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Is LH Labs still in business?


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"I am still waiting for my Vi Dac Tube even though I am number 25 on the list for this DAC, which is very depressing."

I have no idea where I am in the queue, but I haven't heard from them about the VI Tube DAC for me either.  I opened a ticket today to ask them how they were getting on, but frankly, I've lost confidence.


Caveat Emptor and all of that, these were the risks, but it still makes it frustrating.  Glad I already have/had a decent DAC.

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Audio System: Mac Mini (w/Roon) -> USB -> NAD Masters M51 -> Ayre K-5xeMP -> Ayre V-5xe -> Thiel CS3.7's

 

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1 hour ago, erniejade said:

I am also waiting on a VI Tube Dac however, I am one of the lucky ones that received a Vi Infinity as a "place marker" until the tube version is done. I will say the Vi is darn good sounding!


Wow - color me jealous!

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Audio System: Mac Mini (w/Roon) -> USB -> NAD Masters M51 -> Ayre K-5xeMP -> Ayre V-5xe -> Thiel CS3.7's

 

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13 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

By now they should call it the Waive.  (Yup, one of the "lucky buyers" too.)

I had a little of that, too.  I am waiting for the Waive, too. (like the term)

One thing is it cured me of Crowdfunding for anything other than very low cost/low risk things.

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Audio System: Mac Mini (w/Roon) -> USB -> NAD Masters M51 -> Ayre K-5xeMP -> Ayre V-5xe -> Thiel CS3.7's

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 3/25/2017 at 1:18 PM, Ben-M said:

Those Wave, Source, and Amp campaigns/perks are really unfortunate write offs now, IMHO. The Vi DAC is too :-/


The back end of it is always the same when large campaigns end and the companies are small - they run out of cash, and can't afford to fill the orders, so try to "organically" get the money to ship products from ongoing sales.

For a tale of woe every bit as big if not bigger (at the risk of going off topic) dig into "The Coolest Cooler"

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Audio System: Mac Mini (w/Roon) -> USB -> NAD Masters M51 -> Ayre K-5xeMP -> Ayre V-5xe -> Thiel CS3.7's

 

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On 4/21/2017 at 6:46 PM, erniejade said:

True  but at least with the coolest cooler,  when he ran out of money, he emailed people and was up front about it and gave people a choice to pay more or wait until they had the money   


You make a good point, though he did sell a large amount of his inventory to Amazon which was eventually discounted to the amount pledged by the early pledges.

It's a bad situation all around.  But yeah, he chose to be honest, which is better than not, I guess.  

LH Labs is just doing delay after delay with no "whelp, we can't fill these orders"

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Audio System: Mac Mini (w/Roon) -> USB -> NAD Masters M51 -> Ayre K-5xeMP -> Ayre V-5xe -> Thiel CS3.7's

 

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  • 1 year later...
11 hours ago, Panelhead said:

  Thiel went through ownership changes. I think they lost the path without Jim Thiel there. 

  LH seems on path. Not sure I can see the path, but very consistent. 


The Thiel story is a long an tragic one tipped off by the death of Jim Thiel, who was the main technical light of the place.  The company struggled for years with his wife doing a terrific job in trying to keep the line moving, but eventually sold the business to a company that wanted to carry it forward.  That company made a couple of moves that ignored the Thiel "secret sauce" and the business imploded.  To be fair, it is rare that a company can outlive its founder.

LH Labs is struggling with making the easy-to-make mistake of going to Crowdfunding without a product to sell, just a promise to develop one.  And they ran into some serious design and production problems that got passed onto their customers.

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Audio System: Mac Mini (w/Roon) -> USB -> NAD Masters M51 -> Ayre K-5xeMP -> Ayre V-5xe -> Thiel CS3.7's

 

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I am in a few grand as well.  Caveat Emptor.

I think they increased the mix too high, created a lot of confusion, and didn't do enough up front development on the projects to prove feasibility.  When their updates were talking about prototype boards, I was thinking "Oh, boy ... I think this may not happen."

The payments several years later I would bet are all burned up in overhead, and development costs.  I think even if they had a strong desire to issue refunds, they probably do not have the funds to cover it.

I think they got so excited about the possibilities of booking orders, they lost their sense of managing risk in making crowdfunding campaigns, and didn't do enough up front work to de-risk their development.  I am sure it was a painful lesson for them.  Given the changes in personnell, I wonder about their stability at the moment.

 

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Audio System: Mac Mini (w/Roon) -> USB -> NAD Masters M51 -> Ayre K-5xeMP -> Ayre V-5xe -> Thiel CS3.7's

 

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17 minutes ago, feelingears said:

My cousin is a huge fan of Kickstarter and he told me the biggest blow up is some company that offered a cooler with everything but the kitchen sink. Speakers and all manner of things were added to make it the mother-of-all-tailgate coolers. The guy was supposedly a former product designer and knew people in mfg, blah blah blah.

 

Yep my wife was one of those backers that got left out in the cold.

I think the main lesson should be:  Get your product into limited production and use Kickstarter to get preorders once your major risks and costs are behind you.  It should be a way of promoting you, not a source of seed money.

LH Labs with the VI DAC is basically in the same boat as the Coolest Cooler.  IN the case o fthe Cooler, though, they are personally on the hook for it, and have worked out fulfillment plans as settlements in numerous lawsuits.  The terms of the money in LH Labs doesn't include consumer protections, so it ends up being Caveat Emptor.

If I were to do a kickstarter like project, I'd show a picture of 50% or more of the premiums ready to go, and will inform them with the contract manufacturer or what not, would order and buy with the rest of it.

 

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Audio System: Mac Mini (w/Roon) -> USB -> NAD Masters M51 -> Ayre K-5xeMP -> Ayre V-5xe -> Thiel CS3.7's

 

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15 hours ago, feelingears said:

Yep, I can sympathize, @Bromo33333

 

By this point I suppose nobody needs to hear about Stoddard’s “book” on the topic of running an audio business. It is fascinating to consider the many choices and rationales they have made, nonetheless. And for seasoned vets like they are, they still get blowback on things like the silent Yggy analog two pre-upgrade and a rumored/suspected silent Gumby A2 upgrade (don’t quote me on this—total speculation as far as I can tell).

 

Anyway, glad we have some good if not great ones like Schiit and Sonore and Uptone to name just a few. Can’t thank these guys enough for their tireless resolve in this hobby. 


I am not sure how this relates to LH Labs and crowdfunding disappointments, but yeah, there are a number of young companies that are doing good work.

And agree, the book is fascinating.

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Audio System: Mac Mini (w/Roon) -> USB -> NAD Masters M51 -> Ayre K-5xeMP -> Ayre V-5xe -> Thiel CS3.7's

 

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6 hours ago, feelingears said:

Your comment about what they should’ve done reminded me of Stoddard’s writings on the same point, with the same conclusions. And I think he mentions the crowdfunding model a couple times as well. 


Ah ok makes perfect sense.  I can't see how crowdfunding could help except as exposure/marketing when you had a product.  I have considered doing it a couple of times for some non audio related things, but always backed off.

Stoddard is a great entrepreneur.  I think his take on bootstrapping is invaluable!

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Audio System: Mac Mini (w/Roon) -> USB -> NAD Masters M51 -> Ayre K-5xeMP -> Ayre V-5xe -> Thiel CS3.7's

 

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1 minute ago, Superdad said:

Then Light Harmonic came along and completely ruined crowdfunding for specialty audio.  Now it's just crowd-fleecing...


I think LH did it, and there was a spectacular failure in the realm of headphones, too, that rocked crowdfuding.  I was talking to someone who is developing something really cool, and doesn't want to touch crowdfunding with a 10 foot pole since he thinks it could hurt him quite a bit.

 

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Audio System: Mac Mini (w/Roon) -> USB -> NAD Masters M51 -> Ayre K-5xeMP -> Ayre V-5xe -> Thiel CS3.7's

 

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