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Thanks to all that have chimed in on this one. I agree that our lead times have been excessive and are truly sorry for the delays. Just when we dig out of one delay we get right back into another. The current issues are multiple and are being worked through as rapidly as possible. Customers are currently being contacted about delays via phone (or email if messages are left). Now to address the overall issues: Adding employees... 2 new ones over the past month. Neither of which are office staff and are not currently building drivers. It is impossible to find skilled staff that can simply sit down and a build table and go. New staff is handling other aspects of production besides building drivers. They are already alleviating some back up. Need more machines... we just purchased another hydrolathe and will be receiving it later next week. While not an instant cure, it will go onto the shop floor and help our other massively overburdened hydrolathe once it is set up and dialed in. (These are the task specific lathes that run the profiles of all back plates and top plates) Our current one runs non-stop and is backed up. Need more customer service... Again, not the easiest of tasks. We have people tell us simply to hire teens to handle email and phones. Having this approach in the past set us up for significant issues. Only some of the emails are straight forward and can be handled by a tracking number or simple confirmation. Most emails entail something tech related as well and then need to be sent to someone that can handle them. The overall customer service need is for skilled audio industry individuals and not just a warm body. We are working on this one as well. Implementing a new email system will help keep track of emails/tasks that will let everyone quickly know if it can be answered by anyone or if it needs staff with a specific skill set. Seasonal... for us this is normally a busy time, but internationally as well as domestically we have be hit by massive orders. It seems that distributors have really upped the orders and we didn't see this coming. As Fi customers, distributors get put into line with everyone else, but when there turn comes... its a big turn. OEM... while most do not know, we do manufacturing for other companies as well. This normally isnt as big of an issue as we schedule most OEM runs ahead of time and can shuffle them around some when needed. But, OEM has exploded for some of our companies as well and when their turn comes, it takes a toll on the scheduling board. We have seen this coming and are working with our customers on long term solutions for their needs. This will greatly ease the increasing demand from our long term OEM customers keeping the Fi customers rolling along smoothly. And there are other issues that add up... I truly appreciate our customers patience for a quality US manufactured sub. It would be a simple solution to get speakers made in China or to have steel made overseas, but it truly goes against what I believe in (in doing as much work in house and supporting the US economy through manufacturing). In spite of this we are doing everything we physically can to up our efficiency and lower our lead times. I am disappointed too... but look at this as an opportunity to dial in our processes and streamline things for the long term. We are working hard in the meantime to get things back to our normal 10-15 business day lead time (and then back to the older 7-10 day time). Again, I do share your frustration, but thank you whole heartedly for putting your faith in us and our products. Thanks, Scott

Oui, this is what happens when I only work on emails all weekend, take half a day off and not keep on top of the forums every 30 minutes like always. First off, this customer ordered a D4, as he said, for the first sub. When it arrived, he swore up and down that he got a D2 sub. Which by the way, had never happened before where a customer was sent the wrong coil, so it was VERY surprising to have someone say they got the wrong coil. Since he was so adamant about the wrong coil and has been accusatory from the get go, I assumed he was using a trusty DMM and was reading it correctly, I apologized for the supposed mistake of the build house, so for his second sub, we adjusted it to a D2 coil. So his second sub came and appears to be a D2 as ordered. For future reference, there are three different people who check or overlook the sub before it leaves the build house, so to say we have no quality control is clearly not accurate. There is markings on the box, the build ticket and the former, so it is HIGHLY unlikely that a sub would ever ship out with the wrong VC. Yes, we are a small brand, but clearly we have experience doing this and we have NEVER and I mean NEVER screwed over a customer and as explained and posted numerous times in a thread, if a mistake was made we have always worked to correct it asap. So for one customer to be claiming it happened twice, seems quite odd. As explained in this thread, the D4 coils have a resistance lower than D4, same with D2. The Gcon does NOT come in a D1 coil option as there are D1 coils for it. This is due to a number of reasons, power compression, impedance rise or box rise etc., so that the coils rest below the stated resistance and with natural rise will be closer to stated resistance. (Alton's explaination is much better then mine: http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/topic/60275-two-new-ssa-subs-showing-diffrent-ohms/page-3#entry1020077) For example, if you get a D4 ohm subwoofer from a different brand that uses 4.0 ohm Re, after natural rise it will be higher than a D4. One easy way to know for sure is on each former, above the coil should be written in black sharpie, stating the voice coil that is on the subwoofer. As it stands now, with everything written out by the customer as the facebook messages did not contain all of this info, we can only assume that the first Gcon was a D4 as ordered and the second Gcon was a D2 as ordered. This may be partially my mistake as I did not ask for a photo of the formers from the get go, but I have never had to do that before. If the customer truly is the first one with wrong voice coils, we will clearly correct it, but if the first one was read wrong..... Side note, with SSA store rewards, the total was $444, not $457.

Well this is odd. My parents called me from back home to tell me my package from SSA came some time last week; only I haven't ordered anything. A 15" DCON was sent to me at my address and I didn't order it. I went to the order status for my account to see if someone had hacked my account and ordered one and... sent it to my house?? But that wasn't the case. Order #5455 and order #5182 were indeed for 15" DCON's, but I've already received them a long time ago. Aaron, what the heck do you want me to do with this?! My old man opened it up and there was nothing on the inside of the top of the box (i was hoping for a receipt to be there). Thanks!

Wow, I go out of town for an alumni event for the weekend, and BLAM! It should be obvious why I don't say what our costs are, but yes, they are drastically more costly to build our sub woofers here in the USA then overseas. It is a mixture of comical and frustrating when competitor's sub woofers that are built overseas. As mentioned earlier, there is few aspects that really effect our build costs that others are not doing. The CNC machining of motors/poles is a huge portion of our build cost per sub woofers. Many brands will just use nuts as spacers between the motor stack and the basket, but our sub woofers are using spiral axis cooling channels on the pole. This does a number of things for superior cooling of the coil, but that is a different topic, what maters here is the time and cost on the CNC machine for each one built. Because of that extra care, time and effort, it cannot be easily done in mass quantities. Also, when not turning a large margin on our products, it means we have less to play with when it comes to expanding our company. It does piss me off when some fool says our products are over priced, they truly haven't a clue and need to be slapped. People have been asking me for a number of years now why we don't have amps or a full line up of mid's and highs etc. This is because the standard now is for someone with no audio background, to just call up a build house overseas, use a credit card and a pre-order, and TADA with in 18-24 months they have a full line up of sub woofers, amplifiers and more. I don't want our brand to be like that. Sure, our growth has been much less rapid as all the new offerings that show up every year, and sure Mark and I are not putting anywhere near what we would like into our pockets due to the higher build cost and much lower volume of sales, but we have near-ZERO warranty failure, a very strong return customer base, and the assurance of one of the highest levels of quality of materials and performance from our sub woofers to every customer that picks SSA for their sub woofer needs. We are trying to take the superior, long term thinking approach to these other brands that show up out of no where, as there is much more time and effort invested into each and every one of our sub woofers. It means we are not killing it in the bank account or hitting the golf course in the middle of the day, or expanding into new major markets overseas etc.. One perfect example, was the beautifully explained break down of the Xcon above. In short, the CNC machining, the addition of a shorting ring (long coil, so inductance was brought down a little) and the much more steel used (instead of a simple triple stack), creates a better sub all around and that is a powerful piece of mind. It is a very good thing to know and to have, even if we are not making much from each unit sold. We run with a very low overhead and keep our expenses to a minimum. Having our sub's machined and built here in the USA (even using steel from California), just does not matter to the masses anymore. The wildfire virus of the American consumer, is the extreme short shortsightedness and only seeing initial price to them, and not the long term. It is more then about keeping more of the money from the purchase price here in the USA, it is also understanding the higher level of quality and performance they are getting. We do gain a number of customers who had a shorter then liked, life span of their prior sub woofer that was made overseas. So in short, to sort of answer the first question, the factors that go into the costs of our products: place of build (USA) {cost of labor etc.}source of materialsquality of materialsquality of partsextra steps taken for better performancethe details in many of the modelslow volume salesmade-to-order production

While I agree there are some things purchasers in preorders have to deal with, such as the ETA being pushed back some due to customs or raw material outages, I think being given an initial ETA and then being told that there is an indefinite time frame for delivery is way outside of acceptable. We only have 1 side of the story right now, so it's tough to say.....but if they are waiting "indefinitely" for the price of Neo to drop back down to where they are happy with the profit margin then that is complete and total bullshit. They ran the preorder knowing the price of raw materials may change, they are liable to honor that preorder with a reasonable time of delivery regardless of whether or not they lose their ass on the deal due to the cost of materials rising. According to the OP it's not that they don't have access to Neo due to a lack of materials....they simply don't want to pay for it because it's too expensive and they'll either not make enough money or lose money. That's not acceptable. Build the subs you agreed and were paid to build. If that means you lose money because you made a bad business decision, then tough shit. Build the fucking subs.

I wanted to say Thanks to Mark and LaFountain Designs for the hard work and awesome website he designed and did for me. We had a nice site for the last 4 years through someone else and wanted a change. Figured it was a good opportunity to work with Mark and since SSA and his other sites are so nice I knew I wanted to go this route. If anyone has a business and wants a new look definitely give LaFountain Designs a shot. Here is my site http://zoom-moving.com/

Actually he said outwardly the motors appeared to be similar. That says nothing about similarities within the motor, and frankly he doesn't even give any external measurements of the motor itself to confirm they are anything more than similar in appearance. Also, if you look at the actual measured T/S parameters you can see they are different drivers. The Xcon has a higher Q, lower Fs, lower Le and higher Mms. Plus the Xcon has slightly more linear excursion and I believe higher thermal power handling as well. It is still an Fi copy with a couple alterations. Quoted "Any differences from the Q are probably in the voice coil itself and the gap geometry and possibly the pole piece machining." Coil is different, suspension is different, magnet ID is different, dust cap is different, gap is different, pole piece is different, back plate is different, cooling is different. You can step off of your soap box now. -the guy thats built hundreds of them.

saw this on facebook. Whats the eta and specs?

Sometimes people just post what's on their minds. Maybe he wants to see if people agree with his decision? I donno. It's not annoying to me. Kyle, take your negative ass post somewhere else. Not every post has to have pics or technical info.

They are getting old and can't run the business forever. So they were seeking someone honest and trustworthy to give the business to. Congratulations, you passed the test. You won Jake, you won! Now get in the Wonkavator and press the red button.

Well Travis is getting a new amp.....that way no mistake can be made, no middle problems if something were to happen in a re-boarding process. It will be an A stock brand new amp, that has been on our bench for a few weeks running every speaker setup under the rainbow, currently a single tower running bridged at 2 ohms both channels. Using all HPF combos, and bandpass too,,,,,we replaced the amp with travis' 1100.4 JUST the same way. After about 3 hours of play time, its gotten fairly warm, as it definitely should be running at 1 ohm a channel, and its working as it should. So we've tried to find the problem, multiple times, the only thing we've seen could be a possible cause was a good sized dent on the heatsink as if it was dropped before. Other then that, hopefully the new 1100.4 recieved works as should, otherwise must be an install problem Thanks for the understanding.

i like to break mine in with a little, wine, perhaps a candle lite bubble bath, some kenny G in then back ground,... i like to relax them.. then poundem hard. no really. just pound them.

do you even own a evil? i find it funny you requesting something bigger .... when you have yet to own the biggest in the series....... come to think of it.. i dont even remember you running a Zcon. you can dislike this now.

Benefit Raffle for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Raffle with all proceeds going to St Jude Childrens Research Hospital$10 a ticketSend gift through PayPal to Saint Jude Childrens HospitalOne lucky person will win a 15" SSA XCON D2Raffle will last one month and end on July 15th, 2013.Link to the original raffle: http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/topic/58082-benefit-raffle-for-st-jude-childrens-research-hospital/-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raffle Each ticket will cost $10 each. A number will accompany each ticket you buy. Each number will be written on a bottle cap and placed into a jar. Every bottle cap will be the same size and shape to ensure equal odds for everyone. The deadline for purchasing tickets will be Saturday July 14th, 2013 @ 11:59pm. The next day, July 15th, I will make a video of the drawing and I will post it here on SSA in this thread. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to buy tickets Please send a gift through PayPal to Saint Jude Children's HospitalMake sure to send me a screen shot and the paypal confirmation number to deyoung86@gmail.comAn acknowledgement of the gift received will be sent and I will provide you with your raffle number/s.Please allow one or two days for me to respond. I will be updating the second post of this thread with a list of who has donated. If you prefer to be an anonymous donor please let me know.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Prize One 15" SSA XCON D2 http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/index.php/product-information/xcon.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital www.stjude.org The mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. Consistent with the vision of our founder Danny Thomas, no child is denied treatment based on race, religion or a family's ability to pay. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first raffle did very well. Please support this great cause again and donate! Please share with everyone you know. Thank you -------------------------- People who have donated:

Thanks for watching.

no doubt if you ask him a technical question you will be ignored... and if you ask on a public place other then SSA your post will be deleted !

Why do you want to put double rated power? Doing this, you void the warranty, and assume all responsibility for whatever damage happens. If you want to run something with 1500 watts, get something for 1500 watts. Pretty simple. You don't buy a sports car to pull a trailer do you? I'll give you a hint also; if the driver is able to handle a lot more power, it's simply because the driver has been underrated to begin with. The driver is made to handle 1000 watts, but the manufacturer rates it to handle 500 watts, then makes videos of it handling more power like it's some super woofer or better than other TRUE 500 watt drivers. People buy the bullshit, and buy the driver. That simple.

I want to apologize to any of you who have tried to help me or if i offended any of you in anyway. I hate being wrong and was being bone headed because of it. Could you guys forgive me? I realize you guys know infinitely more about this kind of stuff than I do and instead of arguing with you guys I need to listen and learn so someday i can be in your shoes. so once again i'm sorry guys

LOL....Exactly what I was thinking. Weren't they like $60 for a "6-pack" ? Aaron, I think you guys need to come out with an FPcon in honor of the Funky Pup. Would be a great addition to the SSA lineup I will put in a call to Krypton to see if they have any spider packs and surrounds left. There was rumors that before the Death Star was destroyed, that some special cones were jettisoned off into space for fear of the attack. Supposedly, Ray Liotta can get a hold of some nasty voice coils. That would leave only the unobtanium motor structure, last I saw, the Navi were pretty pissed when humans tried to take their rare metals. Just saying.

Don't have an 'official' release date...we never have for anything and we never will. The tab that is on the website should be a bit of a clue. The reason there are a handful of people that have them and have put them up on youtube and what not was to do field testing to prevent any issues with happening with a few parts that we haven't used before. We got the information that we were looking for, made a few adjustments and they're about ready for release. I've had zero time to do any emails, office work, etc for the past week due to people being out sick and everything in the shop breaking at least twice. Photos have to be edited and put up on the site and then they will be released for ordering. Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Truconcept v.2. PHd in douchebaggery.

Alright so here it goes. As soon as I unpackaged them I saw the quality of these subs. Good solid construction, spiders, tinsel leads, everything seemed perfect. Currently, I am using two 15" Icons and tuned them really low at 27hz and wow, musical reproduction is amazing. Obviously, great output at the lower end and plays kick drums flawlessly. My girlfriend listens to some hardcore music, and these subwoofers easily sound the best and pick up on every note that should be played and dig down low on those bass drops. Overall, phenomenal subwoofers with both sound quality and output in mind. Id recommend these subs for anyone, the absolute best subwoofers iv owned for the money, and easily the best bang for their buck.

ill warn you ... car audio shops are a PAIN IN THE ASS!!!!! i have owned a few... sounds fun at first.. right doing what you love and loving what you do... but after a while.. it all boils down to a few things. 1.. every one wants the loudest stereo, head unit subs amps all put in... and they have a budget of 75 bucks.. but theere cusins babies momma owes him some money so hell have to wait till then. 2. with the internet being in every ones hands at every ones finger tips... its SOOOO HARD to turn a profit... even if your a dealer.. IE . ill change the name..... SUNUP only sells to dealers.. its a dealer based company... but there dealers cant sell sunups items.. because billy can get online and buy them for the same price you (the dealer) can get them for on his sales, pre sales, and yard sales, and if its not a big company like that.. then its somthing that customers car buy on ebay or amazon for less then your retail will be after a profit... then if you have a brick and mortor store you have SICK over head... 3 when you do somthing you love every day.... you stop loving it. 4. people will try to rob you... in one way or another.... if they arnt trying to seal your products off the self,, they will have you install somthing.. then there friend says " nah nigga bridge that shit that hoe will bang harder" so his friends get there monkyin around with shit.. cranking this and that up... then BOOMMMM smoke....... orlando you fucked up my shit!!!!! i want it fixed... and if you dont do it.. he tells every one you dont know what your doing.. blah blah blah.... 5. good luck. im just trying to warn you .. i know your young and i admire your drive, i have been there.... over and over again.i wish you great succsess

Hello there! If you clicked this thread it is because you are considering making a thread asking about a box design! (Or you are wondering, what's this thread about?) Well I am here today to help you and make your box designing dreams become a reality! Follow these 4 easy steps to correctly pose the question "Is this a good design for a box?" By following these steps other members will be able to better assist you in your goals! STEP 1 (Research): Research! Hop on Google and find your manufactures recommendations for the enclosure. Go up in the search bar of this fine forum and search! You will be surprised to find that someone has probably already asked "How good is sub xxx tuned to 34 hz?" And whats awesome is if you do some snooping you can see if they made a build thread, and then find out how well their plan turned out! You can even PM the person and get their opinions on how it turned out! that's the best part of an online community. STEP 2 (Answer "The List"): Check out this cool list below! These are the type of questions that people are going to ask about your box design goals when you make a thread! So have them ready up front! Copy and paste this list to your new thread and fill in the blanks! If you are not sure on an answer simply put a question mark (" ? ") in that space! That way members will be able to provide the best answers for your questions! (See something I should add? PM Me please!) The list: Vehicle : Location in the vehicle: Space available (Length x Width x Height): Subwoofer make and model: Subwoofer Size: Number of Subwoofers: Type of Port (Kerfed, Slot, Aero, etc.): What type of music do you like?: Is your goal SPL or Everyday Music?: Tuning Freq (Hz): Volume : Questions: STEP 3 (Make a good thread title): Now that you have your list filled out go ahead and make a thread, but I strongly encourage you to put as much info about your design in the thread title. This is a VERY IMPORTANT step! By putting information about the thread you are making in the thread title someone will be able to much more easily search for your thread! And not only that more people are likely to respond to your thread as they will be like: "Oh an Fi BTL, I had one of those, I''m gonna help this dude out!" Here is my recommendation for a format of your thread title: Recommended Thread Title: Design Questions for : (Subwoofer Size) (Subwoofer Manufacturer) (Subwoofer Series) in (Cubic Volume) (@Tuning Freq) Enclosure Here is a sample using the above format: "Design Questions for 12" Fi BTL in 2.5 Cubic Ft @ 34 Hz Enclosure" Trust me, if you take the time to have a good thread title, it will attract much more interest and help! Again, if you don't know the freq you want to use or any other part of the tile just leave it out! For love of all that is holy DO NOT make a thread title "Box help" Thread titles like that are the devil! STEP 4 (Do more research!): As the answers start rolling in keep researching! There are plenty of useful tools out their for designing! Part of the fun of this whole hobby is learning how to do things! Then you can impress your friends and make boxes for others! LEARN LEARN LEARN! These videos are just a sample of what you can find on youtube that may help! I hope you enjoyed this thread! With these steps you are on your way to getting accurate answers to your questions from the members of this forum! And not only that you are bettering the forum by allowing information to be more easily found! Take care and stay loud!

Chill- Lemme break it down as simple as I can on some of us here. The IHoP is like a big dysfunctional family. -M5 would be the uncle everyone respects and takes advice from. We may not like how he phrases certain things, but we know he has a point in what he says. He also has the cool toys most of the family doesn't. -Tirefryr is the cousin we talk to who is much like M5 but minus the toys and who doesn't drink so much. -Sand is the great uncle. A bit cranky and will tell you how it should be. No fucking filter, no sympathy. He lays it out for you and you get the advice you need to hear. If its also what you want to hear, cool. If not too fucking bad. -Nem is the crazy cousin who is ALWAYS doing something to make us say WTF in a good way. He is a jack of many trades and a master of terrifying the children. You.........your the new brother in law that somehow got in the house and drinks all the beer and bitches when we have none left even tho you brought nothing with you. Calls us cheap asses for not having more, while telling us of your life and how shit has fucked you up. Secretly we all wish she wouldn't of married you, but since we are now stuck with you we try to help you as best we can. Too bad you never fucking listen and always bitch when shit turns out so wrong. J