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Post by topdown on Apr 23, 2011 21:51:22 GMT -7
I was a bit surprised at watersedge post about the email from Nick at Fi because I had just talked to Scott on the 14th and he was still optimistic about getting baskets within a few weeks. I sent them an email and got a response from Nick not unlike what watersedge posted. Today I see that Scott has posted something in the Blueprint forum that is essentially what he told me when I met with him on the 14th. It would seem that of the two Scott is the glass is half full guy...
So the question is between these two capable but lately unpredictable suppliers, both promising 4-6 weeks, who will get the goods to market soonest? Don't bother, I don't expect an answer to that one.
The question I would appreciate some insight on is what are the pros/cons of a two Fi18 setup vs a four AE15 setup (driven by a EP2500)? If Scott makes good on what he told me, Fi will still have a big edge on price vs displacement, but perhaps the AE solution would be better for someone who listens to as much or more music than movies?
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Post by aespeakers on Apr 27, 2011 9:05:00 GMT -7
Thanks for the support everyone. I am looking into this right now and will know more in the next couple days. I have coils, cones, frames, magnets, etc all here for about 100 IB woofers. I've had a ton of interest on the car audio versions as well so I think it is worth bringing them back as long as I can make some profit on them.
What I need to figure out is whether to get the US sourced steel or get rough T-yokes and top plates from china. I can get the steel here quicker if I get it from the US but then have 10x the machining time. By the time I work machining 100 top plates and t-yokes into my schedule it will likely not be any faster than getting the rough T-yokes and top plates from china and then just doing the finish machining here.
If I get the steel rough made from china it takes around 30 days to manufacture and then the time of air shipping. I should have quotes back in the next 48 hours on the cost and time of the steel so will update then.
John
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Post by sport883xlc on Apr 27, 2011 11:37:48 GMT -7
That is great news John. I hope bringing them back works out well for you. I am looking forward to hearing the update from you. I would much rather buy equipment from direct from a US-based supplier, as I run a small business as well. Thanks for the update.
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Post by FOH on Apr 27, 2011 12:21:04 GMT -7
John, whichever route you opt for, I wish you well. Thanks for stopping by.
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Post by kryptonitewhite on May 1, 2011 17:39:02 GMT -7
Hi ThomasW, hope things are well with you. As AE was mentioned here someone notified me of the thread and figured I'd stop in quickly. I made the decision in January to stop selling the IB15's in their current manner. Over the past 3-4 years I sold probably around 1500 IB15's. They were really the bread and butter of what I was doing here. I have to definitely thank the Cult forum for many of those sales. The IB15 was a driver I designed specifically to get the most output with least input power and with the lowest distortion. It was a driver that was designed to fill a need and sell quantity, but not necessarily make huge profit. For IB use, the desired higher Q allowed me to keep the motor size down to reduce cost compared to the standard TD woofers. The soft suspension made the driver very efficient where it would have a natural F3 around 16hz. That soft suspension does limit the amount of travel that the driver can have without issues of the VC rubbing though. This is why the IB15's had an 18mm Xmax. They were also built off other parts that were fully in stock at most times. The smaller Xmax also meant smaller surrounds and the Sd was significantly larger than many other woofers with large roll surrounds. Going to more than 18mm Xmax would require expensive cone and spider tooling and also require stiffer suspension. This would sacrifice one of the big benefits, which is the low end efficiency. In terms of power requirements, distortion, and cost, it was much more practical from to just use more drivers than to try to make a single driver move much more air. The difficulty for me here began when there were issues with other things. The AV part supply issues put me in a horrible position for several years really. Vendors took nearly $50,000 from me without delivering anything. The legal system was absolutely no help. I ended up having difficulty with parts supply due to cash flow issues, specifically buying the quantity of parts from china that were required as a minimum order. This would specifically be frames and raw steel parts. The cost per unit was also an issue. To build an IB15 is slightly more work than building a TD15 due to one extra step required. However, because of the price point the IB market dictated, I would make only 1/4 the money off building the IB15 even though it took longer to build. In reality if the IB15's fit in with the rest of the pricing schedule, they should have been about $249 all along. There is a lot of cost to hand building drivers myself. Steel is all finish machined by hand in my machine shop. Copper sleeves are applied by hand and trimmed. Parts are plated in Milwaukee. Cones, VC, spiders, dustcaps, adhesives, edge gaskets, etc are all US sourced. All of this has cost to it. The guarantee that I am personally building every driver also should add some value to the woofers. Now that I am working alone and doing ALL of this work myself, the cost just has to go up. For me to run a lathe and turn T-yokes all day I can't be working at a rate of only $10 per hour and expect to survive. I need to make enough to cover all the utilities to keep the shop open before I even take home a dime. My goal originally was to stay true with the TD woofers and make the best sounding IB driver available. Keep in mind I have an OEM customer using the same essential driver(cone, surround, VC, spider, etc) with next size up motor in a $100k retail pair of speakers. We've put these drivers in multiple high end recording studios. The goal wasn't just to move air, but to be accurate as well. People however often didn't look at the advantages of the driver such as the low inductance, low distortion, the low Fs, ideal Q, the low power requirements to use the full excursion, etc. They would compare to other drivers with higher Xmax that would require 10x the power to get the same levels at 16hz and have magnitudes more distortion. They made the decision that those other drives were better based only on the price per L of displacement being 5% lower. Most just wanted to move air, but didn't care about how cleanly it was done, how much power was required, or how much EQ they needed to flatten the response. When I raised the pricing from $125 to $149 and stopped doing them at 4 for $100, people were angry! I got hate emails about how i was trying to run some bait and switch campaign and rip people off. People said there was no way the cost could have gone up that much and it wasn't fair that I bumped the pricing so high. In reality my pricing on parts alone doubled over the course of 4 years. The retail though went up 19% over that same period. That is less than 5% per year, while inflation is about 7% per year. Yet people felt I had no right to raise the price. In reality I should have doubled the retail pricing on the driver, but didn't think the market would accept it so I only made a small increase. That all said, I could easily make IB15's again. I however need to make money to survive doing so. At a retail of $199 and 4pc pricing of $175 I could easily start doing more IB15's almost immediately. I don't know however, if the market would have any interest in them at this pricing based on the past experiences. I am almost caught up on current demands. I could begin to have drivers shipping again in 4-6 weeks if demand was there for them. Let me know what people think. John That was very informative, definitely changed my perspective and my respect for you manufacturers. |
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jg53
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Post by jg53 on May 7, 2011 18:47:53 GMT -7
Oh my, I finally got my house built, got the room ready and am preparing for my first IB. I was told to buy 4 of these and I find they are no longer made. Its a conspiracy I tell you.  I guess I will watch this post while I move in and ready the manifold etc. |
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Post by aespeakers on May 9, 2011 8:53:54 GMT -7
Hi ThomasW and others. I just put up a post on my forum about the future production of the IB15's. I did decide that I need to go with the rough T-yokes and top plates from overseas. The raw material cost is 5x higher to get from here in the US. That is for just a slice of 5" bar stock for back and top plate and a piece of 2" bar stock for the pole. The main issue then is that it takes nearly an hour to fully make a T-yoke and top plate set here from that US steel. I just don't have enough time available to do that much machining. I'm getting steel ordered up now and looking into air shipping to save 2-3 weeks of transit time. I expect early July to be ready to ship IB15's again. I do have an option to bridge the gap in the meantime for those who are on a time constraint. There are 26 motors assembled without the copper sleeves. Everything else is the same as far as Xmax, the low Fs, optimal Q, etc. Those could be built up right away to ship in 7-10 days for those who need something quickly. Info is on the post on my forum. www.aespeakers.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2729Best Regards, John |
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Post by chrisbee on May 9, 2011 13:41:00 GMT -7
I have been a critic of John in the past but I wonder whether he isn't looking at his IB15s from completely the wrong angle.
He is not a registered charity providing drivers for those too impoverished to go elsewhere. (as far as I know)
He has no real competition on the quality of his hand built, specialist IB drivers. Yet prices them as if they were inferior because of their smaller motors. Rather than for their perfectly optimised parameters as specialist IB drivers. Are such quality drivers now sold by the pound in supermarkets everywhere?
Perhaps we ourselves have led him astray by pricing our hobby in dollars per litre of displacement? Rather than in dollars per degree of sound quality. Are we those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing?
It's no use selling product at widget prices if there is no profit in it. He isn't making millions of widgets anyway. He is making hand built products to fine tolerances. Yet he seems afraid to price himself out of the market.
A market where there are only two manufacturers. One of whom is presently investing heavily in CNC machinery. Do we suppose that Blueprint IBs are going to be knocked out at knock down prices? How does that work as an economic model?
John made 1500 IB15s but he didn't make a profit? Did he not lie awake at night wondering why on earth he doesn't make or do something else? We know he loves making drivers. But surely we shouldn't use that as leverage for rock bottom prices?
Does he think we will all hate him if he raises his prices to allow him to invest in his production facilities? Or to hire a competent, hands on, production foreman to free him up to do R&D and business management?
Did his very low pricing mean he had to pay bottom dollar to his workers? Otherwise he couldn't afford to employ anybody at all? Did he get bottom dollar workers as a result of his low wages policy? I have absolutely no idea. Something went very wrong if he can't find clever and loyal workers for a fair day's pay amongst the 10 million unemployed. Perhaps he should employ people on a month's trial basis?
If wannabes come to IB because they are so cheap to build what does that say about IB? That IBs are just cheap and cheerful? Or that they offer the best possible bass quality this side of ultra-expensive boutique products? Shouldn't his perfectly optimised drivers take some credit for this level of performance?
Do we know any other $1K subwoofer with the performance of a 4xAEIB15 IB driven by a cheap and cheerful Chinese amp? (EP2500/4000)
Which other subwoofers offer 10Hz reach and 130dB across the bandwidth with such low distortion and very low colouration? Then why should we reasonably expect to own a £5k subwoofer for only $1k?
Do I hear you say it's DIY so it ought to be dirt cheap? How much $5k bass SQ can you expect to get for $1k any other way? By buying more expensive cables? Surely you jest?
Wasn't it the very low prices of real IB drivers which forced this present hiatus? They were priced at what they thought the market would bear. Instead of at a price which provided a living for the manufacturer and jobs at home.
Who will step into the breach if John stops production of IBs? Why has nobody done an A/B review of FiIBs v AEIBs? It seems such an obvious comparison but nothing has ever been posted here. (AFAIK)
John was giving up production of his bread a butter product due to a lack of profit. So he has absolutely nothing to lose in raising his prices to a far more realistic level. It will make a change from giving them away at cost to desperately needy, AV street beggars. If sales of IBs tail off then he hasn't really lost anything. His production time and investment were being completely wasted (on us) anyway.
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Post by FOH on May 10, 2011 4:36:17 GMT -7
Outstanding Chrisbee, and spot on IMO.
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jg53
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Post by jg53 on May 10, 2011 19:35:36 GMT -7
Of course, a profit must be made, especially when it comes to such a fine hand made, limited production product. I am sure that John had to weigh profits vs sales over and over again to come to a sales price. All of us in business do that. Sometimes as little as a dollar here and there can make the price too much or just right. This is a very hard market to work within. IMO of course  |
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Post by chrisbee on May 10, 2011 23:58:35 GMT -7
Competition for commonplace manufactured products can be intense. This is why they have advertising. To make completely false claims about some supposed uniqueness or rarity value. Instead of reducing prices to match the market the overprice premium is spent on advertising instead of being handed to their naive customers.
The truly rare and unusual items usually command premium prices depending on demand. e.g. Antiques, art and jewellery. (However intrinsically worthless they may be)
IB drivers are a small, specialist market but with enough demand to make them desirable. If they cannot be made profitably then why bother making them at all? This was John's dilemma. It will be interesting to see what the market will bear.
Foolishly low prices may actually be counter-productive to demand. Those who enjoy a certain level of sound quality may be put off by the perceived bargain basement prices. In reality only those who have adequate speakers will ever enjoy most of the advantages of IB. They are certainly not a "one size fits all" project.
This is not an elitist viewpoint. One needs speakers with enough reach and output to match the performance envelope of the typical IB. Particularly when using a standard 80Hz crossover. This requires a true 40Hz reach at full power to make the project any more than a lop-sided, boom-box. One with a hole in the middle of the FR.
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Post by blackhawk2383 on May 12, 2011 20:22:38 GMT -7
My build started when Fi and AE both had IB drivers available. News that both are on their way back is great and I may go with whichever ones gets to market first. So count that as extreme interest. These holes want drivers badly!!!!!  |
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Post by mtbdudex on May 24, 2011 2:56:25 GMT -7
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Post by larrymcconville on May 28, 2011 8:09:17 GMT -7
Good Morning All,
I've been playing with B&C 21SW152-4 units, and feel while they're certainly a great driver, I'm stretching specs too far pushing these guys into IB duty.
I'm going to go with 8-12 IB18s once available; the B&C product is going back to parts express next week.
Edit - I'm also going to reach out to Kevin Haskins to get estimated availability for his Mal-X 18"/20" products...
Larry
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Post by FOH on May 30, 2011 6:09:09 GMT -7
What exactly did you find wrt that driver in an IB alignment?
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Post by larrymcconville on May 31, 2011 17:45:42 GMT -7
Good Evening FOH, I'll be honest here, I didn't give the B&C product enough opportunity to stretch its legs; however, I spent an intimate weekend tuning and listening. It's merely going to take too many drivers to meet my expectations. I wanted to play around with the driver for a couple days and I did; from 30Hz up she's quite remarkable, but I'm seeking an octave lower. I knew this going in, so no surprises. A 6 pack of these drivers is an apples/oranges comparison to a 6 pack of Mal-X drivers. Speaking of Maelstrom; exchanged a couple emails with Kevin today. I didn't realize how ugly the situation is/was between him and his build house - really feel for Kevin, he's good people  I don't believe we'll see XBL^2 in a large format driver for a very long time, if at all - at least from Haskin's shop. Heard from Nick at Fi; I'll update the IB3 thread... Larry |
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Post by FOH on Jun 1, 2011 4:31:53 GMT -7
Thanks for the update
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Post by twisterz on Sept 16, 2011 17:52:54 GMT -7
I was just on FIcar Audio page and the 2011 IB3 drivers are now available.
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Post by aventhu on Sept 19, 2011 17:34:08 GMT -7
Just got my 18" IB3's and thought I would post some pic's. Mine took 20 business days. I think now Fi is behind and taking longer because they are short on baskets and having to wait on the supplier. As you can see the packaging leaves a lot to be desired. Looks like they got a rough ride. I've inspected them and no physical damage. I'll bring home my Fluke tomorrow and measure Re.
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Post by FOH on Sept 20, 2011 10:28:35 GMT -7
Their packaging certainly is risky, I'm glad all is well. Upon arrival, mine appeared the same way, but no problems. The surround is tough as nails, the only thing I could see happening, is perhaps a cracked basket, but I'm not familiar with any breakage issues reported. That tells me our concern about packaging, may be mis-placed  They are still the king of value/performance. Good luck |
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