Ed/si

Seth,

Some of this is the result of letting business and friendship mix. I don't think Ben will make that mistake again. Ben is by no stretch of the imagination what you've claimed he is, but I'm sure you could go on caraudio.com and get a number on there to agree with you.

With that said, people seem to forget that eD is a pretty high volume business now...they don't just sell a couple hundred drivers anymore; it's in the thousands. You're not hearing the good, of course. Go to ECA sometime and do a search. You'll be lucky more than a post or two of negative feedback in the last 2 years.

The good part about this is that there is a LOT of attention being paid to eD right now. Sure, you could say it's bad, but if the upcoming products turn out as we expect, the attention will turn out to be a wonderful thing. I'm sure you remember a couple years back when Adire was having problems getting parts, and then the time when the Brahmas had lead slap and there were quite a few blowing, right? Much like this situation, the overall numbers were quite low but the people who had problems were bitching like crazy. Adire fixed the issues, and the Brahma is a stable in the supersub category. eD is going to have the EXACT same chance. If you go to ICIX sometime, you'll see that there are TONS of people who are on the eD "bandwagon" and if the products perform, the word is going to get out in a hurry.

So, I'm not going to talk much more on this for now...the next 2-3 months will be important for us, and we'll see how things go.

Chad

 

I just wanted to point out that the reason we had problems getting parts for a short while was due to the dockworkers strike. This event caused problems with a great deal of companies, not just ours.

Also, we never had a problem with the Brahma's blowing. If we get a Brahma back blown, it has to be user error. There is nothing in the design that could cause it to happen.

Steven Kephart
Adire Audio

 

FWIW... I'm picking up an e8a later this evening... Hope it'll be fun to play with

 

I have to disagree with that.



From Lloyd on caraudio.com


"I like truth..

2 years.. 4 different buildhouses.. 20 some different lines.. flawed designs that were sold without regard.. not heeding buildhouse reccomendations.. not paying on time.. not compensating your designers on time.. preorders that drag on forever.. and who can forget the nine.1 fiasco?

yeah... I wanna support this company... yup yup

come on guys.. maybe we can do a group buy? hurry.. lines changing soon...

Loyd L.
"

That pretty much sums it up. When have they ever openly admitted a design flaw or appologized for it?

 

I have to disagree with that.



From Lloyd on caraudio.com


"I like truth..

2 years.. 4 different buildhouses.. 20 some different lines.. flawed designs that were sold without regard.. not heeding buildhouse reccomendations.. not paying on time.. not compensating your designers on time.. preorders that drag on forever.. and who can forget the nine.1 fiasco?

yeah... I wanna support this company... yup yup

come on guys.. maybe we can do a group buy? hurry.. lines changing soon...

Loyd L.
"

That pretty much sums it up. When have they ever openly admitted a design flaw or appologized for it? [/b][/quote]
That isn't the whole truth; post that on ICIX and let Ben respond. He sure as hell isn't going to take the time to respond to all of these threads on several different forums.

 

If they aren't willing to try it, then that's their loss.

 

I've got no comment on any of this, since I don't follow the Elemental Soap Opera... in fact, the "soap opera" element is new to me.

Believe me, I'm not ignorant to some of the controversies, issues, delays they've had in the past... but I wouldn't say I've regarded too many of those as exceptional... and the ones that I have I'll keep to myself.

But what I'm curious about...
Since I'm all of a sudden seeing a billion threads pop up - not just this one - criticizing, or questioning Elemental's this or that...
What happened?
Is there something recently that happened?
Or just all the past issues culminating in some kind of boil? The final straw that broke the camel's back?

Pardon my ignorance... I may have not logged on to the web for a day recently or something.
But you know me... I hate to be in the dark on just about anything.
Curiousity is fine with my cat... it's me that it kills. :lol:

 

That isn't the whole truth; post that on ICIX and let Ben respond. He sure as hell isn't going to take the time to respond to all of these threads on several different forums. [/b][/quote]
"4 different buildhouses, not compensating your designers on time.. "

Those are the only ones that I do not know to be true. Know nothing about their designers other than Warbleed designing the SP. Not a clue as to how many buildhouses they have had.




"not paying on time"

Heard about this from a person I trust on the subject and would know. I will not state a name on it because it was said in a 1on1 conversation and I do not know if he minds. So if you like you can throw that in with the other two.



"flawed designs that were sold without regard.. not heeding buildhouse reccomendations."

Thats pretty much the same thing right there and IS true.


"20 some different lines"

'20 some' is not a definite # on how many but there has been a ton. You don't just get rid of a product line that is a hit. How many times have they done that by the way???


"preorders that drag on forever.. and who can forget the nine.1 fiasco"

Self explanitory. I'll go ahead and throw back order and waiting for product replacement in there as well.


"When have they ever openly admitted a design flaw or appologized for it?"

My statement. Show me where and I will retract it.

 

Yeah, I'm in the lost loop. I was trying to find a thread or two where this stuff all started when I came upon this one. I assumed something happened when SIN and ED split a few months or so back...

ANyone wanna give updates if anything surfaces? I don't feel like reading through 50+ pages on a ton of different forums, especially when it's all "Well, I know.... 'Well, you're wrong' " stuff.

If someone doesn't mind, if any specific/facts come up, please link here

Thanks

 

Let's just say a number of people who turned their heads when it got bad decided they were getting a cramp and turned back only to realize they had helped screw people over by not speaking up. Now they are. It wasn't just because ED left SIN. WAY more to it than that. I'm just suprised how many people won't believe a thing unless the they hear it from the owner of the company. He won't spill the beans and it's not because it didn't happen.

 

A few oddities that nobody seemed to pick up on (last I read):

The most vocal of the anti-ED dudes on that thread have "known" for quite awhile about what ED is alleged to have done. Yet, they kept it to themselves. ED leaves si.n and all of a sudden they "spill the beans", and they are the ones questioning Ben's business ethics and character? Pot/Kettle/Black. I guess we should keep all unethical business practices to ourselves until it no longer shows any benefit to us (financial or otherwise)...You have to admire the consistency

They show a few pictures of a room full of (I presume) K drivers. Now, if ED sold 1000 K's, and there is a room of 40 in need of repair...is 4% a high rate of failure (I know this assumes they sold 1000...if they sold more, the failure rate would actually be less than 4%) in the speaker business? What are its competitors failure rates?

Many of the anti-ED dudes in that thread are spineless. Only when Loyd or Josh Laine speak do they come out from hiding and speak "their opinions". Odd, since they claim to think independently of what others say or do.

BTW, I'm still on the fence regarding this issue. Again, we hear about the failures of *insert company* product, but there are only a fraction who come online and get equal exposure for praising a product. There was mention that ED users "claim" success when they receive a product that works...well, the opposite can be said of any company. If something works, should we all go online and tell everyone,"Hey, my component set works...my amp works...". Yeah, right. That will get a quick STFU/GTFO/die response within minutes...With one side of this story told by those who are either mods on SI.n, or very, very good friends with the mods on SI.n, why should one make conclusions based solely on what they say? I like SI.n, but it might be the worst of the forums regarding cronies and cliques.

 

i am sorry, but this is the funniest thing i have seen so far. this is the tittle to a thread at SSaudio.com

Dont BUy ED, JLAINE, LOYD, AND SNOVA SAY SOO

LMFAO, the thread starter goes on to say he hasn't had any dealings with eD, but these guys say so!


here is the thing, don't listen to anyone from either side. there are 20+ car audio forums on the net. almost all of them have people who have dealt with eD. visit some, do a little research. don't jump on something because somebody else said so.

 

i do find it funny how this started the week after eD left SIN. i honestly can't make a connection

 

i am just as suprised how so many people will believe something without some proof to back it up.

in general, "Ben seemed shady", I knew something wasn't right" isn't a damn thing. i wonder what miss cleo has to say about this fiasco :blink:

 

"4 different buildhouses, not compensating your designers on time.. "

Those are the only ones that I do not know to be true. Know nothing about their designers other than Warbleed designing the SP. Not a clue as to how many buildhouses they have had.




"not paying on time"

Heard about this from a person I trust on the subject and would know. I will not state a name on it because it was said in a 1on1 conversation and I do not know if he minds. So if you like you can throw that in with the other two.



"flawed designs that were sold without regard.. not heeding buildhouse reccomendations."

Thats pretty much the same thing right there and IS true.


"20 some different lines"

'20 some' is not a definite # on how many but there has been a ton. You don't just get rid of a product line that is a hit. How many times have they done that by the way???


"preorders that drag on forever.. and who can forget the nine.1 fiasco"

Self explanitory. I'll go ahead and throw back order and waiting for product replacement in there as well.


"When have they ever openly admitted a design flaw or appologized for it?"

My statement. Show me where and I will retract it. [/b][/quote]
eD's been selling woofers for about 4 year now...with 4 different distinct lines, so yeah, that's probably true, but it wasn't in a 6 month period like some people claim.

20 different lines? Then why not talk the same shit to say RF, who usually comes out with a new version of their products every year...or MTX or Kicker. I would say in the last 6 months eD had a couple special offerings like the B series and the AE's, but it was made very clear that they were limited edition drivers, and were priced as such. Each year the lines have improved, and this year will be the same.

Preorders are PREORDERS. It's been said with every one of them that there is the possibility of delays. They're simply a way for people to get a serious discount on the product if they're willing to wait. If they didn't want to wait, then they should wait till it gets into stock. It really is a simple concept people just don't seem to have the basic level of intelligence to understand. I don't know how else to explain why people just don't get it.

Flawed designs is a pretty blanket statement. I honestly never was much of a fan of the stuff that came from DD and Destilj, so I don't really know or care so much about those products. Hell, I never knew they was a problem with those ugly things until just recently. Destilj has very high failure rates (this isn't based upon Ben telling me this, but rather Scott M. of Onyx) so it doesn't shock me. The flat cone woofers kicked ass, with the obvious exception being the 15a. There is more to this story than meets the eye, but I'm not allowed to say more...Ben would have to do it, and I'm not sure he's legally allowed to do so (NDA's are a bitch). And, as a result, he's going to have to take it on the chin for now. However, the flat coned 10kx, 12kx, 10k, 12k, 10o, 12o, 10A, and 12A were all excellent sellers and I can hardly remember a time hearing of failures on those subs. And there were many many people who had no problems with the flat coned 15a.


As to not paying on time, I have no idea what that is. Unless you can provide names and details, I'm not going to bother to comment. It's speculation until we have facts. Unfortunately, that is how 2/3 of the statements are on caraudio.com. People are making up figures and manipulating things in their favor. The only person I've seen with a legitimate story was josh99ta, and that was a personal transaction between Ben and him that did not involve eD woofers, and that issues boils down to the actual worth of a specific Avionixx amp that Josh had agreed with Ben to make a trade on. The Team Industry thing sounds like a few guys who got pissy after Ben decided not to support them, even though there were no official ties to eD.

There's more, of course, but I'm not going to rehash it all on here. Seth has always made it clear he didn't like Ben and eD (sorry, man, but we've all known) and has been consistent. It seems the rest have a pretty acceptable view, in that Ben may have made mistakes, but he has learned from them and has made strides in the last year and hopefully in the upcoming year the products will become that much more reliable.

Here's a question for y'all: other than the 15a, how many other failures for the flat coned subs can you remember? I'm sure some of the K's and O's failed, but that would be true of any manufacturer. Literally thousands of these drivers were sold, and the only thing that I would call a real problem was the 15a, and that wasn't as widespread as it might seem.

Now, on a final note, I'm quite tired of this, and the only reason I'm posting all of this is that this board seems pretty level-headed, and it's worth the time. Y'all may not choose to believe this side of it, and that's fine. Just be aware that what's being said out there is not the gospel, and much of it is people putting spin on the events that transpired to make Ben look bad.

 

If they aren't willing to try it, then that's their loss. [/b][/quote]
Chad,

I think the way SIN displayed moderation, albeit through Ben or Josh, or whoever it would be claimed to have been, we can expect that any information deemed as "not too good" will be quickly eliminated.

The trend of censorship I am sure did not end when eD left SIN. It is much easier for Ben to manipulate what others are saying, rather than answer the things he cannot talk his way out of. I would think that if he really wanted this issue resolved, really gave a shit about his customers and people's perceptions of the company, and had real answers he would be approaching this in an open forum. An open forum would be one where he did not have moderation controll.

This is his mess, I feel he should be out there cleaning it up, not sending guys who are new to the loop out to do his dirty work.

Frankly Chad, and I am not trying to dig on you, you simply do not have all the long term behind the scenes that these others do. No matter how little I like or trust those guys (and their respectability has fallen less with their admission of the lies and coverups), their behind the scenes knowledge and verification of the things I have been saying for quite a while, holds more weight than yours, as you are new to the company. It should be known that I know alot of people in the industry, and while these things are not so often publicly stated, they are common knowledge to the people who have been behind the scenes for a while and know industry insiders.

And your attempts to thwart the aforementioned comments were covered well by fugyaself... They are pretty much open forum public knowledge.

Just my viewpoint.

 

Seth,

That's easy to say when we're not the ones running the company. Ben has a lot on his plate, and trying to go to all the forums and reply to all the different posts would take too much of his time. Even with my limited knowledge on some of the matters, it's not hard to spot some of the lies and spin put on events. Like I've said before, I have years of talking/dealing with Ben that are entirely positive. I think all of us new reps would say the same thing, and the vast majority of eD's customers would say the same. If you have a few minutes, reread the threads on ca.com...there are only 5-7 people with actual real stories, the rest are just feeding off of them.

I'm not going to defend Ben's every move. I'm sure he's made errors in judgements, as have most companies. Is Ben/eD as wonderful as most think? Probably not. Is Ben/eD as bad as some are claiming? Probably not. But that's true of any company. I think overall eD and Ben do a very good job, and it certainly has improved over the years, and continues to do so.

Chad