I think the MFW may be a good work of design (I haven't heard one though, so I can't say for sure). It's the implementation of that design which seems to be the problem. I think Av123 has a good design on their hands, but in order to get it so inexpensive, I am guessing they have taken short cuts with respect to quality control issues, and maybe also reliable shipping methods. The MFW could really have been a great sub in the hands of another company, but then it would also have cost more due to a more rigorous quality control program. This sub should cost +1K, and to get it lower than that, substantial sacrifices had to be made.
There're some contradictions there in that a good design would suggest a general robustness across the board. Looking at the whole, this doesn't seem to be the case.
I've been told by a source, which I unfortunately cannot cross-reference, that a couple of years ago, the cost to build this sub (back when one place built everything) was about $200. This doesn't appear to be an unreasonable estimate when one considers that markups for things like this are somewhere around 4x the cost especially when you factor in economies of scale and volume purchasing. I say this because there's an old saying that goes if you cut the list price in half, there still should be about a 100% margin.
To get that low price and competitive performance certain compromises had to be made. The driver is said to be a Mark Seaton design and in order to hit the pricepoint he had to deal with, a stamped rather than a cast basket was used. This results in more flexing when the driver is doing its thing and is why you will hear about people occasionally needing a driver replacement. This doesn't necessarily mean it's outright junk or that Seaton was incompetent. It means you do the best you can with what you're given, and in my estimation, he did a pretty OK job.
Problems, when they occur are handled fairly quickly from what I've seen.
The amps also had to hit a pricepoint. Now, the thing about China is they want your business and they want your money. Especially the smaller shops. If you tell them these are the dimensions, these are the features, and these are the requirements, they'll quote you a price. If you don't like it and tell them you want it for Y dollars instead, they'll find a way to give you what you ask for. The thing is, 123 doesn't have a full time engineering department. They don't have QC or QA. They've got a price in mind. So, they can't put out a specifications sheet listing these are the parts, these are acceptable sources, these are the tolerances, and so forth. Keep this in mind for later.
So, the first batches of subs with the first batch of amps worked out pretty
well. They were sourced both from China and Colombia. Veneer issues weren't terrible (more on that later) and they sold pretty well. Then something happened with the second batch of amps. Schifter has stated that this was due to countefeit parts which essentially is an attempt IMO to play the Pontius Pilate card and shift the blame to the supplier. Now, that's possible, but anyone who's followed MLS around for some time ought to have learned the folly in taking what's said as gospel. Counterfeit parts are not unknown and provide a convenient cover, but there was never a definitive analysis of the defective amps, and boy there were plenty, that said these are the parts that have a problem.
According to MLS, his contact and source for the amps was a person by the name of Zeng Ming. Most Chinese also adopt western names so he is also referred to as Steven or Stephen. While MLS has chosen not to divulge the name of the factory/shop/company or whatever you want to call it, a little bit of digging on my part indicated that the business is called Crealm (creative Realm) and is located in Hong Kong. Crealm is a relatively small outfit and is staffed by about a dozen people. That's not enough to make the sort of products they can provide. What they do is act as a middleman if you will and contract out work to various shops.
Now, even though Crealm produced both the first and second batch of amps, MLS has gone on record as saying he doesn't blame Steven and still considers him a valuable partner. This is a peculiar position given that the second batch of amps resulted in a fiscal disaster for 123. It is entirely reasonable IME to postulate that Crealm, in the absence of clearly defined engineering guidlines and possibly being squeezed a little more on the price, went to a supplier that took advantage of both the tolerances so that Crealm could meet the price. To me, the amp is a marginal design and provided you're on one side of the margin, things are pretty much OK. If you're on the other, there'll be problems.
The new amps, which have the amplifier module sourced from QSC in Colorado (not the QSC that makes pro amps), are substantially better. He has been replacing the problematic amp module that came from China with the amp module that comes from QSC. Still though, there are some problems. With nothing connected, some subs hum, some don't and it's not necessarily a function of using a cheater plug. Whether it's a wire routing issue, bad connections, who really knows.
The box seems to be well built with the possible exception of variations in the amp opening. The same can also be said for variations in the face plate dimensions. This leads to problems if you need to remove the amp because the fit is so tight you'll probably damage the finish or veneer when doing so. The veneer though is another issue. While many find the types of woods and perhaps their strong variation in coloring very attractive, the veneers do not represent the upper levels of quality. Further, many of the types of woods are problematical when it comes to gluing them down because they are both oily and because the inclusion of sapwood, leads to different properties from the heartwood. So, in addition to using special adhesives to counteract this, they may also need both sustained pressure and temperature control to make for a tight, durable bond. This extra labor costs money and even if it didn't, it would require an investment in the right kind of presses to do it. This is something that the Colombia operation doesn't have and to my knowledge, neither do any of the China operations either. However, the China product does seem to less problematic.
So, when you say the sub ought to cost 1K, and I'm sure MLS would love to get that kind of money, given what he's historically been paying for the whole sub, he'd have to substantially upgrade the overall quality of components as well as possibly accept a thinner margin in order to justify that kind of a price. I think in retrospect, he wishes he'd done that because all these missteps have cost the company dearly.
