[CaptainFunk]

Ahhh ... You will be fine.
No panic ... on the Titanic .

If they choose randomly then the number doesn’t matter.

 

[Richter Di]

I actually think it is fair to treat all Kickstarter purchases equally, just because someone backed early doesn't mean they are more important than someone who backed later in my opinion.

I disagree.

I don't agree. It should be first in first served.

I set my alarm clock and got up in the middle of the night to get in as soon as it started. I knew the deal was so good I wanted to make sure I didn't miss out.

A backer is effectively a purchaser (I know there are differences) but the same principles should apply.

So by your reasoning, even though I was one of the first ten backers it will be fair if I have to wait 30 weeks to get my realiser?

I agree with your comment. Also the first backers might have also helped with Facebook shares etc. to make the product more known. I know I shared it several times. When Audeze did an influencer thing for the Moebius I ended up in the top twenty. Even got some T-shirts and caps from it. So, yes early backers are very important.

Given they are only shipping 10 - 20 a week it is impossible to treat every backer equally. Therefore there should be a system.

I fully agree. The only thing I suggest to take into consideration is Brexit. With Brexit it will probably become more expensive for Smyth and also the backer to get the A16. So sending them all before Brexit would have made sense. But as we see it seems they are not taking this route.

 

[Richter Di]

If they choose randomly then the number doesn’t matter.

I do not think it is random. Have you seen “The Good Place”? Smyth has an accountant how has tracked everything you ever said, wrote or thought about the Smyth brothers. Based on this you will receive a rank and those with the highest rank, most positive speech, writing and thoughts will receive it first.

 

[Takeanidea]

I do not think it is random. Have you seen “The Good Place”? Smyth has an accountant how has tracked everything you ever said, wrote or thought about the Smyth brothers. Based on this you will receive a rank and those with the highest rank, most positive speech, writing and thoughts will receive it first.

I will therefore get it on the twelfth of never!

 

[Maestroso]

I also agree with the sentiment (or is it rather just good manners?) that they should ship in the order of backer number.

While the KS had been on, I was in the same boat ... as in setting up an alarm to be one of the first backers and, back then, because I was still a student at the time, spending my last penny on the Realiser (, which was quite a risky move per se and forced me to accept a job delivering newspapers late night for the next couple of months - in addition to carrying out my job at the university - yep, I was lucky enough to change professions quite successfully a few times during my relatively young life). I meant to use the Realiser for experiments, but due to the late delivery had to scrap my plans and come up with my own solution. Ironically, nowadays I occasionally write for one of those magazines that I used to do deliveries for, but a lot of sweat went into being able to afford the Realiser. I suppose the two hours per night sleep paid off, somewhat. Things have changed since, and I own a professional studio nowadays.

Also, as RichterDi pointed out, backers played quite a part in creating awareness. I know of at least two preorders that were basically made upon my recommendation (previously, the respective parties had never heard of Smyth Research). As a matter of fact, the Realiser would need a lot more exposure on the production market. Really, almost nobody has heard about it but everybody aims to recreate ideal studio acoustics and is willing to pay big Dollar. The Realiser could be an extremely easy sell if Smyth Research pulls the right strings.

Let’s hope they maintain a good climate amongst their backers also in the future. Despite the strong passions that form the backstory of the Realiser community.

 

[CaptainFunk]

Maybe I am a bit more relaxed than everybody else because I already have an A8 - I didn’t mean to offend anyone, I am just trying to understand what the Smyth’s are doing. I wish they would be more honest in this regard.

 

[anach]

The only thing I suggest to take into consideration is Brexit. With Brexit it will probably become more expensive for Smyth and also the backer to get the A16. So sending them all before Brexit would have made sense. But as we see it seems they are not taking this route.

If people cancel their preorders because, for example, they are pissed off about having to pay additional taxes, then Smyth can sell their units at full price, which seems like their win. Possibility not that far-fetched considering the lack of empathy Smyth has shown so far.

 

[jgazal]

Maybe it is easier to comply with local sales and export regulation to commonwealth nations than export norms to other countries thus they ship UK and Australia clients first.
Maybe they are prioritizing European clients.
Maybe they are prioritazing the clients UPS said it can deliver faster.
Really hard to know without a word from them.
I haven’t received any message and my country is not known to have the best logistics or lower taxes in the world... Add that to a devaluation crisis of my country’s currency and my time schedule to clearance and arrival is really uncertain.

 

[VandyMan]

If people cancel their preorders because, for example, they are pissed off about having to pay additional taxes, then Smyth can sell their units at full price, which seems like their win. Possibility not that far-fetched considering the lack of empathy Smyth has shown so far.

I don't think it is a lack of empathy. I was told by one of the Smyths a couple of years ago, that they are losing money on the KS units. That is why they have been willing to do refunds.

 

[VandyMan]

I wonder if the out of order shipping is due to them possibly shipping only one version at the moment or if both the rack mount and headstand versions are going out?

(Edit: I have no knowledge as to if they are shipping both types or not. Just speculation.)

 

[Sordel]

I wonder if the out of order shipping is due to them possibly shipping only one version at the moment or if both the rack mount and headstand versions are going out?

(Edit: I have no knowledge as to if they are shipping both types or not. Just speculation.)

Good question! In all the discussion of hypothetical shipping orders so far I don't recall that being considered as a factor.

 

[anach]

I don't think it is a lack of empathy. I was told by one of the Smyths a couple of years ago, that they are losing money on the KS units. That is why they have been willing to do refunds.

I have no reason to doubt that they lose money on the KS units. Even if they don't lose money on the preorder units, they still get more money if preorders are cancelled. So they might be tempted to hold shipments back intentionally. Just a theory of course that cannot be proven by outsiders - as already said by someone on this thread -, but the fact that it's not quite unreasonable to suspect Smyth in doing something like this, is sad by itself.

 

[sahmen]

This is of course partly speculation, but it is from reading the instructions that the French distributor, Gilles Gérin, sent to his A-16 customers, and from reading all the "tea leaves" pointing to Smyth Research's present cashflow problem that I deduced the idea that they are essentially following a three-tier shipping system, and to my mind, nothing has changed:

Spoiler: Re: Gilles Gérin's announcement

These parts of Gilles Gerin's message to the French backers/buyers are interesting:

"En ce qui concerne la livraison de votre appareil, comme indiqué précédemment (dans un mail ancien...), l'ordre appliqué sera celui de l'arrivée des paiements. Sans favoritisme (non, inutile de protester). Et, vous l'aurez compris, il va s'écouler plusieurs mois avant que tout le monde soit servi.

Le moment venu, avant de vous envoyer votre machine, je vous enverrai une demande de confirmation de votre adresse d'expédition, celle-ci ayant pu changer. Inutile de me la faire parvenir tout de suite."

(Quick translation : With regard to the delivery of your units, as previously announced in an e-mail from long ago, it will follow the order in which your payments were received. There'll be no favoritism [it's pointless to protest, so don't even go there]. And, as you can well imagine, it is going to take several months for everyone to be served.

When your turn comes, before shipping your machine, I shall send you a shipping address confirmation e-mail, in case that address has changed. Do not send that address to me now. That would be pointless)...



i am inferring from the above that, since the order of shipping and delivery is going to follow the order in which payments were received for Gilles Gérin's customers in France, it is only logical to expect the same system to be applied for shipments to other countries, or it should be, unless I am mistaken...

Gilles Gérin also says he is going to send his customers advance shipping address confirmation e-mails before dispatching each unit to the confirmed address. It is not clear whether the Smyths are going to follow the same method for shipments to other countries, but one would normally expect that they would. At any rate, we shall have to wait and see.

Whatever happens under these conditions, I do not feel entitled, as one who pre-ordered, to expect any shipping related correspondence from the Smyths for at least the next 6 months, and that sucks balls, but I am used to such unpleasant aspects of the Smyth customer relations code... It would however be nice if they would apply for the DTS-X/Auro 3d certifications immediately, so that, six months from now, they can hopefully ship the A-16 with those DTS-X and Auro 3D functionalities already on board. I would personally consider it as a sad consequence of their awkward/unorthodox business practices if they opt to wait for another long year before applying for those other certifications.

Spoiler: Smyth 3-tier shipping system

I think James Smyth's pecking order for shipping is fairly straight-forward now. We have a 3-tier system:

Tier 1. $4000 - cash, paid in full:

Tier 2. KS Backers:

Tier 3. Pre-orders

In other words, it is capitalism at its finest,
Don't get me wrong. I totally get the argument according to which the Smyths must resort to such tactics in order to stay financially afloat, so that they can successfully fund all the deliveries eventually... In a way, one cannot fault them if they've adopted this three-tier system because they're indeed that desperate for cash...

And yet here are my causes for concern :

On the one hand, if they're indeed that desperate for cash, then prioritizing Tier 1 transactions (the Instant-cash-for-instant--delivery group) could itself be a precarious strategy, since generating enough cash to fund the rest of the deliveries, would itself depend on their finding enough buyers who are willing and able to buy the A-16 at this latest price point, to make the entire strategy viable. One important question here is whether there are enough buyers out there, for such a niche product, whose purchases would help the Smyths to fulfill this requirement smoothly...Also where do possible increases in costs associated with Brexit and the talk about "recession" fit into this program?... I do not know the answer to that, but let's proceed

There is also, on the other hand, a different potential risk related to this approach, if they become successful at selling many A-16s at the $4000 instant delivery price... They might just get so excited about maintaining the momentum--that of the immediate financial windfall of selling the A-16 at that price-point-- that they could be tempted to slow down deliveries at tiers 2 and 3 in favor of boosting the numbers and sales of A-16s at Tier 1...

While I am not implying that they would necessarily resort to such dirty tricks, I am just recognizing the fact that the temptation is just human (especially when one is desperately strapped for cash, and if that is indeed the situation of the Smyths), and that, were that to happen, we would not have any means, as backers or pre-ordering customers, of knowing any different... We do not have many privileges of oversight in this process, if any at all, which is why being made to wait in line as a KS backer or pre-ordering customer sucks so much, all of a sudden...

Hey, I do want this strategy--or whatever plan the Smyths adopt to see this delivery phase out--to succeed, and even succeed spectacularly, as long as, it accomplishes its final goal of delivering the product to every backer and pre-ordering customer, in a timely fashion (i.e. if the "timely delivery train has not already left the station).

I also want the Smyths to succeed, because it is the only way they can support this product (which is still not entirely ready for prime time yet), and push it to fulfill its true technological potential and promise.

I just hate to find myself at the wrong end of a trickle-down shipping policy, waiting for a product I paid for in full, nearly two full years ago... Trickle-down scenarios always suck for everyone, except for those who can afford the reap the benefits at the top of the food chain.

In short the Smyths have had to organize their own version of Trickle-down economics in this three tier shipping system..., And as most of us are probably aware, the execution or reality of most trickle down scenarios almost never match what was initially planned or promised;

Having said all of that, I hope, for all our sakes, that the Smyths get whatever influx of cash they're looking for quickly, so that they can expedite all the shipping, and all the other enhancements they're planning for the
A-16. As one who pre-ordered in September 2017, and hence find myself at the wrong end of this trickle down shipping scheme, I do not feel like I am sitting pretty at all at this point.

I also note, with some sadness, that one poster who used to be among the most consistently optimistic in this forum, @musicday , no longer shows up here at all. He has not even put in an appearance since the Smyths announced shipping.

 

[Sanctuary]

Hi, if I may ask, with respect to your out-of-the-box experience of the A8 (i.e. just using the default generic PRIR rather than one of your own) how well does it virtualise front / center channel depth out-of-your-head? How much farther out in front of you did they feel in comparison to pre-existing headphone virtual surround solutions you have tried?
Thanks

Mentioned this a page or few ago, but I only found three out of the 80+ PRIRs that other people uploaded (those that were done in professional studios too, and some were also even measured by those at Smyth Research), I only found three or so that did what I thought was a good center speaker and only one of them had rears that sounded like rears. I got mine used, so I no longer had the default PRIRs that came with a new A8, and for whatever reason, the originals that were uploaded did not work, so I couldn't hear how the defaults sounded.

Of the three that I found that had a good center speaker, they sounded roughly the same as Dolby Headphone. The one that had rears that sounded like rears had a worse overall timbre to the speakers though. Once I got my own PRIRs done though, they sounded way better than Dolby Headphone, and essentially like speakers. Although your mileage may vary with default/uploaded PRIRs since everyone has a different HRTF, but some can be similar enough that they might find someone else's PRIR sounds "good" to them, even if it would not be as good as making their own.

Most of them that I listened to sounded like the center was hovering way above my head. Out of my head (which can also slightly be adjusted to sounded closer or farther), but still not really right vertically. The fronts also sounded way off most of the time. Like they too were hovering.

Headphones also matter. I only have two open (or semi open) headphones right now, the Beyerdynamic DT880s (my general use headphone) and the Sennheiser HD800s. The HD800s give me the best experience overall, but for casual listening (if I have company), I can use the DT880s just fine as they still sound better than Dolby Headphone when using my own PRIR. Probably going to look into an electrostatic in the future.

The gist is: don't expect to be blown away by the default PRIRs. They might sound better to you, but they likely won't sound $1,600 - $4,000 better than Dolby Headphone.

I actually think it is fair to treat all Kickstarter purchases equally, just because someone backed early doesn't mean they are more important than someone who backed later in my opinion.

I don't. Those that took the most risk should be the first in the queue, because often people won't do anything until they see someone else has done it before them. Unless we're talking minutes of differences between them, or you are viewing it as "everyone has an equal chance to be screwed".

 

[CanMad]

I also have an A8 but haven’t used it in a long time. Haven’t even done a PRIR for my new system due to the hassle of using the 8 analogue inputs for test signals.

My new system is atmos, most of the movies I watch these days have an atmos soundtrack so hasn’t been worthwhile using the A8.

Guess I might as well use it to get my friends systems for two channel. And maybe take new measurements of my system while I’m mucking about with the A16 with my receiver pulled out of the rack and unhooking all those speaker connections to do the individual speaker method.