Light Harmonic (LH Labs). Scam? USD$6 million not delivered since 2014

[stuck limo]

Post your questions you'd like to see answered in a Q&A session. Keep in mind: 

 

Any questions you submit may or may not be edited (or included) for brevity, clarity, and for civility.  

[Superdad]

33 minutes ago, LHCommSquad said:

Post your questions you'd like to see answered in a Q&A session.

 

I’ll toss out a few, the sort that others might not think to ask but the answers to which might help give some indication of company viability:

1. What current revenue streams does LH have, and via what sales channels?
2. Which products are in steady production and shipping to clients?
3. What salaried and hourly staff are directly working for LH Labs at present?
4. At what location are products being assembled, tested, packaged, and shipped?
5. What is LH Labs standing with its vendors and creditors?
6. Are customers who already own LH Labs products able to seek and receive in-warranty or out-of-warranty service?  If so, then how; And what is current turn-around time for product repairs?
7. What is the fiscal relationship between LH Labs and Light Harmonic?
8. Are any Light Harmonic products still being produced and shipped? If so, which ones?

I could think of more (the obvious ones about the unfinished crowd-funded products) but I’ll leave room for others.  I just wanted to share the above from my business-experience perspective.

[Dissel]

9 hours ago, LHCommSquad said:

 

1. I didn't badmouth SBAF due to "you believing that consumers should be informed and, as a community, we need to continue to explore what we hear and why?" I was a member of SBAF loooooong before I was EVER associated with LH Labs. Your reason as to my reason is wrong (and I previously stated it here and it was ignored by you)

2. I was never an asshole to anyone over there, and there were 3 contradicting reasons given to 2 different people as to why my accounts were banned. I could go in-depth but it's really not worth it. In fact, the guy who "kick-started" my ban actually APOLOGIZED to me over it and regretted it getting that far. This is the second time you've personally attacked me out of nowhere in public. At no point have I ever publicly trashed you personally. 

3. SBAF is known as a joke, a hive-mind, and a cult, and a Campfire Audio shill place amongst the high-end audiophiles I personally know. The forum is discussed quite a bit in depth in our inner circles. (note: this is not to say CA is bad at all, CA is generally highly regarded by myself and others) There is virtually zero moderation, members are allowed to openly attack other members, and calls to violence are ignored, amongst many many other problems in the discussions. You try to be an audiophile 4 Chan, except you're not as clever. [you're welcome to use that as your tagline] Your close friends are bad company, as is your community. I honestly used to like SBAF a LOT more than Head-Fi until I actually REALLY began to understand the culture at SBAF (after LH Labs). 

4. The irony is: if I hadn't been banned, I would have contacted the member who drove (to the wrong address) BEFORE he had driven and given him the RIGHT address so he didn't waste a trip (because I honestly didn't care if he drove out to the new office, as I stated here). Unfortunately, no one bothered to check the address until AFTER the mistake.  

5. Anything else you posted about LH Labs I won't deny, as you would know better than I would, and we all appreciate you letting us know the story. I certainly hold no ill will towards you sharing your LH Labs experience and I've heard similar stories from other employees. 

6. Anything else I have to say I'll PM it, unless you decide to drag out personal things into the public again. 

Consider me someone who is, and has always been, a sympathizer for the role that you have taken up with LH Labs. I might even classify your role as being impossible to succeed in, because the hand that you were dealt with in the beginning was essentially worthless. 

That being said, your 3rd point about SBAF is completely unacceptable, and a microcosm of why your communication across various forums has not worked out, and instead exacerbated the problem and friction that exists between LH Labs and its consumers/backers.

I do not doubt that it expresses your true sentiment. Whilst I (as someone active in multiple forums in the audio community) do not personally disagree with some of your points (fundamentally speaking), it veers towards an exaggerated, one-sided extreme, probably because you were highly emotionally charged when writing them down, and hence not speaking impartially and/or objectively.

Might I remind you that you are posting as a LH Labs representative, under the name LHCommSquad? Going off tangent to the topic and your role, airing your personal misgivings, trying to vindicate your personal actions on another forum, and failing to digest and hence address the crux of the issue brought up by @zerodeefex, is tantamount to professional suicide.

If you are thinking that this is grossly unfair, it is because you are precisely right, and such is the burden of someone in a customer fulfillment (or equivalent) role for a company firmly in the crosshairs of backers/customers whom have been legitimately and unjustly screwed over. Like I said, it is an unenviable role, but still a role that you have willingly chosen to undertake, and hence must bear all the baggage that comes along with it.

 

You are absolutely right that people have unjustly smeared your character.
You are absolutely right that are a number of baseless accusations backed by flawed/facts from people who have neglected or failed to do their due diligence. 
You are also probably right that people have unjustly criticized LH Labs, for whatever its genuine faults might be.
You also might be right that people are exaggerating the degree to which LH Labs have failed to deliver on its commitments.

Unfortunately, none of that matters in the bigger scheme of the topic at hand, and your role at hand -- which is encapsulated by the bolded portion of my comment above. As long as that part holds true, frankly nothing else matters is of any consequence. The onus is not on others to be fair to you. Even in an ideal universe where the relationship is perfectly healthy and/or the issue is relatively minor, the onus never lies on the consumers (us) to be fair to the client (you). You must understand fundamental client-customer relations do not work in the manner that your attitude in this entire thread (and others) has suggested.

I mean you no ill-will with anything that I have stated above. Again, I am very sympathetic to your plight, and commend you for even having the internet balls of steel to take up this role.

 

My heartfelt suggestion is as such:

• Refrain entirely from any form of justifying the actions of LH Labs, even when legitimate
• Refrain entirely from any form of self-justification, even when legitimate
• Stick to completely giving only objective, factual answers -- which I must state you are already doing, and doing a good job of, when you take away the whole other part
• Refrain from giving short, vague apologies
• Apologize more (you have also already been doing this) in greater depth (if you mean it), even when mocked, by acknowledging how a certain person/group of people have been shortchanged, and/or how they have been inconvenienced, and/or how (if true) you/Larry/whomever feel about it, and/or what is to your knowledge the best possible follow-up action to be taken (even 'unfortunately I cannot see anything we/you can do about this until ____' counts)
• Generally speaking, acknowledge more often that there is a limit to how/what LH Labs might be able to salvage this mess, rather than from the perspective that LH Labs is still working towards fulfillment

I know that you have been exercising a considerable degree of self-restraint in that regard, but what I am suggesting is to completely refrain from it, completely regardless of whatever accusations. 

Although hard to envisage, the time to reflect and celebrate on the good things that LHLabs has done might still be possible down the line. But now is not that time or space for that. We are not at a stage where LH Labs is fighting a war on fair grounds to try and claim/reclaim lost territory. We are at a stage of reparation/repatriation after the war has been lost, and has little say in dictating terms (in terms of reputation anyway). I know this isn't a perfect analogy, and sounds harsh, but I hope you get the point.

I wish you well.

[noshortcuts]

1. How much crowd funding money remains?
2. What are the priorities for spending any remaining crowd funded money?
3. What's happening with shipping Source SE? (yes we already know that two shipped, but the rest...)
4. What's happening with the Tube Vi?  (And the CCX modules?)
5. What obstacles does LHL need to overcome to complete and ship ALL undelivered products?

[Jud]

I have only one question: 

 

Will Larry Ho and LHL agree to an independent audit, to be done by one or more CPAs selected by contributors, to determine how the money contributed to LHL for the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaigns was spent?

[stuck limo]

3 hours ago, Dissel said:

I wish you well.

 

Thank you, you too. I appreciate the thoughtful letter and while I have thoughts on it, I will not discuss them here. Thanks again. 

[marflao]

On 2/14/2019 at 5:31 PM, Blake said:

 

Yes, please, we need to spread the word on other audio forums.  I started a thread on SBAF, and I also started one on the What's Best Forum:

 

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/lh-labs-never-received-your-crowd-funded-product.27473/

 

I know we have members that participate in other audio sites.  So far, we have this thread, SBAF and What's Best.  Jud checked with HeadFi but they don't want a thread on this topic (although there is discussion on the HeadFi thread about the Wave, so word is out).

 

 Do we have any volunteers for other sites?  

 

If you start a thread on another forum, please post here and let us know.  

 

P.S. Thanks to all who have posted to the spreadsheet, we really have some momentum now!

 

 

 

 

Big thanks again to a fellow "spreadsheet" participant who opened a thread on Hiendy:

 

https://www.hiendy.com/hififorum/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=124524&extra=page%3D1

 

 

[mansr]

10 hours ago, LHCommSquad said:

Post your questions you'd like to see answered in a Q&A session. Keep in mind: 

 

Any questions you submit may or may not be edited (or included) for brevity, clarity, and for civility.  

I have only one question: What the fuck?

[MikeyFresh]

48 minutes ago, mansr said:

I have only one question: What the fuck?

 

Nailed it, that pretty well sums things up and expresses the gist of it.

[m17xr2b]

On 2/15/2019 at 8:35 PM, bernardperu said:

It was also my intention to single out Larry Ho (and those who willingly associate to him) 

In my opinion Gavin is as responsible, he had a very aggressive campaign fuelled by passion and crowd mentality. I don't believe for a second he wasn't aware at least by the end they couldn't fulfil.  

 

P.S. Hi Jared.

[marflao]

Exactly my thoughts, too. 

 

I don't believe Larry saying that he was not aware of all the perks (that this was done by the "Marketing department" aka Gavin and Casey themselves). 

 

If they would have 10th of 1000 employees.. OK... maybe... but of the size of LHL? 

 

[Jud]

2 hours ago, marflao said:

Exactly my thoughts, too. 

 

I don't believe Larry saying that he was not aware of all the perks (that this was done by the "Marketing department" aka Gavin and Casey themselves). 

 

If they would have 10th of 1000 employees.. OK... maybe... but of the size of LHL? 

 

 

As I mentioned upthread (and provided a link), after Gavin did all this supposedly unauthorized stuff that also supposedly lost the company money, Larry promoted him.

[noshortcuts]

1 hour ago, Racerxnet said:

I’m surprised nobody has thrown a serious beating on them. Including LHCumsquat.

 

MAK

There's been more than one serious beating and yet here we are. So that shows how much a beating is worth.

[m17xr2b]

One more question from me:

Why is Larry selling the Source on his website when it's a crowdfunded product that's not fully delivered yet? And if I'm not mistaken he's planing to do the same with the Wave and sell in under the Light Harmonic brand. Suckers pay for R&D and profit. 

[MikeyFresh]

19 hours ago, Jud said:

As I mentioned upthread (and provided a link), after Gavin did all this supposedly unauthorized stuff that also supposedly lost the company money, Larry promoted him.

 

I've often thought that the whole supposed falling out between Larry and Gavin was just another part of the ruse. Gavin wasn't truly shown the door in my opinion, he was hired to do a certain job, that is raise millions in IGG funding, and when that job was done he walked with his predetermined cut.

 

The ruse bestowed on the backers was then furthered with a cover story that there was some deep falling out between the two, which fit the whole theme of disarray and gee we're sorry we've fallen behind, and wow Larry wasn't even aware of what marketing was doing, and so yeah we're going to now make Gavin the fall guy because lets face it, he isn't even here anymore to be questioned.

 

So remove the guy that made all of the public promises, send him on his way with a nice fat (predetermined?) payout severance, and then use that story to further the delaying tactics.

 

The only reason I'd want to doubt the above is this has for certain ruined Gavin's career in the industry, and so Larry would have had to pay him a relatively large sum to go quietly.

 

Anyone able to search pending or settled litigation between Mr. Fish and Larry Ho or LH Labs/Light Harmonic?

[Beefalo]

38 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

 

I've often thought that the whole supposed falling out between Larry and Gavin was just another part of the ruse. Gavin wasn't truly shown the door in my opinion, he was hired to do a certain job, that is raise millions in IGG funding, and when that job was done he walked with his predetermined cut.

 

The ruse bestowed on the backers was then furthered with a cover story that there was some deep falling out between the two, which fit the whole theme of disarray and gee we're sorry we've fallen behind, and wow Larry wasn't even aware of what marketing was doing, and so yeah we're going to now make Gavin the fall guy because lets face it, he isn't even here anymore to be questioned.

 

So remove the guy that made all of the public promises, send him on his way with a nice fat (predetermined?) payout severance, and then use that story to further the delaying tactics.

 

The only reason I'd want to doubt the above is this has for certain ruined Gavin's career in the industry, and so Larry would have had to pay him a relatively large sum to go quietly.

 

Anyone able to search pending or settled litigation between Mr. Fish and Larry Ho or LH Labs/Light Harmonic?

Ruined his reputation ? Audioengine almost immediately hired him as head of marketing. They subsequently came to their senses and canned him.

I agree that Gavin is equally culpable in this and fueled the whole perk frenzy. I’ll give it to him, he fulfilled his mission. 

[MikeyFresh]

24 minutes ago, Beefalo said:

They subsequently came to their senses and canned him.

 

It didn't take long for that to happen, and I don't think they vetted him carefully enough from the get go.

I had also heard he was an old friend/business acquaintance of theirs, I don't necessarily crucify AE for being loyal.

 

27 minutes ago, Beefalo said:

Ruined his reputation ?

 

Yes, absolutely ruined in the HiFi industry, and perhaps beyond.

[Superdad]

23 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

Yes, absolutely ruined in the HiFi industry, and perhaps beyond.

 

I don't know.  Audio industry rats are like bad politicians--they almost always turn up again somewhere.  (Just look, the proven war criminal Elliott Abrams is now back as our "Special Envoy" to Venezuela.) 

 

[Full disclosure: I headed Sales & Marketing as co-founder of Hovland Company--1998-2009.  

But when we closed (after $12million sales--due to high cost of staff, operating in L.A., products underpriced versus cost, sales that ended up at 90% overseas thus deeper discounts distributors killed profits) we still paid all our workers and delivered every product that had been paid for. https://www.stereophile.com/content/hovland-calls-it-quits

And still, nearly 10 years later I often assist Hovland preamp/amp product owners worldwide, maintain the serial number and parts databases, and direct people needing service.]

[noshortcuts]

The Vi Dac campaign on Indiegogo headlined "Join us and 20,000 passionate audiophiles to create game-changing ultra high performance audio gear". Wow, did they really take "contributions" from 20,000 people? No, they DID NOT. That is just one example of false advertising out of almost everything they have ever put in print. Proven, in this case, because 6million dollars divided by 20,000 = $300. Almost nobody, or maybe nobody, who fell for LHL's marketing genius lost that little money to LHL!

[bernardperu]

It seems that many LH Labs backers seem highly disappointed and believe it is pointless to do anything about this whole matter.

 

Allow me to disagree. Even if we do not ever see our products or get a refund, we can still see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, it is not that difficult to find justice. 

 

We should try hard to prevent others from buying from Larry Ho. Eventually, our claims will reach the Chinese market and no one in the world will ever trust Larry Ho again.

 

The spreadsheet Markus is putting together is a great start. It allows us to get organized and move forward.

 

Sooner or later, we will reach two major goals:

 

1) Larry Ho will be prosecuted.

 

2) Our claims will be translated to Chinese; the China based web sites will link to our forums; and Larry Ho's reputation will be damaged.

 

Once any of the above happens, Larry Ho will have no choice but to either take the fall or, finally, honor his commitments to us.

[Samuel T Cogley]

26 minutes ago, bernardperu said:

2) Our claims will be translated to Chinese; the China based web sites will link to our forums; and Larry Ho's reputation will be damaged.

 

In my experience, the whole concept of consumer protection is mostly a western culture thing.  I don't think this will ever happen.

[bernardperu]

50 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

In my experience, the whole concept of consumer protection is mostly a western culture thing.  I don't think this will ever happen.

 

I assume any consumer in the world wants to:

 

1) Receive what they paid for.

 

2) Have a warranty.

 

3) Get parts and repair service for many years to come.

 

In China they shoot corrupt politicians and imprison billionaires who do not pay their taxes. Perhaps we should file charges against Larry Ho in China.

 

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

1 minute ago, bernardperu said:

 

I assume any consumer in the world wants to:

 

1) Receive what they paid for.

 

2) Have a warranty.

 

3) Get parts and repair service for many years to come.

 

In China they shoot corrupt politicians and imprison billionaires who do not pay their taxes. Perhaps we should file charges against Larry Ho in China.

 

All I'm saying is that if you want to get the attention of Chinese internet users, it might be prudent to understand how unique the concept of Consumer Protection is to western cultures.  It's my understanding that even warranties as we know them for the most part don't exist in Asia.

[spyderman]

Interesting development on Larry Ho's Facebook page. A angry business partner/customer is complaining about the promised return of $100,000.00

[spyderman]

2 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

All I'm saying is that if you want to get the attention of Chinese internet users, it might be prudent to understand how unique the concept of Consumer Protection is to western cultures.  It's my understanding that even warranties as we know them for the most part don't exist in Asia.

 

Assumed lifetime warranty must be in effect. Could be that all Chinese electronics are of "Superior Build Quality," no warranty is needed.