Hi Guys,
I thought I'd join up so I could join in. I few things said caught my attention.
First off though, it is good to see some of our customers here. Thanks for posting about us.
Danny used to sell the driver for $24. So it is safe to assume he was buying them for 25-33% of that or less to make any money. That makes it a $6 to $8 dollar or less wholesale driver. And I'm betting they are buying in a lot more volume than Danny did reducing that cost even further.
First of all the woofer used in the XLS speaker is not the same driver that we sell. It is a larger 6.5" woofer. Similar in design but more expensive. Buying them for 25% of what I sell them for is wishful thinking.
Oh, and I get as good of a price on them as anyone can. I have been purchasing drivers from Peerless for a long time. Mark will need to order about another 7,500 more woofers to match what I have ordered from them thus far. I hope he does.
I am not sure why they pictured my tweeters in the review either. They are not the same.
On a side note, I will bet the Gr Research board meeting you attended must have been thrilling when the board discovered they were making a 67 to 75% profit margin on these drivers ...
Yea I wish.
I noticed a slight descrepancy in the -3dB point. The reviewer measured the extension to be 60hz, and the published specs say 55hz.
I noticed that too. I wonder how they got that figure. It makes me wonder where they spliced in their near field measurement. The tuning frequency of 42Hz matches my own. The -3db down point should measure no higher than 57Hz.
That woofer is actually in a less than an optimal sized box. In an optimal ported enclosure it will -3db down at 45Hz.
They also noted two "cons". I guess they had to fill that space with something.
Noisy port was one of them. Maybe I never playing them hard enough for that 2" port to make any noise. It couldn't be much of any even if played really hard.
Secondly they said, "Crossover network and network components not oriented to minimize cross talk". The only way cross talk could occur is between inductors and nothing else. While they are both mounted flat on the board (in the same direction) they are not close enough to one another to have any real effect. If they were right next to each other then sure, but not in this case.
If that is all that could be picked then I can't complain. It was a damn fine review.
Actually, Silversurfer they originally spec.ed these speakers to 40Hz until folks questioned how that was possible. Then it was an "error" and extension rose to 55Hz.
The error was a result in getting the tuning frequency confused with the F3.
This means Danny would be making $67 to $75 per $100 ...
I wish.
I would not jump ahead to thinking they will be a match for the 170SE's. A few Blind tests between the two seems like a good idea, but I would be surprised if the x-ls matched the 170's in such a test.
Ha, ha, ha. All I can say is good luck to all the rest of the speakers mentioned. I can't wait for you guys to compare them. My expectations are that the XLS will come out on top regardless of price.
In fact you guys are wasting too much time trying to figure out how much these cost to produce based on the price and how much money there is left to be made by Mark. Who says he's making money on these things? I told him he was giving them away. But what do I know about marketing? Throwing a gem like this out there for nothing as a loss leader is good for the customer and a great calling card for AV123. No one will be able to match this dollar for dollar.
