Fi Car Audio

Nope... something new More info in a week or two. Sorting through tooling for things and want firm dates before too much gets said.

Not on the BL... used it as a little feeler for 4" coiled subs. And as they sold pretty good, we will have 4" coils show up elsewhere in the line soon

It was only ever available for the BL series. But... 4" is going somewhere

Found coils. No original cones or spiders though. Those cones are long gone. Spiders have been replaced by a different unit. Total for 3 would be $181 shipped.

Hasn't been a real team since about a year after we started.... mostly friends at that point. Lots of things in the works right now, and there has been plenty of "team" talk.

No too mention a little more power handling...

The IB3 drivers are a little different than others. We rate them at a maximum excursion per power (normally 20Hz). So at 350 W, without any sort of clipping or boosting of any kind you should have no issues over over excursion. As mentioned above, its not an issue to have less than "rated" power for a speaker. It is no different than just not turning up a larger amp past the 350W mark. Thanks, Scott

Wow... I will definitely need to go take a sampling of baskets and measure. We have never found them to be off that much over the years, let alone in a single batch. I appreciate you bringing it to our attention. Thanks, Scott

1ZX7497Y0345780945 On its way. Sorry for the delay, but we had a vendor delay with 18" cones. It looks like Nicole had tried to contact you about a week ago via phone regarding the delay. Thanks, Scott

Thermally they are close to stock with the original stock coils. With the flatwind upgrades the thermal goes up (closer to an SX). Flat leads and extra spider increase mechanical power handling. Thanks, Scott

Magnets are about 8.7" in diameter, but the motor tapers down to about 4.25" at the very back. Magnet size (OD) stays the same with all options. Larger enclosures will increase the low end response, decrease the tightness, and decrease the mechanical power handling/durability. We recommend smaller sealed enclosures and adding polyfill to reduce the QTC. Thanks, Scott

Back up on the site.... finally. New motor and cooling. Thanks, Scott

Added solid poles and the heli-cool system to them for better cooling. Solid thermal upgrade over the previous versions. We are happy with the results. Currently quoted at 30 business days lead time to ensure that we dont run into any unforseen delays or issues with getting the new motors machined and rolling. Thanks, Scott

With the heli-cool system on the SSDs like their bigger brothers, it does bump up the thermal capacity of things. Took big steps forward to do the SSDs with Neo, then took many more backwards when the Neo prices went crazy. We had been several months into having things tooled, sampled, and approved to have pricing go through the roof. We then had to scramble backwards and redo the SSD and IB3 lines to make upgrades and our desired price points. We are stuck with the N2 and N3 drivers right now (and will try to continue to eat the magnet costs) but they are selling better than the older versions ever did... so thats a good thing. Im happy with the new SSD line and think its a good step forward for the line. Not too mention all US steel (and US made 18" 12 spoke basket). Thanks, Scott

Working hard on getting a stack of Q motors done, and not just the trickle we have had so far. Looks like Wed we should really start having them move out the doors in larger numbers. As for SSD... we approved the steel samples and are awaiting parts for pick up. SSDs have taken significantly longer than expected due to a complete redesign after we had gone to neo with things (tooling was done and then pricing went through the roof for Neo pricing the SSD motor far beyond the lines range). The new motor uses a solid pole and has the ability for cooling like the bigger lines should a customer need it for their application. Thanks, Scott

I hope to have a semi firm date tomorrow. I will post up any details should they become available. Thanks, Scott

We do now have a delay on the Qs. This is due to us swapping over to US metal and we are experiencing delays in their production much longer than anticipated. Once we sort through ALL of our motors initial wait times for dies and tooling, it will be significantly faster for all future orders. Currently N2, N3, and BL motors are sorted and rolling smoothly. Qs are the next motor we are out of and are waiting a few weeks longer than anticipated for them to be to our liking. SSDs/IB3s are a whole other story/problem and we are working rapidly on solutions for them. We appreciate everyones patience while we finish the transition to US raw parts. Thanks, Scott

We were hoping to have them done by today when I got back into town, but they only just started on them. They are supposed to have them ready to ship on Wednesday, and assuming 1-2 day freight from LA to LV, we will start maching on Friday when they come in. We have to machine all surfaces, bore the ID, cooling channels, drill/tap, tumble, coat, and bake.... then normal assembly of motor and parts. We have pulled all coils up until yesterdays BL orders and are getting the coil packs going. This will help save some time once the motors are rolling having a ticket and coil pack together. We are hoping that the US 18" 12 spokes are sorted in the next couple of weeks so we dont run into delays with those as well, but I believe we are covered up until current on all 18s too. We are working on 10-18 US baskets too... but starting with the 18 first as we sell an obscene amount of them (and only worse when IB3s are rolling). As Nick said, we are going through a less than fun transition to all US parts/vendors and things are taking longer than expected. But we will have significantly lower lead times in the future not too mention significantly more US sourced raw parts than any other company I know of. Thanks, Scott

Baskets. Many of them. 18" 12 spoke is the first. Made a few changes to the last version and now having the tooling done in the US. Qs and BLs are staying the same. It is the most cost effective way of making them. SSDs are REALLY different than the last version... or most anything else When things settle down next week and we are back on track, I will get a better looking sample sorted for pics. The current sample we have been testing is rather rough... No point in taking light finishing passes on things for a proto. Looks "threaded" lol Soon, the 18" subs will be all US parts except for the magnet. Shame all the US magnet manufacturers are gone or it would be 100%. 10, 12, and 15 are still Chinese 12 spoke (for now). As for other things we are working on, its the same old wait and see game. But nothing to replace the current lines. They are going to be stable for quite some time. Thanks, Scott

Duran... on the way. We had some setbacks with how we are doing the N3s. Originally ordered a small quantity of the special material, and it worked great. When we got the larger quantity in, it was the wrong formulation and had to wait almost 2 weeks for the correct. Sorry for the delay. I am sure I will hear something about the dustcap though While not looking as durable as our standard caps, the N3 dustcap and process is immensely more durable. Dkcraw... should be out on Thurs. I appreciate your patience. We are working through all of the orders ASAP and will be caught back up by early next week. Thanks, Scott

While we dont tell people its OK, you can fudge it a little by shorting the non-powered coil. Simple jumper across the + and - terminal and it will bring TS specs a little closer to original values. Otherwise, Qts is significantly higher. Power is a different story... and while not cut in half, it can have issues with higher current through a single set of leads over other wiring scenarios which can lead to issues. Thanks, Scott

Lol... well I wished they were ready to go. Waiting on steel still. It is taking a little more time than anticipated to get the steel right (not on the final machining side, but on the raw formed side). There is quite a bit going into these little guys and I am VERY happy with things so far. I will have an update tomorrow when I am in LA. We have several different things going right now with the last of our raw steel coming back to the US for production, and none seem to be "easy". Thanks, Scott

Wish this had a different thread title...lol... popping it back up every day just doesnt look so good OK... M5 is correct with what he says heat wise. It is what it is when averaged. Period. But in reference to the original statement that clipping kills speakers... there are other factors that I had mentioned in a previous post about mechanical when dealing with square vs sine. Square waves are significantly tougher mechanically on speakers that sine. Measured in detail with accelerometers on our end. Clipping is not just "heat", but mechanical stress as well. Not to mention all the ugliness that some amps like to do when clipped. For OUR speaker with cooling, they also have the distinct problem of less cooling (excursion) for the same power, resulting in increased heat Watt per Watt (square vs sine wave form). This is only a comment on our speakers... as that is all we measured. Thanks, Scott

Im sorry, I simply dont have time to read everything and make a point by point post... but when we tested amps and waveforms it was done with amps that were capable of making full voltage into both a square or a sine wave. At that, it is what I feel a real world clipping situation is. While it is pretty damn close to impossible to get a perfect square wave (and even more so into a reactive load, ie a speaker) we could tweak and get it fairly close. Points are, that most amps are capable of producing a pretty dang "square" square wave and that you can, within a percent or two, approximate Vrail as Vrms for a sqaure wave. While Vrms for a sine is .707Vrail. This equates to a situation where 40% more power is applied to the speaker in a MASSIVELY clipped scenario. But, we took it several steps further to use a laser based measurement system , an accelerometer, and two different thermal measurements (thermocouple as well as infrared) to measure things. At that we found the obvious, things heat up more, and often significantly more. This is due (based off of measurements of heat and excursion) the increased power and reduced excursion (for like power in a square vs sine wave the square wave has less excursion.... and at higher power and excursion levels where our cooling system comes in to play, was even more drastic). Now, the interesting side of things is even when normalized at higher power levels, we found that the square wave does induce more heat. Watts is Watts, so the reduced excursion simply means that our cooling system does work. Of note, but not particular to what has been discussed is the force being applied to the speaker in a square wave vs sine wave. A square wave is significantly more brutal (an order of magnitude more) on things mechanically. That is not fun for a speaker. Not too mention that getting smacked like that can lead to a already thermally stressed coil to come undone in a situation that similar power from a sine wave would hold together long enough to cool back down (less force/stress and higher excursion/cooling). All in all it doesnt equate to anything beneficial. Sounds like poop and is rough on speakers (and Im sure amps, but not as much my concern). Keep it clean and things stay happier. Thanks, Scott

Like other have mentioned, I would love to give an exact date, but since we make things there are far to many variables to do so. We are looking at 4-5 weeks... and hope we have no steel issues or anything else. We will be able to make them within a couple of days of receiving our steel. We will keep people posted on the forum as well. Thanks, Scott