Aaron Clinton

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

We are still mostly on UPS atm. If we cannot get better pricing from UPS we might move to FedEx soon.

GLWS.

Awesome looking riding spot.

He was right the first time. Have you ever seen how fast Alton works? He flies right through builds.

Interesting, there is a product for your speakers that doesn't require hype and some signature?

Yeah, engineers tend to do that Hey now, I don't quadruple guess myself.

I might try to merge the two together soon. We will see how stable cloudflare is a little longer first.

Bonkers!

Mark and I were on CarAudioResources together back in 2001. He had just started SSAudio.com as a site for upstate NY people and we ended up combining efforts shortly there after in 2002 and became incorporated in 2006. CarAudioResources (as you can see linked at the top) was a very busy site from 2001-2004ish. It died off in 2006 or so, and Mark and I bought it last year and now we are trying to bring it back to it's prior level a decade ago.

Big amounts of orders are flowing out of the factory this week. I will be updating orders as I get caught up.

Maybe it will be in the hot rod.

Oh, it appears both TEIN and Tannabe post spring rates on their respective sites. Didn't check back on Eibach or H&R yet.

May I ask why? I had done so much suspension work to the Brabus, and coil overs were waiting to be installed before the horrible fate.... anyway I never got to use them.

TEIN coil overs are pushing $1500 roughly for the RX-8, much more then I can budget anytime soon. Tokico D spec coil overs and a brand I have not heard of D2, are almost within reach. I can always do Tokico adjustable shocks down the road for a decent price, if they are in the budget.

I vote no, the Neon may be fast, but it is a poorly built car and the quality is lower then your truck. I never want to touch a car that someone else has done serious engine modifications to it. It is almost a certainty that there will be costly issues.

I am going to be doing springs on both cars, probably ordered them today for a combo discount. (No, not doing coil overs at this time as I do not track either car, or drive either hard enough to get that aggressive with the suspension.) So, over the years for my personal cars, I have only used Eibach and H&R. But now going full into the Japanese side of the auto word, (taking a German breather) there is a whole new world of aftermarket brands I don't have as much hands on driving or owning experience. In this case, price is not a deciding factor, as all four options are with in $20 of each other. Also, ride height differences are with-in 0.4" total of each other, so that is not a factor either. For both cars, including the two brands I am familiar with, I am looking at TEIN and Tannabe too. I have read quite positive reviews from real users on all of them. The Eibach is my safe bet from a comfort zone POV, the Tannabe has some nice traits, but the TEIN seems to be a front runner with reportedly better material (Chrome Vanadium) which also results in less weight. Of the real performance car guys on here, what are the experiences with TEIN and Tannabe? Thanks.

Great work sir. Thank you for taking the time to write those. Feel free to post them on others sites and link us.

Meh face. <<<<