SoundSplinter

I wouldn't extrapolate too much from the data given. The only stand-away and by-far best seller is the RL-p15, due in no small part to its recent boost in popularity amongst the home audio enthusiasts. The rest of the lines are fairly comparable in terms of average sales over time.

Truth be told, the RL-p15 is our best seller. RL-p12 comin' in next, followed by the RL-i8, RL-s15, RL-i10, and RL-s12.

I have a couple RL-8 D4's left from an order that fell through.. so if you want one, ya better get at me right quick! I don't have a reliable leadtime estimate for when more will be in, as I'm havin' a hard enough time gettin' through the current production of D2/D4 15's + D2 12's. I will fight to have them ready sometime in June. Plenty of S4's in stock though.

Just over 100 (108 to be exact). This includes both first gen RL-i's and RL-p's in the count.

Hehe, well yours is different alltogether, not being annodized, but rather painted over polished aluminum. I like those too, these ones that I just received are kind of in the middle of the completely flat matte from our first production runs, and the textured brushed annodized that we currently use. There is some texture on these, but in comparison to the usual, it is not nearly as rich.

Hey Airmack-- If you haven't already done it, shoot me a PM or an email with your email address, so that I can notify you as soon as the new 15's are in. Now with that being said, let me lay out this madness for ya'll. For some reason, the supplier making our cones is just slow as all get out. I put in the order for the 15" cones in late March, and nearing two months later - we finally received the first batch. Unfortunately, the cones did not meet our cosmetic specifications (mechanically, they will perform perfectly). The cones they have sent do not have the same defined texture and gloss that they usually do, and appear flat or "matte" - peep these pic's for a comparison: I myself prefer the deliciously brushed finish, so I've rejected the majority of these. Since it will take at least 4 weeks to have the new cones produced and shipped to the assembly plant in San Diego, I am having a small run of 15's produced (both dual 2 and dual 4) using these matte cones, in order to satisfy immediate demand. They should be ready absolutely no later than the end of the month, and people on the waitlist will have priority to purchase. I will of course fully disclose the cone design on these 15's to any interested parties, such that there won't be any surprises.

Hehe, damn straight - you could bet we'd have equally delicious food to rock alongside that crisp clear sound! In fact, I've even been toyin' with the idea of publishing my own cookbook for the last year about. Following are a few teasers of the things I've had mind to share so far - if you want recipes, just ask. Down-home bbq beef burger: Heart Attack Pie (essentially a crustless quiche): Little hors de'ourve action: The Motherwich: Fresh 'n Oily Angel hair with keilbasa, proscuitto, olives, and fresh herbs: Crab Cakes: .. and so forth

jntar, if I could be doing anything other than the audio bit - it'd probably be something to do with food. I've always wanted to open up a casual yet fine dining experience, perhaps open air, in a warm climate, on the coast, with an open pit to grill upon, a bar (both for booza and hookah), and even a music stage. But hey, that's a dream at this point.. and not something I am financially able to undertake at the current time, especially given my investments into SoundSplinter. Nevertheless, I have continued to foster the idea with my friends - in hopes that they may become involved and share some of the excitment (and burden) of tryin' to tackle such a huge project. Other than that, I've really been enjoyin' tinkerin' around on the string instruments, and have a mind to get into some serious schooling and perhaps finally start a jam band with my buddies. We jam from time to time anyway, and always talk of grand plans, but as of yet we've been so consumed by our respective daily lives that we haven't buckled down and hammered it all out. Perhaps this summer I'll take up some lessons and see where that road may take me. I'd have to say my three favorite recreational activities revolve around music, food, and the outdoors. Like I mentioned above, a home-made hot sauce bottlery op would be pretty sweet - I'm a madman for firey foods > Once SoundSplinter takes off do you plan to be a "hands on" owner While I'd certainly love to travel and reap the rewards of a successful business, this is also a hobby of mine, so I'm not sure that I would want to give up oversight of the biz. Indeed if I could make it work, I'd love to have the opportunity to enjoy both aspects - continuing to involve myself in the day to day operations, from a laptop on the beach in the carribean lol .. I'm full of dreams flakko -- For financial backing to get this jig rolling, I had been saving and investing into securities/funds throughout my entire high school career. I've always known that I'd prefer to play a hand at running my own businesses rather than workin' a rigid 9 to 5er, and so that was motivation enough not to cash in on the immediate reward of money in the bank, instead sittin' on it until an opportunity became ripe enough to delve into. I've also in the past borrowed some capital from family when necessary... but have no outstanding debts at present =]

Gear.. yes gear would be nice - and should be relatively easy to do as I have handled the production and sales of clothing before.. so now I just need to crank up the motivation to put together some designs that I feel people would dig. I'll make it a mission to get some sort of gear available by the end of the this month. Kent, it's a funny thing about ego - I'd like to say that havin' it stroked isn't all that.. as I didn't create this business to gain any sort of widespread notoriety. Nevertheless, everytime I happen across some thread on the 'net, or a happy customer ravin' to me about how impressed he is with the speakers, I indeed do sport a big ol' stupid grin on my mug. It is a very good feeling to receive positive feedback and appreciation, and is definitely one of the factors that motivates me to continue providing personal service. Why go "so far above and beyond" - well I don't think I do, at least not by my standards. I treat other people how I would like to be treated, and if I'm interested in making a purchase (not talkin' for a stick o' gum here), I expect to be able to ask questions and have them responded to. That's really all I do, is answer people's questions and make sure they are getting what they want. Is that above and beyond? Maybe by some measure, but not mine. It's just good business. Obviously as the business grows, it will continue to get more difficult attending to all customers as actively - but this is one of the reasons I don't have a marketing budget, and instead let my drivers and customers speak for themselves. It keeps growth from getting out of control, allowing me to adjust my model for example by providing additional standard information on the website, such that not so many people will take my time asking about mounting depth, for pictures, or general enclosure recommendations. I do have plans to create a Knowledge Base on SoundSplinter as well.. though this will take some serious research and development. One day I do reckon I'll have to bring in additional help, but for the time being I feel comfortable handling this rig on my own

Well el Dorado -- I usually spend a few hours each morning in my stock room, absorbing all the energy through those static ceramic magnets in hopes of manifesting some sort of Magneto style super powers within my very being .. though in all seroius, that new Xmen movie looks pretty sweet! Can't wait to hear what kinda bass they throw in there Work hours per day varies quite a bit. There are days when I'm up at 6am and there are nights when I don't really sleep - but there are also days in between, the calm before the next storm, when I can relax and pursue other interests. If I had to estimate, I would suggest I spend an average of six hours a day responding to business obligations, more if I'm in the middle of active production. The part I appreciate most is that I can choose my hours (within reason, as I do have to make daily shipping deadlines).. and therefore can allow myself to sleep in some mornings and in turn work late, or vice versa. For fun I hit live music shows, surf, hike, jam out on the instruments, cook, travel, read, uber-amateur photography, throw a flick on and let the woofer rumble.. it's all good! I definitely have enjoyed my experience with SoundSplinter thus far, and am excited to try out some new things.. though as of yet, I am still playin' around with ideas and do not have immediate plans to implement monumental changes. On the agenda at present is improving the RL-s 15" linear driver by offering it in a lower nominal impedance while increasing its overall efficiency and perhaps reducing its weight while increasing BL -- though this will depend on the added cost of runnin' with a neodymium motor. How long I plan to run SoundSplinter? No tellin' - but as long as people like and want my products, I'll keep at it!

Jello everyone! Pleasure bein' a member here, many thanks to denim and everyone who participates and promotes this forum, I have no doubt it has played a significant role in the success of my business JimJ: It's difficult to estimate how much money I put in to start the company.. as the whole thing stemmed from unique circumstances that probably aren't all too common. Let's see if I can break it down without getting too long winded. There is a very close family connection between the owners and managers of TC Sounds and my own family. Short of the whole genetic and legal definitions, I consider Thilo and Christa Stompler (the T and the C) absolute family. As I was wrapping up my college career in Santa Cruz, I took a weekend to travel down to San Diego with my father and spend some time with Thilo and Christa. I was immediately impressed by the scale of their business operation, as well as the quality of their products. Having had a mind for self-employment since I was 13 and started my own web host business over at www.swib.com, I began to ask questions. It wasn't long before they offered to help me in selling their speakers... and in fact, the initial plan was for me to head a "house brand" on behalf of TC Sounds. Ultimately however, their business model did not at the time allow for the attention that I felt was necessary to make such an operation effective, and so I soon knew that if I were to start selling their subwoofers, I would want to do it on my own, calling all the shots for myself, by handling the arrangement of inventory, wherehousing, and shipping alone. Bottom line is, they allowed me to test the waters by working off of very small purchase orders to begin with, such that I could gauge what type of interest there was in the market, before jumping in head first. During these first four to six months, my profit margins were less than 20% of my purchase price for the products - but since I am a patient man (and could get away with small purchase orders), I was able to tackle these beginnings with relatively little capital expenditure. To finally answer your question, my first purchase order made in April of 2004, totaled $13,526.75 and comprised a small selection of RL-i 10" and 12" speakers, as well as a few RL-p 12" and 15" speakers. Now depending on how extensive of an inventory you wish to carry from the get go, you could get away with an initial investment of $10,000 or so - providing you have the dedication and patience for what could be a fairly long road to profitability. Even today - two years after starting out - I am still investing more money back into the business than I have gotten out of it. Most profits gained from sales go right back into buying larger purchase orders in efforts to keep my costs down (which hasn't been easy, given consistently rising commodity and freight costs). When it comes right down to it, the ever-increasing purchase orders have only served to keep my costs relatively consistent over time. Senor ramos!.. enjoyed reading your spotlight - as for what got me into audio, I've always been keen on the aural experience . Having spent 9 years of my youth studying the piano, music has played a significant role in my life. I now also play the guitar, am workin' out my aggression on a set of hand drums, and even picked up a 5-string electric bass guitar earlier this week! Listening to music has been a meditative experience for me, having favorites ranging from jazz and bluegrass through all sorts of rock, female vocal, classical, and there was even a time when I was quite enchanted by them catchy rap beats. Lovin' to drive just as much as I love music.. it wasn't long before my 1991 MR2 Turbo received its first set of Rockford Fosgate series 1 woofers. Looking back on them now - wow what a difference a decade makes Dennis: the name.. the name came about as I was brainstorming a whole plethora of potential names for the TC Sounds house brand. Tossing around some hundred ideas, I liked the way soundsplinter rolled off the tongue. It seemed memorable, while also invoking the idea that the company would have something to do with speakers.. and the splinter, well you could splinter your ear drums if you're not careful! ///M5, my favorite whole system setup? I'd have to say the home theater line source towers that currently reside in the demo-room at TC Sounds, coupled with any assortment of woofers, from a pair of the RL-i10's to a 15" supreme. Honestly I have a very difficult time picking favorites - as what may be my favorite one day may give way to a new one the next. There are so many combinations of capable products out there, I'd hate give a hands down opinion on any one. B&W's are nice, I even use a set of old AR's in my home. The Dayton reference woofer and tweet set that I received from Dylan (Ology audio) sounds great with his custom crossovers. Nice and clean, and I in fact have those set as my L/R surrounds for the time being. I'll tell you one thing though, as with so many of us, I'll probably always be thinking of what could come next, no matter how good what I currently have might sound! Tirefryr, in terms of influences in the industry... I am very new to the industry - even now in my current position I don't really fraternize with industry players. I like it low key. By default I'd have to say Thilo @ TC is my biggest influence, with Stephen Ponte coming in a close second. They have both been incredibly friendly, down to earth, and helpful in walking me through the process of setting up shop and teaching me the various bits and pieces of information necessary to cater well to my customers. Eldorado - the street's an interesting place - as good as any to trade some wares, no? But really, I don't have a physical storefront, and my inventory / shop has doubled as my own home. Fallin' back to my desire for privacy, but certainly also my own safety and the relative safety for my inventory, I thought it wiser to meet strangers in public than to invite them into my own home before coming to know them personally. Thankfully, everyone who I have met has been friendly, so in retrospect this precautionary measure may not have been necessary.. nevertheless, better safe than sorry! ghetto boy, our product lineup will expand as opportunities present themselves - I'm in no hurry. I'd much rather concentrate on continuing to provide rock solid products than expanding into areas where I may not be able to secure products of comparable quality. Price is also a huge factor, as in looking for potential solutions on components, my volume is small enough that the per unit costs would force me to price the components higher than I would like. Just can't give ya any definite timelines, save to say that I do keep an eye out. topgun, interning with me would be very boring In terms of engineering knowledge, I will offer my input on the ultimate goal I am trying to achieve, but at the same time will defer to those with more mechanical knowldge than myself when designing my products. While I do indeed have a love for audio, my main passion lies in being independent. I've always wanted to run my own business and call my own hours. It was largely by chance that I ended up doing this by way of selling subwoofers. Truth be told, I have in the past (and am still considering) starting up my own hot sauce bottling organization. TongueSplinter sound good? I could even offer free bottles with purchases of my woofers - for all your extreme needs Kent, just for you As for my Toyota, I was about to sell the mother after having taken it to three mechanics, none of whom could figure out why the hell the thing would overheat whenever I pressed it. Finally, after two weeks and about 10 test drives at the dealership repair shop, found out I had a separated head gasket in addition to a some other problems. It's currently ripped apart, with all sorts of machining being done to re-tune all the connections, including the replacement of a few parts such as the water pump.. so next week and some $3300+ later, I'll hopefully have my baby back and ready to road trip up the coast to Oregon so I can visit my two sisters, nieces and nephews. The car's got over 100K miles, but I just love it too much to let it go! The other forum I administrate resides at www.shroomery.org - I generally like to keep this a little known fact, as I feel that mixing sales and politics can be a recipe for disaster - but all you cats seem pretty open minded and really what it comes down to is my belief that so long as a human is not infringing upon the personal rights of others, they should be free to do with their bodies as they please. Do I personally partake? I do have thousands of posts racked up over my tenure on that forum, but these days I'm more involved on the business side of things, helping maintain the financials and ensuring that the community will continue to exist. I have indeed experienced a past influenced by the occasional psychedelic experience, but I have never been the type to make that my end in and of itself. As for dealer / distribution networks.. my goal in life is to live happily and simply - so as long as the business is within my means to handle effectively, I do not see a need to delegate responsibility to others in the way of dealer relationships. I'm not looking to become a huge corporation. I enjoy having a personal relationship with my customers, and an overall view of the entire operation. It allows me to notice any potential failures and respond to problems quicker, as I know that ultimately I am 100% accountable for how business goes... and that makes it all the more rewarding when I hear back from the people using my products, exclaiming how happy they are! Well.. so much for not being long winded

Beautiful stain color on your cabinet. http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/uploads/av-1450.jpg Should do somethin' about the raw edges on the front face though ('less you have 'em facing the wall anyway) - then it'll be an absolute masterpiece!

Well since no one else has.. Happy to hear your foundation is gettin a solid workout

Thanks for thinkin' of me Mike - I actually downloaded all your pictures onto my local harddrive last time you linked me to your photobucket album. I'm in the middle of working out a new gallery / upload system to integrate into the SoundSplinter site - in similar fashion to the way people can exhibit their rides over on SoundDomain. Of course, I'm coordinating this with a friend who already works fulltime so it's a little slow to come to fruition. I haven't forgotten about ya, and actually have about four or five customer installs on my local drive that are ready to be displayed - I just haven't had the time or drive to make it happen since I figure the new system will be replacing the old anyway. At any rate, happy to hear the RL-p's are still treatin' ya so well. I'd love to get some HD reception myself, but my projector's resolution wouldn't even make use of the improved imagery so until I upgrade that, I probably won't bother. Take 'er easy my friend!

It's cause I don't advertise my phone number... keeps me from yackin' on the line too long so I can answer emails instead

Yep, if you would prefer a call - just leave your phone number and I'll get back to you asap.

While these drivers will certainly perform in small boxes as noted - if you have the space available, you can just as well build a sealed enclosure up to 0.5 cu ft for slightly more output and low end extension.

> By lower DCR i hope that means 1-2 ohms. Most likely 2 ohms, not greater for sure. But I doubt I'd want to go as low as 1ohm, as not to alienate the home theater crowd, to which this driver is primarily suited largely due to space constraints, but also the fact that on the road, you will never experience perfect sound quality because regardless of soundproofing, one will almost always experience some sort of road, wind, or engine noise. Since this driver's goal is to provide the absolute lowest distortion, it makes sense that it will therefore snag the interest of home audiophiles, over car audio enthusiasts who generally seem to prefer loudness and economy over outright sound quality.

Thomas Jefferson once preached, "Never buy anything because it is cheap."

Until I can find a way to get a cost-effective "budget" driver that is built well and doesn't sound like crap.. that's precisely what I'm planning

Removing the center board, depending on its thickness, will only afford you a slight boost in effective internal volume. However, given that you are kinda on the tight side for the RL-p12 driver (I'd like to see at least 1.15 cu ft net volume per driver), it may be an option worth considering; provided that the box is built solid enough to maintain structural integrity while not flexing wildly on the then unbraced portions of the enclosure walls. Increasing the effective volume of your sealed enclosure will help to increase overall output, particularly at the low-end of the response. But of course, this increase will be proportional to how much you can actually increase the volume by removing the board in question. If you haven't already, you might also (or instead) try adding anywhere from 0.3 - 1.25 lb of polyfill per cubic foot - which can also aid in increasing output.

... or just hand out your zipcode - since you'll be shaking the whole town

That is going to be awesome

A handful of people, sure. But when you consider a minimum order would involve at least 100 pcs of product, and the markup would have to be razor thin in order to sell 'em in a reasonable amount of time, the investment just isn't worth the return unfortunately . Personally, I think the RL-i's are fantastic, effecient drivers suitable for any practical home theater or car audio application. But these days it seems Average Joe Buyer is lookin' for a massive driver that can support a large power feed, rather than a relatively less capable product that can still sound just as good and get plenty loud. At the moment, I'm concentrating on redeveloping the 15" version of the RL-s, in order to offer a lower DCR while boosting the overall effeciency. This renovated RL-s will only be available in 15" size to begin with.. and won't make a public appearance for at least another 3 months. But when it does.. it'll be a sexi beast!