It’s not surprising in the least that, 2 1/2 years into it, Smyth Research is no better at communicating with buyers. In the meantime, I’ve amassed a small treasure trove of surround music to listen to when my kickstarter A16 finally arrives on my doorstep. Like others here, I have had my hopes dashed many times already so I have resolved to not pay attention to any timetables outside of shipping notifications. I mean no disrespect to anyone when I say that and I agree that a Spring shipment would be a wonderful thing. I continue to enjoy my OPPO 105, Chord Dave and HE1000 V2 while I wait.
I just now went over to the Kickstarter site to see if anyone has posted good news from the show... nothing...
but you know what... every time I go to that site and I see the pic of the A16 with the HD800 setting there,
its like being in high school and setting next to the best looking girl in school... and she actually talks to you...
that's just one sexy looking setup....
can't help it... just can't help it...
The gap between creating and developing a product and producing a product as a going concern is huge. It's not only a matter of funding, it's a matter of organizational and entrepreneurial skills.
The Smyths had a very small niche business with the A8, but the A16 is another thing altogether. My guess is they know how to run a shop, but not a plant. The requisite skills, I suspect are lacking. Eventually they will be unable to hide behind the Dolby Certification excuse. Everyone should note particularly their lack of transparency as to where the unit is in the certification process, and the lack of communication regarding when final Dolby approval is expected. Even for a small business, Dolby Certification is a process which is able to be completed in a few months at most. If this continues to drag out, it will be next to impossible to conclude other than something is seriously awry and this is another failed kickstarter.
It’s not surprising in the least that, 2 1/2 years into it, Smyth Research is no better at communicating with buyers. In the meantime, I’ve amassed a small treasure trove of surround music to listen to when my kickstarter A16 finally arrives on my doorstep. Like others here, I have had my hopes dashed many times already so I have resolved to not pay attention to any timetables outside of shipping notifications. I mean no disrespect to anyone when I say that and I agree that a Spring shipment would be a wonderful thing. I continue to enjoy my OPPO 105, Chord Dave and HE1000 V2 while I wait.
That's a nice setup.Are you listening to CDs mainly? I have the Empyrean, then I would like a TT2 and when Realiser A16 arrive I will stop buying audio gear.
The gap between creating and developing a product and producing a product as a going concern is huge. It's not only a matter of funding, it's a matter of organizational and entrepreneurial skills.
The Smyths had a very small niche business with the A8, but the A16 is another thing altogether. My guess is they know how to run a shop, but not a plant. The requisite skills, I suspect are lacking. Eventually they will be unable to hide behind the Dolby Certification excuse. Everyone should note particularly their lack of transparency as to where the unit is in the certification process, and the lack of communication regarding when final Dolby approval is expected. Even for a small business, Dolby Certification is a process which is able to be completed in a few months at most. If this continues to drag out, it will be next to impossible to conclude other than something is seriously awry and this is another failed kickstarter.
I hate the delays as much as anyone, but that picture of shelves full of A16s posted by the French distributor tell me this is not another failed Kickstarter.
I hate the delays as much as anyone, but that picture of shelves full of A16s posted by the French distributor tell me this is not another failed Kickstarter.
I agree with this. If a Kickstarter goes belly up it tends to happen before hardware is manufactured so I have faith that we will get our orders at some point.
That doesn't excuse the the absolute poor communication that has happened over the past 2+ years. Smyth Research has constantly seemed to forget that we are paying customers and it's not unreasonable to ask questions or ask for updates and expect a response no matter how vague.
That's a nice setup.Are you listening to CDs mainly? I have the Empyrean, then I would like a TT2 and when Realiser A16 arrive I will stop buying audio gear.
Thanks musicday. I use the OPPO exclusively to watch movies and rip DSD files from SACDs. All of my music is ripped to a well backed up hard drive and then fed from a server to Chord Dave.
I hate the delays as much as anyone, but that picture of shelves full of A16s posted by the French distributor tell me this is not another failed Kickstarter.
The certification is just an authorization from Dolby, it doesn't require to implement a certificate in the firmware. That's why they may ship the A16 with a modified firmware to turn off DTS decoding while it didn't get the DTS certification.
Let's hope for an update by the end of this month. The show in Dublin finished 3 days ago and hopefully we will get some comments on that and the must have it shipping date.
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