sandt38, one thing you fail to mention about the "100% failure rate" you claim was a total of 3 people who purchased woofers on CAF. Do you really believe I have only ever sold drivers to three people and that my whole goal in life was to lie and steal money from them? Yes, these people had a right to be upset when a product I shipped them had issues. In the case of a warranty issue I pay both return shipping and shipping back to the customer. I've credited back original shipping costs and discounted orders to do my best to make things right for those who have waited. They are out nothing but some time. Yes, there were issues and it took quite a bit of time to get AV drivers going back out. When top plates need to be machined again, I'm paying a machinist with 40 yrs experience to do it in house now to avoid any issues. He carefully checks every part to assure it is done properly. That takes time. When I then send those parts out to a plating shop in milwaukee that has been hit hard by the economy and is working a very limited schedule, that takes time as well. When I need to get cones from our vendor who spins them in california, it takes time for them to get the material, time for them to spin the cones, time for shipping, time for us to sand each one by hand and spray the clearcoat on them, and then time for them to cure. When we get sent the wrong surrounds by our vendor not once, but 2 times and each time there is a delay as the .060" thick santoprene has to first be extruded into sheets before surrounds can be made, that takes time. If there was some way I could have had an immediate fix to the situation, believe me I would have done it. I payed for overnight shipping on parts to save a few days and drove several hours to pick up parts to save a few days freight for those. I've spent more in return shipping, discounts, and refunds on shipping than I have made on any of the drivers. I've invested too much of my life for the past 10yrs into this business and it means too much to me to go out and try to take money from people wrongly.
Regarding the AV woofers, they are not all out ultimate SPL woofers, but in terms of SQ there are none better and I will stand by that. Using almost all US made parts is very expensive. US suppliers make mistakes just like those in china. The difference is when there is a problem here I can actually work with them. How many other companies go through the trouble to machine every motor part in house and have surrounds, cones, spiders, VC's and gaskets that all are made in the US?
I realize sandt38 that you do not personally care about anyone else's opinions on my drivers, or measured results, but some people here may. For those who do, here are some links you may wish to check out. The following are 2 different people who have IB15's and formerly had IDmax's. They seem quite happy to me.
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/member-product-reviews/52079-acoustic-elegance-ib15-4ohm-car-version-idmax-comparison.html
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/diyma-build-logs/21873-2006-civic-lx-sedan-build-thread-36.html#post685715
Here is a link to some testing on the AVS forum of several of our TD woofers, IB15, and shortly a couple of the AV's I now asked him to measure as well. If you look through the results at the TD woofers and IB15 you'll notice by looking at the impedance curves and Le(x) results that they are just as claimed. See post #40 in the thead. You'll see the same with the AV woofers. Distortion measurements are coming from all soon as well.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1148945
A big question was the high frequency response of the AV woofers. Somehow people thought they lacked upper end due to improper setup in the system. Mark Seaton was the first to play with an AV woofer for the AV123 UFW12. You can see how flat the response is well past 100hz. Also a few posts below see how consistent the response is as more and more power is applied as well.
http://forums.av123.com/showthread.php?p=672164#post672164
Rightbrained has been using AV15X's for 6-7mos now in his home theater. Large vented boxes tuned to 16hz with lots of power. The difference here is that he also understands how a highpass filter and low tuning work to prevent driver over excursion. Again no lack of response to well past his xover frequency.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15884054#post15884054
Some others using our drivers are as follows. They have all done their own series of measurements to verify claims of the drivers for their own purposes.
Seaton Sound Catalyst. Custom 12" drivers and we also do the cabinets and several subwoofer drivers:
http://www.seaton-sound-forum.com/post?id=3098564
Salk Sound Veracity HT3, custom 10" drivers
http://www.salksound.com/speakers_veracity_ht3.shtml
Salk Sound Archos open baffle, TD12's
http://www.salksound.com/speakers_archos.shtml
Designer Jeff Bagby's comments on the TD12 can be seen in this post.
http://www.htguide.com/forum/showpost.php4?p=398362&postcount=44
Jeff's credentials are quite good. He's designed several software packages for modeling speakers in the 30 yrs he's been around the industry.
http://audio.claub.net/software/jbagby.html
The new Salk Sound HT4 which will soon be renamed. Jim's comments on the driver can be seen in this post and see the rest of the thread for more info on the speaker:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=0uoaa4jh4diukj2jk863jngu0bkdk4ba&topic=61800.msg630992#msg630992
Evolution Acoustics MM3 and MM7.
http://www.evolutionacoustics.com/mmseven.html
Audio Kinesis Planetarium system with TD12's
http://www.audiokinesis.com/
Now I realize none of the above specifically have to do with the AV woofers for car audio use. What they should do is lend to the credibility of the company and myself. All of the above use my woofers because they are incredibly low distortion drivers that perform well when used in the proper application within the limits they were designed for. Now that doesn't mean I have never had a driver fail before. It doesn't mean I have never made a mistake or missed something in when doing QC after they are assembled. It also doesn't mean they are indestructible when used improperly.
On Weekz woofer the lead wire broke where it attached to the coil as it was not properly encapsulated with the CA glue at that point. Only the top of this joint was glued leaving a weak point. That is an issue that I did not catch with the new guys building drivers. It worked well enough that he made this video first and will work well again upon receiving a new one that will not have the same failure.
WS1086's woofer didn't stop playing. The wrong terminals were used for the 12" frame and the slack on the lead wires wasn't pulled properly. The cone was able to hit the terminal posts but even still the woofer plays fine though. We did realize a need for an insulating layer to keep the leads from shorting on the underside of the conductive aluminum cone as well and a solution for this took some time. Yes, this was a design issue that I missed prior to then and take responsibility for. His driver was returned to me at my expense. He asked about doing a pair of 10" drivers instead and was given a discount on them to make up for the delay. If he's not happy and wishes to have a refund in the end then he will get one. He hasn't ask for one though. In fact nobody has to this point.
Then there is so far the whole issue with the woofer that then went to bassfreak. I believe it has been covered here already. He first was amazed at how loud the woofer played and claimed he must have been doing at least 144dB at one point with it in 3.5cf tuned to 32hz. He also argued on several occasions that he does not believe in using a subsonic filter and that only the suspension of the driver should protect against over excursion below tuning in a ported box. Knowing this he went and applied 1500W to the driver in this situation. This "little SQ woofer" as some have referred to it, is not intended for this kind of use with 1.5x the rated power of the driver and no protection from over excursion below tuning. Then one day he claims the system was bandpassed 25hz-80hz. The next he claims it was 30hz to 60hz and states the system lacked output above 60hz. Of course a driver put in an enclosure with flat response to 30hz anechoic is going to have excessive output at the lowest frequencies when you factor in cabin gain. Then put the crossover at 60hz and very little output can be expected above there. If someone wants an all out SPL woofer that is virtually indestructible I can build one. I can laminate multiple spiders with a flexibilized epoxy and greatly stiffen the suspension. The AV woofers are designed with SQ in mind though. It just happens that with 23mm Xmax they can still play pretty loud within their limits.
Anyway, this is all beside the point right now. Bose301's will be getting an AV12 to play with and review. Bumpin Buick will be getting a couple 15's to evaluate as well. I'm not asking anyone to buy anything from me now. Wait until they have results to post and don't take my word for it.
John
