Seiun player, $150 player with monster spec. Too good to be true?

[tienbasse]

Good insight all around! I work in academia and generally have 3 projects with overlapping time frames allowing flexibility while delivering to fixed deadlines (hard fixed by government contracts).

I would hope a startup would still want to keep their designers rather than lose them to competitors (of which there are plenty), though. So there is probably some benefit in keeping creatives working on something while you may still need them to come up with solutions for the current project on an ad-hoc basis. All of that would be predicated on the having in house design and engineering, which may not be the case.

None of us know the structure of the company or the motivations of their workers, so probably the best thing is to not pass judgment and keep our cool as this new company goes through reasonable growing pains and inevitable delays in delivering a product that delivers on its promises. My insights, if you can call them that, relate to my preferences for work, which won't be everybody's.

I'll wait patiently. I've got time.

Quite the fruitless discussion indeed, different people have different motivations at work, and enjoy different stuff.
 
Regardless of what their true motives are, CD communication is making less and less sense.
 
I work in R&D, and while delays are a common thing early on in projects where you still playing with design, there should be less and less of them as projects are nearing completion.
I'm willing to accept delays and I've been pretty supportive so far in this thread, but this is slowly but surely reaching a point where it just looks like pure amateurism in terms of project management.
 
There is ONE thing which doesn't cost much to a company when you want to keep investors/customers satisfied: communication. Informed investors/customers tend to have more patience, as long as you keep them fed with one main piece of info: the schedule.
 
I'm sorry, but annoucements derived from January to March, then April, and now they're annoucing beta testing for May and June.
What happened to April? Not a word to apologize and give a new launch date! I don't ********* care about beta testing, I want to know when I'm supposed to get the actual good!
So guess what ? Without a crystal ball, I can already tell you that we won't see any final product before at least September because of the beta testing period and subsequent adjustment work.
And given their previous performance, September is highly optimistic, we'll be lucky to get something usable for Christmas.
 
As an early backer, I start to get aggravated because we're not talking about crowfunding a revolutionary item using brand new technology.
 
When you have delays, people want the new schedule above anything else, not useless explanations saying how unexpected the delay was...
And if you can't communicate a new schedule quickly enough, you just suck at project management and only manage to alienate customers, period.

 

[rtar]

 
Quite the fruitless discussion indeed, different people have different motivations at work, and enjoy different stuff.
 
Regardless of what their true motives are, CD communication is making less and less sense.
 
I work in R&D, and while delays are a common thing early on in projects where you still playing with design, there should be less and less of them as projects are nearing completion.
I'm willing to accept delays and I've been pretty supportive so far in this thread, but this is slowly but surely reaching a point where it just looks like pure amateurism in terms of project management.
 
There is ONE thing which doesn't cost much to a company when you want to keep investors/customers satisfied: communication. Informed investors/customers tend to have more patience, as long as you keep them fed with one main piece of info: the schedule.
 
I'm sorry, but annoucements derived from January to March, then April, and now they're annoucing beta testing for May and June.
What happened to April? Not a word to apologize and give a new launch date! I don't ********* care about beta testing, I want to know when I'm supposed to get the actual good!
So guess what ? Without a crystal ball, I can already tell you that we won't see any final product before at least September because of the beta testing period and subsequent adjustment work.
And given their previous performance, September is highly optimistic, we'll be lucky to get something usable for Christmas.
 
As an early backer, I start to get aggravated because we're not talking about crowfunding a revolutionary item using brand new technology.
 
When you have delays, people want the new schedule above anything else, not useless explanations saying how unexpected the delay was...
And if you can't communicate a new schedule quickly enough, you just suck at project management and only manage to alienate customers, period.

Very well said!

 

[glassmonkey]

Apparently all VOLT numbers are out, which means I didn't get lucky this time around. Any lucky winners?

 

[Jackpot77]

Got a VOLTS number, but don't think they are drawing the lucky numbers out of the hat until later in the week if I'm reading the update right so no idea if I'm in the lucky section yet. Going on current luck, not holding my breath...

 

[Middy]

I got my receipt for the bribe I payed....

 

[sososerious]

  Apparently all VOLT numbers are out, which means I didn't get lucky this time around. Any lucky winners?

 
I thought everyone who qualified (ie, backed the project) got a VOLT number, then the lucky ones will be picked out of a hat?
 
EDIT: To clarify, I also got a Volt number

 

[Middy]

Should have been those who applied for the beta + a backer

 

[glassmonkey]

 

  Apparently all VOLT numbers are out, which means I didn't get lucky this time around. Any lucky winners?

 
I thought everyone who qualified (ie, backed the project) got a VOLT number, then the lucky ones will be picked out of a hat?
 
EDIT: To clarify, I also got a Volt number

Everybody got a VOLT number who qualified for Beta testing, but they indicated that they have sent all emails out in the latest update. Given that I didn't receive an email, I have to assume that I wasn't one of the lucky few. They probably should have put the numbers in the update. It was kind of silly that they didn't given that they mentioned problems with an email server. Maybe some of us still get lucky but haven't been informed due to technical difficulties.

 

[jdog]

  Everybody got a VOLT number who qualified for Beta testing, but they indicated that they have sent all emails out in the latest update. Given that I didn't receive an email, I have to assume that I wasn't one of the lucky few. They probably should have put the numbers in the update. It was kind of silly that they didn't given that they mentioned problems with an email server. Maybe some of us still get lucky but haven't been informed due to technical difficulties.

If you email CD and ask for your VOLT number, I'm sure they'll give it to you...  They did for me, anyway.  In any event, sounds like CD is trying to buy (or ? kill) some time to get the beta players all ready to ship out to the "lucky" few by stretching out this whole VOLT number contest.....

 

[glassmonkey]

 

  Everybody got a VOLT number who qualified for Beta testing, but they indicated that they have sent all emails out in the latest update. Given that I didn't receive an email, I have to assume that I wasn't one of the lucky few. They probably should have put the numbers in the update. It was kind of silly that they didn't given that they mentioned problems with an email server. Maybe some of us still get lucky but haven't been informed due to technical difficulties.

If you email CD and ask for your VOLT number, I'm sure they'll give it to you...  They did for me, anyway.  In any event, sounds like CD is trying to buy (or ? kill) some time to get the beta players all ready to ship out to the "lucky" few by stretching out this whole VOLT number contest.....

I have my VOLT number, but I got no notification of winning.

 

[sososerious]

I have my VOLT number, but I got no notification of winning.

From the update....

All the numbers have been print out and we are ready to draw out in this week. We will follow the contribution ranking, which is our released table to draw out on each group.

The winner number will be released on our Indiegogo page and the team also will inform you individually once we completed the process.

That reads to me as if the draw is yet to happen?

 

[glassmonkey]

 

I have my VOLT number, but I got no notification of winning.

From the update....

All the numbers have been print out and we are ready to draw out in this week. We will follow the contribution ranking, which is our released table to draw out on each group.

The winner number will be released on our Indiegogo page and the team also will inform you individually once we completed the process.

That reads to me as if the draw is yet to happen?

I think you read that right, but it seems pretty silly to me. I can make an excel spreadsheet that will pick the 50 folks in about 10 minutes. They've made this way more complicated than they need to. All you have to do is have a random draw from the beta distribution in one column and volt numbers in another and then sort the beta draw with expand selection on. Top 50 folks would be the beta testers. It isn't any more complicated to break it into 40 and 10.

 

[jdog]

  I think you read that right, but it seems pretty silly to me. I can make an excel spreadsheet that will pick the 50 folks in about 10 minutes. They've made this way more complicated than they need to. All you have to do is have a random draw from the beta distribution in one column and volt numbers in another and then sort the beta draw with expand selection on. Top 50 folks would be the beta testers. It isn't any more complicated to break it into 40 and 10.

Like I said earlier, I think they are trying to buy more time to help soften delays in production, etc.....

 

[swannie007]

This is starting to resemble an LH Labs fiasco. I'll never back another one of their projects no matter how good it sounds. I don't expect delivery before the end of the year at this pace.

 

[tienbasse]

  Like I said earlier, I think they are trying to buy more time to help soften delays in production, etc.....

My opinion as well, this complex lottery stuff just for beta testing is a way to justify additional delays.
Mark my words, we'll get nothing final before at least September and more reasonably the end of the year, if they ever manage to finalize the player and/or the amp...
 
Strangely enough I didn't get to participate, even though I have not been very critical until now.