SoundSplinter

Good mornin' to the good peeps of SSA! It has been a long time coming, with glimmers of hope springing to light only to be dashed by the heavy reality of a struggling economy and a primary producer that declared bankruptcy only a few short months after my largest purchase order to date. I had sincerely hoped that there would have been a revival in the production process, however I can now say with confidence that I will not be receiving my order for the RL-i8's and RL-p18's that I had placed so many moons ago. On the upside, a partial debt resolution is in the works, so I should be able to recoup a portion of the losses stemming from my final purchase order. However, given my inability to source a reliable and timely supplier that will produce my drivers at a cost which would allow me to keep my retail rates consistent with their historical average, I am hanging up my hat and bidding farewell to SoundSplinter as a going concern. Breakups are shitty, but rest assured... it's me, not you! My most sincere thanks to denim, mrray13, oxsign and the rest of the SSA reg's. You guys have played no small part in this li'l art house drama of the online audio world. I plainly could not have done what I did with SoundSplinter, without the SSA community as my primary backing! Big ups to all the folks who have shared their installs with my drivers. It's been a helluva ride, and one that I won't forget! Since I still have a stack of Orphan 8's lingering around, I would like to offer them to the SSA community at a firesale rate, so contact me for details. This is a TC2+ based 8" woofer that simply does not mess around. At $200 it's a good deal, at the rate I'm offering, you would be hard pressed to have this 15 pound USA built driver produced by an OEM in quantity! Don't let the single 6 ohm coil configuration scare you away, just snag a trio of 'em for a 2 ohm load, or better yet, a sextet for 1 ohm nominal! Best paired with 300 - 500 watts RMS per driver. Suitable for sealed, ported, and was in fact originally designed for Sunfire audio's "li'l" home theater cube with a passive radiator, but was rejected due to a magnet stack that was ever so slightly (1/4") thicker than anticipated. Lastly, anyone who posts in this thread is eligible (one entry per person) for a free Orphan 8, and a winner will be chosen at random during the week of November 14th. Shipping will be included for residents of the lower 48 United States, but if the winning shipment goes elsewhere, the winner will have to pony up the dough to make that happen! Qts - 0.405 Qes - 0.442 Qms - 4.778 Fs - 34.289 Hz Re - 5.25 Ohm Ls - 12.16mH Lp - 4.053 mH Rp - 25.46 Ohm Vas - 5.031 L Mms - 214.1 g Cms - 100.6 m/N Bl - 23.39 T*m Sensitivity - 78.44 dB 17mm Xmax Thanks again for your support, you guys are awesome!

They were built by TC Sounds for Sunfire Audio's home theater passive radiator cube with integrated plate amp. Rumour has it that the drivers came in 1/4" taller than the initial spec, and since Sunfire had already built the enclosures, they rejected the production. I swooped in to snag them at a discount and am now offering them here in like kind. Seriously, at $89 + shipping, you will not find a better 8" driver, period. Quite a few of these have shipped out over the past couple of weeks, but I have about 20 left. Remember, you can wire a pair together in parallel for a 3 ohm load, three for a 2 ohm load, or six for a 1 ohm load! These eights do not mess around, and honestly if I wasn't trying to clear up space in my house to pursue my other hobbies, I wouldn't dream of selling them so cheap.

Haha, that's awesome!

Congratulations to ricksi30 for scoring a free beastly li'l Orphan 8" driver.

PM me your address and I'll have a few die-cut "S" logo stickers sent to you. You are also welcome to use these logo images; the 2005logo.jpg is probably the one you're looking for.

I'm in California, of course I'm going to be doing an IPA, that style is practically half of the craft beer market out here! In fact, my first publicly served beer (though it's being served free since I'm not licensed yet) will be a Grapefruit IPA... my first tap handle! NO actual fruit, though it has an uncanny grapefruit essence on account of a hearty dry hopping with Amarillo style hops. I probably won't make this part of the regular line up however, as I prefer a less tangy and more piney IPA personally. Regardless, I am working on perfecting recipes for an IPA, a roasty Imperial Stout (have a keg on tap here at home that came in at 9%abv and it's reaalllly good! the only thing I might add is a bit of vanilla bean), and a couple of Belgians, likely a Saison and a Dubbel (or other dark strong variety). To gfunk_nz - looks to be about US$105 - US$110 per driver for shipping to New Zealand.

To be fair, it's not all on Thilo. While I would have preferred clearer communication, his family got hosed on this ordeal as well. They brought some people on towards the end that made a big push to take the company in a different direction. In hindsight, it would seem that these last ditch efforts pursued by those 11th hour hires really ended up being the nail in the coffin for TC Sounds as it once was. I don't believe Thilo knowingly took advantage of me. Desperate times call for desperate measures and ultimately, we all make mistakes. But on a more positive note, I am quite simply overjoyed by the outpouring of love in this post. Thank you guys, so much! Demin, my god man, I might need you to speak at my wedding or something (not that I have a wedding planned). My experience here has all been incredibly worthwhile; even with the turmoil, the successes of SoundSplinter have outweighed any failure. This community is just amazingly kickass. =] It'll be slow going to begin with, as I work through the licensing and infrastructure build out while perfecting my methods, but here's a li'l sneak peak at what I'm working on: http://www.liberale.com While it isn't audio related, I think it's something that a lot of us can get down with! Keep it real my friends. Do what you do and remember, the time is always right to do what's right!

Hey everyone! As Kent mentioned last weekend, I have a handful of orphan drivers available that are not listed on the website. First up, I scored a lot of around 70 TC2+ based 8" drivers. These manufacture at the same cost as our coveted RL-i8, however they were manufactured for a third-party retailer who returned them because the magnet structure was 0.5" too tall for their given application. As a result, I managed to sweep these up on a discount some time ago, and am offering them here for general sale since I know many people have been wanting a beefy 8" driver, and our RL-i8's are navigating some serious production hurdles on account of our manufacturer recently declaring bankruptcy. For more than 30% less than our RL-i8, you can snag one of these Single 6 ohm Orphan 8's for $145 + shipping. T/S Parameters for the Orphan 8 Single 6 Ohm: Qts - 0.405 Qes - 0.442 Qms - 4.778 Fs - 34.289 Hz Re - 5.25 Ohm Ls - 12.16mH Lp - 4.053 mH Rp - 25.46 Ohm Vas - 5.031 L Mms - 214.1 g Cms - 100.6 m/N Bl - 23.39 T*m Sensitivity - 78.44 dB 17mm Xmax I also have about four or five RL-i12 Dual 4 Ohm drivers available, from our original production run in 2004. These are classic, low-distortion drivers fantastic for small sealed enclosures (~1.25 cu ft) with 300 - 500 watts of input power. Yours today, for only $150 + shipping! T/S Parameters for the RL-i12 Dual 4 Ohm: Qts - 0.247 Qes - 0.273 Qms - 2.521 Fs - 18.563 Hz Re - 5.69 Ohms Ls - 4.788 mH Lp - 5.461 mH Rp - 9.682 Ohms Vas - 166.5 L Sd - 0.0457 m^2 Mms - 149.3 g Cms - 492.2 m/N Bl - 19.03 T*m Sensitivity - 87.73 dB Xmax - 19 mm

Hey guys, just wanted to note that the Orphan 8's are being seriously marked down through the SSA store to help me free up some space as well as to help SSA get a little bit of fundage! For the build quality and capability of this driver (made in San Diego, CA), you would be hard pressed to find a deal like this again on such a quality product. Happy Independence Day Weekend!

Feelin' the love around here. You guys are great! The wait is still on, and I apologize for not being around the forums more often but as a result of having scarcely any product in hand, I've had to focus my energy on other ventures. I still believe that there will be some product coming my way (evidence from the TC topic recently linked), but it's been a tremendous wait without much to show and I honestly couldn't tell you with much confidence when to expect availability. These are the bricks life lays upon us from time to time. Just for kicks (if you don't mind paying for shipping): I'll be sending a TC2+ 8" single 6 ohm driver to the next two people who respond to this post AND tell me what they'll do with it! And if anyone else wants one for $100 + shipping, shoot me a PM no later than midnight pacific time on Tuesday the 5th and we'll make it happen. These are some beastly 8's. Not quite the RL-i8, but close.

... and you're not the only one! In the fullness of time, I'm sure things will get straightened out. In the meanwhile...

Just some glitches with the web server that (I hope) have been resolved! As Aaron noted, there will be an update to the website but that is not yet currently underway. Still dealing with production woes but staying hopeful that things will work themselves out in time! For anyone interested, currently available inventory includes: Orphan 8 RL-i10 RL-p12 (only a couple new ones, and a handful of open box / practically new) RL-s15 Send over an email if you're interested.

As noted in the PM I just sent, you could also consider 1.85 cu ft net volume per driver tuned to 28 Hz which will help flatten out the response just a bit and give you a little deeper extension. This is pretty much in line with oxsign's suggestion noted above. I personally wouldn't want a box tuned above 35 Hz on this driver either, as the response gets way too peaky. If you're shooting for a target peak SPL and a relatively narrow range, that's another story... but I don't think that's what you're going for here.

If that is a clean break between the rubber surround and the cone, and the rubber is not bent and the cone is not ripped - you can pick up a cyanoacrylate-based glue (i.e. super glue), place a generous strip of it on the cone recess, and use a round weighted object that can rest on top of the rubber surround in order to press it into the recess on the cone while the glue sets for 24 hours. Read the glue descriptions at the hardware store, as there are specific glues that are formulated to work better at bonding certain agents over others.

Most likely, your driver got fried from a clipped signal from the amplifier. Be careful with the amplifier gain, especially if you tend to listen to your system at high volume and are using the maximum recommended amount of power for a given speaker. Since you're lookin' for a louder system, dual 8's in a shared chamber would be a good choice (or even stepping up to a larger coned driver). For the pair of 8's, I would suggest a single enclosure 0.8 - 1.5 cu ft net volume, tuned within the range of 30 - 34 Hz, with 20 square inches of port area.

Happy to hear you're diggin' your RL-p!

Sorry to hear about the trouble. The box is definitely a little big (with tons more port area than you need), which may have lead to some over-excursion which over time knocked the coil out of alignment. Or it could have been a clipped signal to the amp... no way to really know exactly what happened here. 500 watts is the maximum amount of power I would comfortably recommend for the RL-i8, and unfortunately I do not have any spare parts right now. At this point, I am expecting more RL-i8's no sooner than October 1st. I do still have some single 6 ohm TC2+ 8" drivers (same motor as the RL-i8 and Audiopulse Epic 8). Check your PM's!

Perfecto!

They are a very comparable product. Powered and housed appropriately, I'd bet most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Yes, there are differences - such as slightly greater efficiency on the RL-i8's as well as the use of a shorting ring - nevertheless, the Orphan 8 is highly unlikely to disappoint. Quite a few of the people who have jumped on the $145 sale have come back for seconds, and in one case even a third purchase!

Sweezie! Wish I had a box for ya Vic, but all my boxes are housing other drivers... Good luck!

Yep. The major delay is the fact that I already piled in a substantial sum of money on deposit for a couple hundred drivers (RL-p18's and RL-i8's), only a month before TC went bankrupt. Bad timing on my part, and I do understand that there are other build houses available to build my products; but given that this business isn't hugely profitable for me (it is one of several businesses I'm involved with), it doesn't make sense to go and invest more capital at this point. Therefore, I am at the mercy of Thilo's (lead engineer from TC Sounds/Audiopulse) negotiations with a new overseas build house to finish production on my open order which will be completed in batch with a separate Audiopulse order. I haven't written it off, as I am confident that the order will ultimately come through... but the time frame is nearly impossible to predict, as there have been various cash flow and supply issues, not to mention the slow process of container shipping from another continent. Once the order arrives, I will make a decision as to whether or not I wish to place additional orders (dependent upon product quality and subsequent demand over the following few months), or if I should look for another producer... or even if I should simply take a bow, say thanks for the good times and focus on the myriad other things going on in life. Hard to say how it will all play out, but I am fully expecting another run of 8's and 18's to arrive in the not so terribly distant future. When exactly this transpires is unknown, but one thing is for certain; I'm still here, I still have some limited inventory on hand, I am still responding to all customer inquiries and will continue to provide responsive service to my customers.

Glad to hear you're diggin' on the Orphans Apex Rex! Hell ya! 500 watts on one of these Orphans would be perfect. The Memphis may begin to push it a little, but if you are careful with your equipment, they should take it.

Haha, I have no idea where you're hearing these things. There is no 21" driver in the works over here. Not tryin' to win any build race... just keepin' my life low key (= low stress :bigclap:), and carrying quality products.

Half a cube per RL-i10 is just fine. Sound quality should not suffer at all.

As I'm sure many of you know, it's been slooooow goin' with my new producers. I have RL-p18's and RL-i8's on order, slated for delivery in May 2009. Until I receive delivery and can verify the production quality, I do not have plans to make any additional purchase orders. Gotta make sure they can handle the current production before goin' balls to the wall, ya know? So for now, stickin' with tried and true... as for the future, who knows? Happy New Year!