten. He did try the Tungsten when his master volume output was not set to max. He had been fidgeting with the remote setting with the Phonitor 2 using the same remote which was already mapped to his Fubar settings. He realized after that was why it wasnt loud enough, but didnt try the Tungsten with it after readjusting.
Also he didn't swap the DIP switches on the bottom of the unit. If it was on default position that might explains his conclusion even more so.
His SS isn't the latest, but he also has a latest version DS he got from Ryan as well in November at Capitol Audiofest from what Ryan told me a couple months back.
NO! let that man work LMAO.
I see your point, but it's no zero sum game though. I just think it wouldn't hurt if he were to pop in every now and then to answer a few questions or give a useful update about the work in progress, when he is taking a break. Surely he does take breaks, or doesn't he? After all, he has visited this forum a few times in the past, so the concept is not new. I wouldn't suggest that he spend the time set aside for work on the forum... Yet knowing that he is accumulating a significant number of pre-orders every week, wouldn't it be great if he could spend a few minutes of that "break time" each week providing an update on the progress of his work? Personally I see no harm in that.
