[Ciggavelli]

he'll do that ez.

I think it's a fait accompli at this point. Either unit-by-unit or he'll get scooped up by one of the Big Boys. Tungsten is a disruptive product.

Interesting. I could see Audeze possibly picking him up

 

[dl95]

Interesting. I could see Audeze possibly picking him up

Audeze got picked up themselves. I don't think Ryan wants to get picked up. He seems like he wants to do his own thing. At some point if the demand gets big enough, he'll probably start scaling his business and hire some people to help him out to keep up with the demand.

 

[Ciggavelli]

Audeze got picked up themselves. I don't think Ryan wants to get picked up. He seems like he wants to do his own thing. At some point if the demand gets big enough, he'll probably start scaling his business and hire some people to help him out to keep up with the demand.

Yeah maybe. But this wait time is crazy. I ordered at the beginning of November and haven’t heard a peep since.

Money talks, fortunately or unfortunately. Audeze seems like a safe bet, but I think they actually got bought out by somebody too. I don’t know who else would mesh with his headphones. Hard to drive planars are interesting. I think Hifiman or Abyss would pass. I don’t know who else is in Ryan’s market other than those 3. ZMF maybe (maybe).

If he wants to scale, he needs an established company behind him. Making one headphone at a time only works for so long…

 

[G8torbyte]

Audeze got picked up themselves. I don't think Ryan wants to get picked up. He seems like he wants to do his own thing. At some point if the demand gets big enough, he'll probably start scaling his business and hire some people to help him out to keep up with the demand.

Yeah maybe. But this wait time is crazy. I ordered at the beginning of November and haven’t heard a peep since.

Money talks, fortunately or unfortunately. Audeze seems like a safe bet, but I think they actually got bought out by somebody too. I don’t know who else would mesh with his headphones. Hard to drive planars are interesting. I think Hifiman or Abyss would pass. I don’t know who else is in Ryan’s market other than those 3. ZMF maybe (maybe).

If he wants to scale, he needs an established company behind him. Making one headphone at a time only works for so long…

It was Sony's Playstation Division that picked up Audeze. Guess they are banking on more growth in the gaming market. I never had any luck with planar driven HP's with gaming. I tried a few but I always go back to my old Superlux 668B's for gaming. It's dynamics and spatial placement just seemed better suited for that purpose.

 

[Slackaveli]

Interesting. I could see Audeze possibly picking him up

Yeah, that's one of the few that might consider it. I'd normally say that it doesn't seem like acquisitions are a hugely common thing in this industry , but, Tungsten is a stroke of genius.

 

[Slackaveli]

It was Sony's Playstation Division that picked up Audeze. Guess they are banking on more growth in the gaming market. I never had any luck with planar driven HP's with gaming. I tried a few but I always go back to my old Superlux 668B's for gaming. It's dynamics and spatial placement just seemed better suited for that purpose.

Perfect example. Sony wasn't looking at them really at all then Maxwell came out and sounds really good for the gaming world. Next thing you know Sony bought them.

It's all for fun and speculation. In general I'd much prefer that he remain independent with partnerships with Viking Weave and ZMF just like he's done. Though, ideally, he'd have a couple or 3 very good assemblers helping with the grunt work i'd say.

 

[Erick Muller]

Perfect example. Sony wasn't looking at them really at all then Maxwell came out and sounds really good for the gaming world. Next thing you know Sony bought them.

It's all for fun and speculation. In general I'd much prefer that he remain independent with partnerships with Viking Weave and ZMF just like he's done. Though, ideally, he'd have a couple or 3 very good assemblers helping with the grunt work i'd say.

The problem is that if he hires people that already know how to do what he does, they're gonna charge for it and that it's going to increase the cost of the headphone, if he grabs people that don't have a lot of experience with what he needs help with, he may not need to increase the cost of the headphones but he needs time to train these new apprentices, so there's really no good solutions here, is either time or money or both.

 

[psy472]

Or hire a company to scale it up for him? The risk of self scaling is your employees can easily copy your work unless your stuff is patented.

 

[Erick Muller]

Or hire a company to scale it up for him? The risk of self scaling is your employees can easily copy your work unless your stuff is patented.

Possible, but there's also the problem that the final product may not be to the standards of Ryan and he also have to be really careful that said company doesn't steal his design

 

[psy472]

Possible, but there's also the problem that the final product may not be to the standards of Ryan and he also have to be really careful that said company doesn't steal his design

That’s why there are contracts and lawyers involved. There is confidentiality agreements as well. Heck, even IBM is offering scale up services. No worries, US protection laws are pretty good.

 

[Erick Muller]

That’s why there are contracts and lawyers involved. There is confidentiality agreements as well. Heck, even IBM is offering scale up services. No worries, US protection laws are pretty good.

I think most of all we need to be patient, this is a niche inside what already is a very niche market and hobby.

 

[psy472]

Sigh… yea. Would be great if we knew the dates of ordered for the ones being shipped now.

 

[Slackaveli]

I can definitely confirm that the Midgard doesn't do the Tungsten any justice. I paired it up with the BF 2/64 and I had to go almost 90-90% volume on high gain. It lacked dynamics and just wasn't a good listen. I'd be very curious on a pre-amp for sure...but boosting the volts may introduce other unwanted things with an amp like the Midgard. I only say that because it isn't a true balanced amp.

That's a shame because I'm curious to hear the Midgard's Halo mode with enough juice on Tungsten.

 

[Ricey20]

He could simply hire more people and become more like DCA or ZMF. He could submit a patent app for his current R&D tech if he was really worried, just like how DCA and ZMF does, and have stipulations in contract for the people he hires. I don't see him wanting to get picked up by a bigger company because then he will start losing control over certain things, which could potentially be bad for us who have followed his work.

 

[dl95]

He could simply hire more people and become more like DCA or ZMF. He could submit a patent app for his current R&D tech if he was really worried, just like how DCA and ZMF does, and have stipulations in contract for the people he hires. I don't see him wanting to get picked up by a bigger company because then he will start losing control over certain things, which could potentially be bad for us who have followed his work.

I think he will eventually hire more people but I don't think it is realistic at the moment. Mod House is still a pretty small operation and I doubt he has the capital to commit to find and hire the right people right now. He's had to borrow money just to have enough to create the first few Tungstens.

There's probably only around 50 people in the world who currently have Tungstens and maybe another 100 waiting for theirs. It is also hard for him to predict whether there will be a consistent stream of new customers over a long period of time or if this is a momentary spike in demand that will eventually become more manageable.