[dontcallmejan]

Had my Master 6 since late July(see avatar). It's nice to have a local partner/distributor of Trinity Audio.

 

[Monsoon]

yes, same here. I was very hopeful on their last 21 days promise. But unfortunately, they missed that as well.

That's what did it for me. It was the first message from the new management, I was willing to give them one final chance and they blew through their own deadline like it didn't happen. Really hoping I still get my refund, but if they do somehow ship they'll go up for sale here at cost.

 

[wilberforce55]

Do you think anyone will buy their stuff after reading the previous 1000 pages? I wouldnt

 

[AverageDude]

Do you think anyone will buy their stuff after reading the previous 1000 pages? I wouldnt

Not from them directly at least... I have a beautiful signature, to which I still Master, Master 6 and Icarus 3 to add

 

[dave9527]

Do you think anyone will buy their stuff after reading the previous 1000 pages? I wouldnt

No one will read those 1000 pages indeed

 

[HungryPanda]

It is a very depressing read indeed

 

[grs8]

Rise and fall of TA...

 

[Keon]

I finally asked for, and got a refund for the PM6. Should have done this months ago. Sure they might arrive in two weeks, or maybe not. Probably not. But in any case I mainly bought them because they sounded like a great deal for the pre-order price. At this point I wasn't sure if they were an ok deal if they were less expensive.
Still got to wait out the KS Phantom Air's though...

 

[bjaardker]

So, I've been thinking about this. Remember way back when Trinity showed pictures of hundreds of Air aluminium shells in a rainbow of colors waiting to be assembled? I believe that is a picture of what sunk the Air.

They began assembling and shipping them, but as soon as they got into consumer's hands, people found out there were problems with battery charge and connectivity. So they stop shipping and work on pinpointing the problem. They check with another battery manufacturer (Varta) and when using the varta battery with the existing internals, most of the issues are cleared up. BUT, they already have 1000+ aluminum shells manufactured and try as they might, they can't seem to get the new battery to fit inside of the existing shell.

Throughout this time they've also had ongoing issues with the manufacturing of the PM6 and the Hunter and money has started to get tight. Finally there's a turnover of leadership and they are told to just put the debacle behind them and let the chips fall where they may. So, they move forward with the original battery manufacturer and the shells that have been sitting gathering dust for the better part of 3 months.

Long story short. Trinity knows the Phantom Air will be a failure, they just couldn't afford to do anything different since they had already blown so much capital on existing materials.

 

[Cloudtastrophe]

That makes a lot of sense. I could see that happening. When i talked to Bob he kept saying how monumentally expensive the hunter shells were and how much of a huge time sink it was to prepare the shells. They had to hand finish the hunter shells and titanium is not an easy material to work with. Also apparently the machining of the hunter shells takes literal hours per shell with a high failure rate. I think he mentioned somewhere around 6 manhours per shell (or for every pair im not sure). But with such a small team i could see how that snowballed fast.

 

[Midgetguy]

So, I've been thinking about this. Remember way back when Trinity showed pictures of hundreds of Air aluminium shells in a rainbow of colors waiting to be assembled? I believe that is a picture of what sunk the Air.

They began assembling and shipping them, but as soon as they got into consumer's hands, people found out there were problems with battery charge and connectivity. So they stop shipping and work on pinpointing the problem. They check with another battery manufacturer (Varta) and when using the varta battery with the existing internals, most of the issues are cleared up. BUT, they already have 1000+ aluminum shells manufactured and try as they might, they can't seem to get the new battery to fit inside of the existing shell.

Throughout this time they've also had ongoing issues with the manufacturing of the PM6 and the Hunter and money has started to get tight. Finally there's a turnover of leadership and they are told to just put the debacle behind them and let the chips fall where they may. So, they move forward with the original battery manufacturer and the shells that have been sitting gathering dust for the better part of 3 months.

Long story short. Trinity knows the Phantom Air will be a failure, they just couldn't afford to do anything different since they had already blown so much capital on existing materials.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it went. But frankly, when you know what the shell is like and you're looking for the battery solution, why isn't checking to see if everything plus the new Varta batteries fit and works in the already-made shell NOT a priority before coming to any decision and announcement?

"As part of our efforts, we did some testing with another manufacturer, but we couldn't get their batteries to fit well in our shell and that was a strict make-or-break requirement. Because of this, we're going to have to replace any defective battery units from the current manufacturer and hope that solves most of the problems. Sorry for this development"
Instead of....."we're going to use Varta as our new battery vendor and once they new parts come in and we get the Airs assembled, they'll ship out to all backers"..........."we didn't end up sourcing batteries from Varta. All units will be shipping this month".........*one month later*........."be on the lookout for new Air units shipping this month".

One can see why so many of us, no matter how positive we used to be about TAE, aren't happy about anything happening now. They've demonstrated that the company they've become doesn't deserve the community support that we readily and excitedly gave them.

 

[bjaardker]

"As part of our efforts, we did some testing with another manufacturer, but we couldn't get their batteries to fit well in our shell and that was a strict make-or-break requirement. Because of this, we're going to have to replace any defective battery units from the current manufacturer and hope that solves most of the problems. Sorry for this development"

That would imply then that they aren't certain the product works and would open them up to some recourse for the buyers via KS and IGG. That being said, this statement is much closer to how I would have liked to have seen things handled and provides some of that transparency we've all been begging for.

In the end I think all of us probably would have handled this differently, but this is also what happens when you have your head designer trying to do PR and disaster mitigation for the company while 3 different projects have all simultaneously turned into dumpster fires.

On a side note, I wonder how many people returned the PM4 for a refund and if that's part of what started the cycle of pain.

 

[sogetsu]

So, I've been thinking about this. Remember way back when Trinity showed pictures of hundreds of Air aluminium shells in a rainbow of colors waiting to be assembled? I believe that is a picture of what sunk the Air.

They began assembling and shipping them, but as soon as they got into consumer's hands, people found out there were problems with battery charge and connectivity. So they stop shipping and work on pinpointing the problem. They check with another battery manufacturer (Varta) and when using the varta battery with the existing internals, most of the issues are cleared up. BUT, they already have 1000+ aluminum shells manufactured and try as they might, they can't seem to get the new battery to fit inside of the existing shell.

Throughout this time they've also had ongoing issues with the manufacturing of the PM6 and the Hunter and money has started to get tight. Finally there's a turnover of leadership and they are told to just put the debacle behind them and let the chips fall where they may. So, they move forward with the original battery manufacturer and the shells that have been sitting gathering dust for the better part of 3 months.

Long story short. Trinity knows the Phantom Air will be a failure, they just couldn't afford to do anything different since they had already blown so much capital on existing materials.

Should be more complex, change the battery to Varta means to re-tool(re-design) the sample, 'cause battery size changes, then adjust the position of PCB and antenna, (also,the size, if needed), AND re-pass the FCC and CE test(certification), and we known TA write in the previous update that they will provide a wire, that means whole shell(sample) need to re-design to attach the wire, and re-tool and re-pass FCC and CE.
So, maybe nothing changes,no different between AIR V1 and V2

 

[Midgetguy]

Should be more complex, change the battery to Varta means to re-tool(re-design) the sample, 'cause battery size changes, then adjust the position of PCB and antenna, (also,the size, if needed), AND re-pass the FCC and CE test(certification), and we known TA write in the previous update that they will provide a wire, that means whole shell(sample) need to re-design to attach the wire, and re-tool and re-pass FCC and CE.
So, maybe nothing changes,no different between AIR V1 and V2

Which means it would've made much more sense for them to say that's the solution they're investigating, rather than saying that's what they were gonna ship out. "We're shipping this"......wait a month......"no, we're shipping this" gives the impression that they're wholly unprepared to really do anything.

 

[Sam L]

Once I get mine, I will

which will be sometime in 2018?