geolemon

I'm excited to help bring Scott Buwalda to this part of the world. B) We've been talking over the past weeks, discussing the feasibility, and have had some quick and enthusiastic response! While Buffalo, NY isn't a huge city, it is central to quite a bit - Southern Ontario (Toronto is only 1.5 hours, Niagara Falls about 30 minutes, etc) Rochester, NY (about 1 hour) Northeast Ohio (about 2.5 hours) Erie, Pa (about 1.5 hours) And with the cancellation of the Sacramento, CA event - we were able to secure a date! B) Here is the official announcement thread: http://www.canadiancaraudio.com/ubb/ultima...ic;f=3;t=010529 For those that haven't seen yet, here is the Sound Quality Summit Tour info page: http://www.buwaldahybrids.com/sqs.htm If you live in driving range of Buffalo NY, I hope to see you there! B) ...Oh, I forgot to mention the promotions: DLS is co-sponsoring the event. As a result, for the $250 registration cost of the event, the first 10 registrants for this event will take home a DLS component set - a $329 MS6 Magnesium component set. B) Not a bad value, considering all the education and materials that'll be packed into this 8.5 hour day (plus complimentary lunch). Also, the referal special still exists - for each referral you sign up, you save $50 off your own registration. Refer 5 people and you attend free. See you there!

No offense, but I'm not a fan of designs like this at all, for some practical reasons: Primarily, if you lay out your enclosure like that, you've completely inset the baffle panel... and over time, your subwoofer's violent in-and-out cone motions do jackhammer on those joints, potentially causing stress fractures at the joints, or cracking and leaking if the enclosure wasn't perfectly built. I prefer to overlap my baffle panels over all other panels - top, bottom, and sides. I then overlap my top and bottom panels over the side panels... leaving the side panels of course inset on all sides, overlapped by all other panels. Building the box this way ensures maximum strength and build quality. Here's a quick diagram (sometimes I recess my side panels as well, to facilitate carpeting with a little more seamless appearance):

Nick - I just heard about this today! I wanted to offer my sincerest condolences, as I know what it's like to try to get a company off the ground... We're at least two steps behind you, and if our intellectual property, products, prototypes, computers and test equipment were all stolen, even in our premature state, it would be a devastating blow. I'm praying for you, praying those leads develop into an arrest and location of the equipment for you, and praying that your insurance company doesn't leverage some loophole... praying that you can even end up better off at the outset of this (ie. new test equipment, computers, etc). Good luck man, and if there's anything that we can do for you, to help you out, I'd love to assist any way I can. Unfortunately, no clever ideas are popping into my head, currently. Christopher Evert Better Audio VP

I didn't have a welcome thread, right? I didn't see one so... Hey, cool, I can finally post here. I swear I was waiting on registration for a long time... Maybe that was that other forum... Anyway, hello! Just curious what the "vibe" is, here, again... Been a while...

Yep, for sub-$200 subs there honestly are a lot out there... But many are specialized. Even if we generalize just a little bit... maybe grouping them into three buckets like "SQ", "competition SPL", and "street-booming SPL", we could really find some winners. One of the best values that I've gotten were a pair of DEI Studio subs, that were both together well under $200, purchased from an online (non-authorized) dealer. I was really honestly tremendously impressed when I saw these subs, the build quality was fantastic. Classy poly cones, with a slick B&W dustcap that was equally classy, black texture-finish cast baskets that were downright sexy, "Directed" rubber magnet boot, rubber gasket. Build quality was fantastic. Subs require an absolutely tiny enclosure, which generally doesn't say good things for their efficiency, but these weren't bad. The sound quality was definitely decent as well. Really, all said and done, the overall final look, and sound of the product was great. Another one that is often accessible online for very low prices are the Alpine Type-R subs... really impressive looking subs, that would particularly make for a show install mounted inverted... and I've never personally dealt with these subs, but I've heard a great number of people comment positively about the sound quality of these guys... seems like a tremendous value, particularly if aesthetics are important to you. If we can get our own butts in gear, we should have at least one, maybe two subs of our to add to this category... We'll have to send some to someone for an unbiased review though. Hmm... Nick?

Cadence Z7000.. you simply wouldn't believe this amp was actually a class A/B amp, except that it has an appropriately class A/B sized chassis... well exceeding 24". It puts out tremendous power, but the efficiency of it is really what is amazing... it almost seems to be a class D, in operation. We were even stress-testing prototypes using one, and even with an 80a fuse in the underhood fuseholder, got a decent amount of play time out of it before popping it... we really were impressed, particularly as we were playing quite often with tones... I believe it benched at nearly 1700w. Better Audio 1600M1... a nice, powerful 1580w amp, that sounded clean, and had a great preamp stage... 24dB/oct subsonic, 18dB/oct crossover slope, and yes crossover - it had a set of slave preamp outputs that were HP'ed at the same frequency, to have a truly coordinated system. And obviously I'm a bit biased ...but not really since we don't make it anymore (a decision that was our former buildhouse's, not ours... boo! ). This amp was very similar (same platform) to the Ampman Revo, and the RE 35.1, if you are familiar with either, very similar... all my comments apply to those also. But, on to newer frontiers... Hopefully quite soon, we'll have one amp from our lines making this list again - I'm big on value. Also, a friend of mind used one of those Memphis 1000D's for a long time, he really liked it. Powerhouse, in an absolutely tiny chassis. Earthquake PHD-2. I'm currently running this in my Civic for kicks (along with a PH2.5). It's powerful, it's got some balls, but I'm really not happy at all with the sound quality. It's turned three tight 10W6's into mud, and I'm running the gains quite conservatively low, as the enclosure was built to drive the 10W6's into full excursion around 600w total... just not right. But, for SPL competitors, it's not about SQ, it's about power... and I believe it was three years ago, 6 out of the top 10 street 1-2 class world finalists were using this amplifier in their vehicles... that says something.

Let me give you a different perspective. Almost ALL amps are built using printed circuit boards (PCB's) and components that are made in Korea, and usually completely assembled there... it's amazing what percentage of amplifiers on the market are built in Korea. It's also shocking how many of these PCB's are fully assembled and soldered up, and are shipped to America, where they are simply glued into a heatsink and endcaps installed, so that this final assembly can legally qualify the company to put a big "Built in the USA!" statement on the packaging. Honestly, if Kicker has printed on the packaging "Made in Korea", kudos to them for being one of the VERY few who are honest about this! B) And no, subwoofers aren't tied to amplifiers... buildhouses that specialize in one don't specialize in the other. Buildhouses in Korea are well known for making amplifiers. Buildhouses in asia as a whole aren't generally well respected for speaker construction. Kicker is located in Oklahoma, and I believe they do build all their subwoofers in-house. You can contact Kicker's Tracy Foyht (sp?), by visiting www.caraudioforum.com, and sending "Polecat" a private message if you like.

Well, apparently the DSL connection went down to our 'headquarters' there in MD, where Bart is... We have an array of servers hosting the website... Bart told me yesterday, he had to open up a trouble ticket with Covad because connectivity went down. I'm surprised it's still down... Well, hopefully the local telcom guys aren't dolts, they'll get it sorted out quickly... ...hell, this is even a good thing in the way... big disturbances like this, a whole day lost, they might even give us a month's worth of credit! Having a really fat DSL pipe ain't cheap, believe me.

Well, I'd like to think that would be true... But think of it in these terms: Sponsored vehicles are automatically bumped into advanced classes, correct? Well, I could (and honestly, I may, for this purpose even!) build a car that didn't use our gear, and avoid the "sponsored car" thing... But essentially that's where I'd be hanging myself, even though I only do my own install work... Maybe I could get around it, I haven't looked through anyone's rules yet that closely.

Hey G, That's to funny b/c LDW3RD are actually my initials and I'm the 3rd one. Your not the first person who has thought that LDW3RD was a funky way of spelling L O W E R D. I love minitrucks and I probaly will add one to my go-rage later . Right now my family is ever increasing w/ a count of 4 children at the moment, I'm into the minivan and station wagon, full size SUV scene. Hey G you guys still make that mono amp??? Peace Oh, that's too bad. My wife is fully aware of my inability to drive anything stock, we don't have any kids yet, but she's already actually helping me find things that would be fun, cool, unique, customizable, yet practical... Something like a Scion xB, that's her favorite right now... I just picked up a Pathfinder this year to replace my Nissan minitruck, but honestly, I'm not that impressed with it so far... I was going to 'bag the Pathfinder (I managed to find one that is 2wd - and a 5-speed - and loaded! ), but I'm just not sure now. I might actually go back to a standard truck, maybe my wife will get the Scion next year, and that'll be our "family truckster" We aren't making the mono amp currently, unfortunately really.. There were difficulties at the buildhouse, and they decided to discontinue that amp platform as a whole. We've been quite for quite a while... we're getting quite close to re-launching though, we've been gathering investors and ideas... we've been keeping quiet though.

I think people misinterpreted what Adire was trying to do, in demoing the 4" mids all by themselves... They weren't trying to say "Look at these things, they are stand-alone fullrange wonders!" They were saying "Look at how broad the range is that these things can play, that you can really hear with your own ears, if we don't hook up any tweeters or bass drivers with them!" And the demo was good... they were tremendously impressive, both in terms of range, and in output. Coupled with a good tweeter and crossover, you seriously have enough low-freqeuncy capability to carry you without a sub even, in a good install. and that's the 4" version. Adire didn't have the 6.5" versions hooked up at CES.

Hey, welcome, fellow CAF and CA member! B) Maybe you feel like registering at CAT also, so that everyone here can be cross-registered everywhere else? Actually we've been getting good traffic over there lately, might be good... Anyway, I just registered here myself... came to check out the action.

Done as in completed? What did you end up doing to the heads? Last we spoke, you just found that problem, tore it apart, were going to do something... I'm interested in hearing what you did! Every time I think of calling, it's 11pm.. like now!

Great... I like the sounds of "all around"... And I like the sounds of "lowered"... any chance you are into the mini-truck scene? Lowrider scene? B)

Hey look, a newt! Welcome, the more the merrier.. I like a forum with traffic!