[SofaSamuraiX]

If there was a concerted effort to pass off products with the wrong internals it becomes a scam. A shell game in my mind. Or is snake oil a better way of describing that? Please, someone explain or link me to the watery head thing! I must know that story.

 

[Midgetguy]

True. Ethically there's a difference between a scam and a terrible business plan with poor money management and awful customer service.

However, even with them shipping the Air and the PM6, they're just shy of scam artists. The PM6s you got certainly weren't the IEMs they were billed to be, and I strongly believe their innards probably weren't components they were supposed to be. On the Air we were all sold a bill of goods. We were told they were nearly ready for production with dual antenna design that prevented drop outs. We all know how that ended up. (Us darn humans and all that water in our heads).

So maybe they didn't set out for this to be a scam, but in the end there's little difference to the customer.

While at its base definition, scams and poorly-run money and inventory management are different, you're right; the end result is customers are out money with nothing to show for it. Not necessarily an out and out scam, but it has the same effect. Their business plan had a fine start, but once you move beyond the initial launch product, you can't really do things KS-style anymore. It makes sense for the initial launch product for figuring out production and all that, but beyond that, you really should have all the appropriate connections and suppliers in place before moving further on anything else.

If there was a concerted effort to pass off products with the wrong internals it becomes a scam. A shell game in my mind. Or is snake oil a better way of describing that? Please, someone explain or link me to the watery head thing! I must know that story.

I'm not so quick to allege that they are shipping out stuff with the wrong internals, though of course their "launch" of the x-line makes it that much murkier. If the intention from the get-go was to deliver something different from what they propose, then it's a scam. But that's the not the case here. They set out to ship something as proposed, they sucked at figuring out the inventory and money, then they had to scramble to get stuff out that matched the proposed specs as closely as they could. It's an more of a failed improvisation in my mind rather than a scam, otherwise they could just shove a dynamic driver in with a BA, ship it out to all the already disappointed people and call it a day. Wouldn't cost them that much and saying they delivered something is better for the reputation than not doing a damn thing. If they did that, then it would be a scam. As it stands, they seem to either be doing nothing (highly likely) or putting together extremely small quantities of the product with the bits of inventory they could actually get a hold of to match the original specs. Still, bottom line is that customers that invested in their goals and ideas are out in the cold.
Lol, the watery head thing really is funny. At one point, there was an explanation about why many of the people that actually received a first-batch Air were getting cutouts every minute or multiple times a minute. They said it's the limitation of BT technology, that BT signals inherently don't travel through water well and because the human body is over 70% water, it naturally did a fair amount of blocking the signal either from device to Air or master Air to slave Air. Basically, as a person, you're physically not conducive to using BT technology; too much water everywhere.

 

[incursore61]

I really hope you're right, I'm perhaps pessimistic but I think that every move (including sending some PM6) has been calculated not to make it clear to customers that they have been scammed, in this way it will not be possible to ask for reimbursement to paypal, and in the meantime nobody answers anymore to e-mails ...

 

[Midgetguy]

I really hope you're right, I'm perhaps pessimistic but I think that every move (including sending some PM6) has been calculated not to make it clear to customers that they have been scammed, in this way it will not be possible to ask for reimbursement to paypal, and in the meantime nobody answers anymore to e-mails ...

I'd love to be right too.....but while I feel I may be correct in the semantics of the situation, it really doesn't change the reality of it: anyone with pending items from TAE probably won't ever be getting them.

 

[HungryPanda]

Or not it is truly a conundrum in our audiophile life right now. I keep thinking in a parallel world it is super

 

[gazzington]

I have got some trinity icurus 3 iems. Can someone explain what the difference in each tuning filter Is? I'm after something to sound good with black and death metal

 

[Mustang80]

I have got some trinity icurus 3 iems. Can someone explain what the difference in each tuning filter Is? I'm after something to sound good with black and death metal

Not sure if this will help, but made this a while ago...

https://cdn.head-fi.org/a/9868448.jpg

 

[gazzington]

Thanks that’s just the sort of thing that I was after

 

[PxOR]

how is it some are still defending them by using technicalities? even if it is not "intended" scam how's that better? Not matter at all.

Like I said i'm usually chill, probably too chill as waited months for the refunds that never came. But no, keeping my hard earned money (a large sum at that) while not telling me what really is going on *is* a scam, not to mention suddenly there is another shiny new company.

 

[Karendar]

how is it some are still defending them by using technicalities? even if it is not "intended" scam how's that better? Not matter at all.

Like I said i'm usually chill, probably too chill as waited months for the refunds that never came. But no, keeping my hard earned money (a large sum at that) while not telling me what really is going on *is* a scam, not to mention suddenly there is another shiny new company.

Noone's defending them at this point, trust me. The whole "intended scam" discussion is simply so people stop jumping to conclusions and say completely irrational things. The whole conspiracy theory angle is an easy cop out. Every crowdfunding I've participated to which had hurdles and didn't deliver on time (or at all) all got on to the scam boat way too quickly... Not everything is a scam when you lose money.

 

[Mustang80]

how is it some are still defending them by using technicalities? even if it is not "intended" scam how's that better? Not matter at all.

Like I said i'm usually chill, probably too chill as waited months for the refunds that never came. But no, keeping my hard earned money (a large sum at that) while not telling me what really is going on *is* a scam, not to mention suddenly there is another shiny new company.

It’s not technicalities, it’s just the difference between thinking it was a scam, or thinking is was all poor business practices.
I purchased 3 sets of iem’s from them and received all 3. Some a bit late. The products were fantastic for the price. If you were going to scam people, you wouldn’t go out if your way to plan, design, produce and ship some fantastic quality gear, to later run off with some money. They’d have made more by continuing to make their products. Unfortunately, it seems that they were AWFUL at running a company! Poor customer service, no general information, and in the end... the collapse of a company which took some trusting customers money. It’s a shame, but not a scam. A scam would be setting up a kickstarter and never even having a product to ship, taking the money and running.
Your annoyance is perfectly justified, but don’t get annoyed with people you disagree with, some of who are in the same boat, just because they don’t class this as a scam.

 

[harpo1]

It’s not technicalities, it’s just the difference between thinking it was a scam, or thinking is was all poor business practices.
I purchased 3 sets of iem’s from them and received all 3. Some a bit late. The products were fantastic for the price. If you were going to scam people, you wouldn’t go out if your way to plan, design, produce and ship some fantastic quality gear, to later run off with some money. They’d have made more by continuing to make their products. Unfortunately, it seems that they were AWFUL at running a company! Poor customer service, no general information, and in the end... the collapse of a company which took some trusting customers money. It’s a shame, but not a scam. A scam would be setting up a kickstarter and never even having a product to ship, taking the money and running.
Your annoyance is perfectly justified, but don’t get annoyed with people you disagree with, some of who are in the same boat, just because they don’t class this as a scam.

With your logic they are scamming. Show me one person that received the Icarus I, II or IV? Preorders with a promised date mid last year. To me they had no intention on delivering those products. They just used those preorders to keep the business afloat and ship a few of the other items.

 

[OopsWrongPlanet]

Unfortunately, it seems that they were AWFUL at running a company!

I'm afraid they would disagree!
Do you remember IMR the new adventure?
They're much smarter than you think (more cats to skin...) and now they accept monthly payments ...

 

[Karendar]

With your logic they are scamming. Show me one person that received the Icarus I, II or IV? Preorders with a promised date mid last year. To me they had no intention on delivering those products. They just used those preorders to keep the business afloat and ship a few of the other items.

And by that logic, all preorders are scams... They messed up bad, they bit on more than they could chew and thought gaining capital would keep things afloat. It was a calculated misstep... But I doubt there were any afterthoughts to scam users, otherwise they would have closed up by now.

 

[Karendar]

I'm afraid they would disagree!
Do you remember IMR the new adventure?
They're much smarter than you think (more cats to skin...) and now they accept monthly payments ...

IMR doesn't seem to be run any better than Trinity right now except that there's 1 product instead of 48.