| Re: 4012HO vs TD12S [message #78981 is a reply to message #78980] |
Fri, 17 January 2014 19:23   |
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Wayne Parham
Messages: 18786
Registered: January 2001
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Illuminati (33rd Degree) |
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Again, I agree with you. I loved the TD12S woofers as they were when I first tested them. I was quite shocked to see the measurements of customer-purchased drivers last year, and so I verified on my own test equipment. Turned out, sure enough, they had the response shown above. I saw this over several samples too, which indicated to me that it was at least one batch.
What kind of turned me away from AE is that I approached John Janowitz about the problem behind the scenes, allowing him to respond without incident. If it was, in fact, a vendor problem or just some sort of one-off manufacturing defect, then it could have been addressed quietly. I just wanted reassurance that the parts would be consistent.
But that's not how it went. John maintained that there was no manufacturing change made that could possibly cause this defect, essentially saying that the problem did not exist. You can see from the charts that there is a problem with that woofer, and that its response is not smooth. And there are at least four more just like it. So to say there isn't a problem is the real issue for me. It causes me to lack confidence in Acoustic Elegance.
It really kinda sucked. I loved the drivers, they looked cool and sounded great. But if there is a consistency problem, I cannot really support them anymore. Too many people ordered their own woofers directly from AE (which I encouraged). This is fine, except that now with the QC in question, I think each driver should be tested. And if the customer orders directly, I'll never see them to be able to verify them. So there is potential for substandard performance, and I don't want the risk, it reflects badly on me.
Still, I left the notes in the crossover document to allow builders to know what parts to use if they want to go with the TD12S woofer. I would just suggest that they test them before use.
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