[VP Electricity]

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

First, lots of folks have complained about pricing, and when comparing products that are mass-produced, it's easy to view ours as overpriced -- speaker for speaker, we're more expensive. But the fact of the matter is that it is extremely costly to engineer and produce vehicle-specific speakers in small manufacturing runs.

I certainly can attest to what Micah says. However, I think this is a bit of a red herring. It's not about absolute price, it's about VALUE. Perceived value comes from facts about the product.

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

NO ONE else in this industry guarantees performance (with the extraordinarily rare exception of small shops).

Wouldn't want to accuse you of being a small shop How I miss that Avincar Performance Guarantee.

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

With regards to specs, there are several reasons we don't release them:

1. We have made a very large investment in terms of time and money to establish the optimum characteristics for the components we use in our speaker upgrades. To protect that investment and prevent "copycat" products, we keep the associated information proprietary.

This is also a red herring. Anyone capable of copying your speakers is capable of measuring their eletromechanical characteristics without looking at your spec sheet. No one can copy speakers with a spec sheet.

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

2. Because our speaker upgrades are optimized to operate on the factory amplifier (or in some cases, an amplifier we are designing to replace the stock amplifier), the specifications are not required by end users since we've already done all the hard work of optimizing the components to work perfectly together and there is only one operating environment in which our products will be used.

Again, I have to disagree. You can choose to keep them secret, but it doesn't follow that no one should want them. It's reasonable to say, this amp has less than 1% THD distortion and the factory amp has +10%, or this amp has 3dB IHF dynamic headroom and the factory amp has zero, etc. With speakers, distortion levels, excursion levels, and assembly specifics are important.

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

3. Specifications are not meaningful for comparison between our products and other products which may be used in the same application, primarily because, in general, specifications in the car audio world are frequently fabricated from thin air. Repeated internal testing has shown time and time again that the performance and behavior of components we test does NOT bear a strong relationship to what we'd expect given the specifications of a product.

Two things:

One is, if you have the measurement equipment, you can compare the OE speakers to your speakers - ignoring others. The competition for a BSW driver is first and foremost the OE driver. Why not address more where the differences lie? What about distortion? Specific efficiencies? Response matches to the OE amp's output? You address frequency response, but you don't mention a deviation (as you know, FR numbers without a +/-X dB deviation are not useful).

Two, what testing? What equipment? What kind of tests? Don't mention the competitive gear, that's fine, but help us understand what kind of testing you have going on there there in your speaker lab.

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

1. The OEM tweeters are pretty much "dead" above 12,000Hz and do NOT have a flat frequency response. Ours are significantly flatter and play up to 20,000Hz, livening up the top end of the frequency range. But they also enter the picture at a much lower frequency, around 2500Hz, "lifting" the sound stage and giving it quite a bit more detail. This is true in the HiFi cars, but not as dramatic as Logic7 cars.

20,000? Wow...At what deviation?

Also, how far down is the tweeter at 2500? The F3 can't be 2500, you'd have to have a tweeter with a Fs of 600...? I'm guessing your F3 is 5000 and you are down 6dB at 2500?

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

It's worth mentioning that our Stage 1 has variable results depending on the car...

2. The OEM midranges are GARBAGE in terms of frequency response. In Logic7 cars, sure, they're tight, punchy drivers and construction/durability is excellent. But they are playing full range from 150Hz and up, are NOT curvilinear, and are NOT crossed over.

They are not low-pass crossover filtered, but they are most decidedly high-pass crossover filtered within the amp, as you mention. Your comments are not clear in this area, but what you seem to be saying is that the L7 metal 4" sounds harsh on the top end (predictable), the HiFi mid less so since it's made of paper, not metal (also predictable), and your driver seems to have more rolloff built into it, eliminating a source of harshness from the sound.

But the equalized signal out of the amp is different in L7 and non-L7 cars. The non-L7 cars have a huge peak in the signal at 1K. I have assumed that this was due to the "dead" nature of the driver at 1K. If your driver is better in an absolute sense at 1K, wouldn't it sound bad in a HiFi system?

[kaigoss69]

Respectfully, I have not, and will never consider buying your speakers, as long as you keep insisting on including the rear speakers as part of the "Stage 1" upgrade. I'm not sure about you but when I drive, I sit in the FRONT. I face towards the FRONT. I also like to fade towards the FRONT for better soundstage. I therefore do not care about the rear speakers' quality or whether there are any there at all. I'm pretty sure, I'm not alone with my opinion. Therefore, I believe you are losing business, a lot of it!

[kaigoss69]

And even if you were to offer a front stage only, I would still not buy your speakers because you offer a "one size fits all" solution, in terms of frequency response. This does not make sense to me, since the signals coming from the Hifi and L7 amps are so different. How can you make the same speaker sound "good" in both systems without compromising? I would always wonder how much better the speakers could sound if they were optimized for MY system only.

[adc]

Originally Posted by UdubBadger

So I guess with that in mind, do you have any recommendations for amps or a BSW amp in production (I don't have the logic7 system)?

+1. I'm in the same decision path...

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

And even if you were to offer a front stage only, I would still not buy your speakers because you offer a "one size fits all" solution, in terms of frequency response. This does not make sense to me, since the signals coming from the Hifi and L7 amps are so different. How can you make the same speaker sound "good" in both systems without compromising?

+1 - I had the same question.

So when I am selecting the OEM audio type on the BSW web site, am I selecting different mids and tweets?


I appreciate the BSW owner's intervention...

[renpar61]

I guess I could agree or disagree with anything said here, but I have a E93 and the stage 1 for my car has been "in development" forever. I couldn't buy it if I wanted to...

[Micah D. Cranman]

Originally Posted by VP Electricity

I certainly can attest to what Micah says. However, I think this is a bit of a red herring. It's not about absolute price, it's about VALUE. Perceived value comes from facts about the product.

Absolutely. We feel we bring excellent value. If you disagree and have the know-how to produce a solution that works for you and you get better value from it, more power to you.

For the record, we are always working to bring pricing down. Right now, it doesn't make sense to do so as we are constantly running out of product -- we can't keep the stuff in stock -- and lowering pricing will only exacerbate the issues. However, we hope to have inventory issues resolved by early next year and intend to bring prices down so you guys get better value.

Wouldn't want to accuse you of being a small shop How I miss that Avincar Performance Guarantee.

We ARE small -- no question about it. But we're not an audio shop. We are manufacturers.

This is also a red herring. Anyone capable of copying your speakers is capable of measuring their eletromechanical characteristics without looking at your spec sheet. No one can copy speakers with a spec sheet.

Totally a reasonable assumption for you to make, but it's inaccurate. Sure, no one can copy electromechanical characteristics from a spec sheet, but people can produce speakers with similar specifications and sell them as "comparable" when they are anything but. It's been our experience that if given the opportunity, people will copy our products.

For example, when we began selling our deck-mounted enclosures we originally gave out dimensions. Lo and behold, copies with those exact dimensions showed up all over eBay, without any regard to bracket design or placement which is what made our products unique. So, we took dimensions down but gave them when people asked. As an experiment, we changed some dimensions when we advised people to see what'd happen, and again copies matching the dimensions we gave showed up.

The point is that the copies don't have to functionally match -- they only have to APPEAR to match to the uneducated customer to part them with their hard earned money for a sub-par product.

Again, I have to disagree. You can choose to keep them secret, but it doesn't follow that no one should want them. It's reasonable to say, this amp has less than 1% THD distortion and the factory amp has +10%, or this amp has 3dB IHF dynamic headroom and the factory amp has zero, etc. With speakers, distortion levels, excursion levels, and assembly specifics are important.

Fair enough. See above for why we don't release the info.

Two things:

One is, if you have the measurement equipment, you can compare the OE speakers to your speakers - ignoring others. The competition for a BSW driver is first and foremost the OE driver. Why not address more where the differences lie? What about distortion? Specific efficiencies? Response matches to the OE amp's output? You address frequency response, but you don't mention a deviation (as you know, FR numbers without a +/-X dB deviation are not useful).

Two, what testing? What equipment? What kind of tests? Don't mention the competitive gear, that's fine, but help us understand what kind of testing you have going on there there in your speaker lab.

20,000? Wow...At what deviation?

Also, how far down is the tweeter at 2500? The F3 can't be 2500, you'd have to have a tweeter with a Fs of 600...? I'm guessing your F3 is 5000 and you are down 6dB at 2500?

Again, much of this is information we aren't willing to release at this time.

That said, we are planning to provide FR response graphs directly comparing OE to BSW Stage 1 speakers in the near future, which should answer a significant portion of your questions. Wish I could give info now and an exact date but unfortunately I can't. Slammed as I'm headed to SEMA and have lots to do before I head out, and tons going on at the company (new products coming down the pipe, working on resolving inventory issues, etc. etc.) that it is just not on the priority list.

They are not low-pass crossover filtered, but they are most decidedly high-pass crossover filtered within the amp, as you mention. Your comments are not clear in this area, but what you seem to be saying is that the L7 metal 4" sounds harsh on the top end (predictable), the HiFi mid less so since it's made of paper, not metal (also predictable), and your driver seems to have more rolloff built into it, eliminating a source of harshness from the sound.

Right -- hence the 150Hz and up comment preceding the "not crossed over" comment. But you're right, it's unclear. They are definitely high passed.

But the equalized signal out of the amp is different in L7 and non-L7 cars. The non-L7 cars have a huge peak in the signal at 1K. I have assumed that this was due to the "dead" nature of the driver at 1K. If your driver is better in an absolute sense at 1K, wouldn't it sound bad in a HiFi system?

It doesn't sound as good as in an L7 car, no, but it doesn't sound bad.

Unfortunately, we have to make compromises -- there's no way we can make different drivers for HiFi and L7 given current sales levels and make any money, and we can't release product if we can't make money from it. No way around that. So we have a solution that isn't as good as it could be, but still a great solution for many people, but not everyone.

However, that's not the whole story. We are also in development on an amplifier replacement that's intended to work with our HiFi Stage 1, so optimizing the HiFi drivers for the OEM amp reduces the performance of the amp upgrade w/o extra hardware, etc., something we don't want to do.

[Micah D. Cranman]

Originally Posted by UdubBadger

Actually it does and is making me reconsider your package when I get a little bit of money saved up for it. As you said, yes price is a concern, but also the amp being such a piece of junk also makes me hesitant to upgrade the speakers when I know the same bad signal will be going through them.

So I guess with that in mind, do you have any recommendations for amps or a BSW amp in production (I don't have the logic7 system)?

Thanks for the write up, I think it will help others thinking the same thing as I have been, make a more educated decision.

We do have a HiFi replacement amp upgrade (plug and play) in the works. We are on the second revision of a plug and play connector design currently and will begin amplifier design shortly.

[Micah D. Cranman]

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

Respectfully, I have not, and will never consider buying your speakers, as long as you keep insisting on including the rear speakers as part of the "Stage 1" upgrade. I'm not sure about you but when I drive, I sit in the FRONT. I face towards the FRONT. I also like to fade towards the FRONT for better soundstage. I therefore do not care about the rear speakers' quality or whether there are any there at all. I'm pretty sure, I'm not alone with my opinion. Therefore, I believe you are losing business, a lot of it!

Fair enough. We offer rear speakers as part of the solution for three main reasons:

1. In most OE systems, volume is insufficient without the use of all the stock drivers. If you can't fade to the front and still have enough output, then you've got to keep it closer to the middle and the rear speakers DO come into play and affect sound quality at that point. So we replace them in order to make the biggest difference possible with just a speaker upgrade.

2. Many end users have blown speakers, often rear speakers, and need replacements.

3. Lots of people PREFER rear fill or can't wrap their head around not replacing the rear speakers. I won't argue that the front sound stage is what's important. But we are a business and in order to stay in business and be able to make and sell products, we have to give customers what they want, even if it's not what we do in our personal cars or even recommend. We do attempt to educate customers where possible but we are not in the business of changing people's minds about what sounds good to THEM.

[Micah D. Cranman]

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

And even if you were to offer a front stage only, I would still not buy your speakers because you offer a "one size fits all" solution, in terms of frequency response. This does not make sense to me, since the signals coming from the Hifi and L7 amps are so different. How can you make the same speaker sound "good" in both systems without compromising? I would always wonder how much better the speakers could sound if they were optimized for MY system only.

In MOST cases, we do optimize for the specific system. For example, in E46 vehicles, the drivers we use are very different depending on whether you have HK or not. Same with E36, Z3, X5, etc. etc.

In the case of new generation cars, not enough of them have come out of the warranty period or have second owners to generate the volume of business we need to have two different versions of the midranges. In the future it's likely that we WILL sell two different versions, one for L7 and one for HiFi, but for not it's simply not possible so we DO have to compromise.

Hope that clarifies. Again, we are a business and unfortunately we do have to compromise as we are operating with limited resources. We try to make as few as possible, and we try to make our product appealing to as many as possible, but it's not for everyone.

[amlebede]

I do not think it is worth it. Sound quality will be a bit better. However, it will not be much louder because you are still pushing the same wattage to speakers.

[UdubBadger]

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

We do have a HiFi replacement amp upgrade (plug and play) in the works. We are on the second revision of a plug and play connector design currently and will begin amplifier design shortly.

Oh man... if you guys offer an amp/speaker package then I will for sure pick one up. I'm looking forward to seeing this now.

[Micah D. Cranman]

Originally Posted by amlebede

I do not think it is worth it. Sound quality will be a bit better. However, it will not be much louder because you are still pushing the same wattage to speakers.

Have you heard our upgrade?

Are you SURE that the original poster needs more volume? Many don't. They just want to enhance SQ.

Point being, generalizations usually aren't helpful and it's better to dig in and really establish what someone needs before making product recommendations or advising whether or not something is a good fit.

We tell plenty of people our Stage 1 isn't for them. And we tell plenty it is. But you have to find out what someone REALLY wants first to be able to say one way or another.

[Micah D. Cranman]

Originally Posted by UdubBadger

Oh man... if you guys offer an amp/speaker package then I will for sure pick one up. I'm looking forward to seeing this now.

Not a question of if. Question of when. Spring is best estimate at this time.

In the meantime, you're welcome to purchase a Stage 1, see if it sounds good enough to you to get you through until we release the amp upgrade, and if it does keep it. If not, send it back for a full refund and reorder when the amp comes out if you haven't tried another route.

[UdubBadger]

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

Not a question of if. Question of when. Spring is best estimate at this time.

In the meantime, you're welcome to purchase a Stage 1, see if it sounds good enough to you to get you through until we release the amp upgrade, and if it does keep it. If not, send it back for a full refund and reorder when the amp comes out if you haven't tried another route.

well to be honest, spring sounds perfect. I can dump some money into snowboarding for the winter, buy some presents for the holidays and then save for the amp/speaker combo!

thanks.

[kaigoss69]

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

Fair enough. We offer rear speakers as part of the solution for three main reasons:

1. In most OE systems, volume is insufficient without the use of all the stock drivers. If you can't fade to the front and still have enough output, then you've got to keep it closer to the middle and the rear speakers DO come into play and affect sound quality at that point. So we replace them in order to make the biggest difference possible with just a speaker upgrade.

The L7 OEM speakers are more than sufficient for rear fill, if anyone wants to have it. The driver or front passenger will likely not notice any significant increase in overall SQ with your rear speakers compared to stock. I could probably even make the same argument with the Hifi speakers.

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

2. Many end users have blown speakers, often rear speakers, and need replacements.

You are making my point! Offer a separate front and rear stage, so people don't need to spend $600 to replace one speaker!

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

3. Lots of people PREFER rear fill or can't wrap their head around not replacing the rear speakers. I won't argue that the front sound stage is what's important. But we are a business and in order to stay in business and be able to make and sell products, we have to give customers what they want, even if it's not what we do in our personal cars or even recommend. We do attempt to educate customers where possible but we are not in the business of changing people's minds about what sounds good to THEM.

The only true way of finding out what people really want is to give them the option of purchasing the front and rear stages separately. Right now you are telling people that they HAVE to replace ALL speakers to make the ENTIRE car sound better. What you are not telling them is that they do NOT need to replace the REAR speakers in order to make the FRONT of the car sound better.

However, I cannot argue with your point about being a business. From your perspective you need to offer a product that makes a profit. If you have a hard time keeping up with demand right now, it would probably not make sense to offer your products in smaller chunks, unless you raised the profit margins on those chunks or invested in a higher production capacity.

[Micah D. Cranman]

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

The L7 OEM speakers are more than sufficient for rear fill, if anyone wants to have it. The driver or front passenger will likely not notice any significant increase in overall SQ with your rear speakers compared to stock. I could probably even make the same argument with the Hifi speakers.

I disagree. The proximity of the rear door midrange drivers in Logic7 cars to the driver/passenger ear is about the same as the front door midranges, and the rolloff characteristics are such that they RUIN the experience unless replaced with something that doesn't go to hell in a handbasket at upper midrange frequencies.

You are making my point! Offer a separate front and rear stage, so people don't need to spend $600 to replace one speaker!

Actually, we used to offer every speaker pair used to build our Stage 1 kits for every single car as a separate item. We don't any more because demand just wasn't high enough to justify keeping the money tied up in those inventories when we couldn't keep our much more popular Stage 1 kits in stock. It's something we'd like to do again in the future given the resources, but it's not possible right now.

The only true way of finding out what people really want is to give them the option of purchasing the front and rear stages separately. Right now you are telling people that they HAVE to replace ALL speakers to make the ENTIRE car sound better. What you are not telling them is that they do NOT need to replace the REAR speakers in order to make the FRONT of the car sound better.

As I said, this is something we used to offer and we found it wasn't a popular option for all the reasons I've described above.

However, I cannot argue with your point about being a business. From your perspective you need to offer a product that makes a profit. If you have a hard time keeping up with demand right now, it would probably not make sense to offer your products in smaller chunks, unless you raised the profit margins on those chunks or invested in a higher production capacity.

Exactly. That's the decision we face. More product options almost always increases total sales, but not when diverting resources from a popular product (or group of products) to products that are less popular.

Look, you make reasonable points but we have to make compromises in order to survive.

[VP Electricity]

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

If you have a hard time keeping up with demand right now, it would probably not make sense to offer your products in smaller chunks,

Depends on what causes the supply issues.

[Micah D. Cranman]

Originally Posted by VP Electricity

Depends on what causes the supply issues.

Supply issues are caused by undercapitalization. Up until about 2 months ago we did not have enough free capital to purchase inventories in sufficient quantities to get us through the period of time it takes for another production run. So, we have been constantly running out.

About 2 months ago we obtained the capital we need to resolve the issue and we are receiving in mid-November through early December the first production run we've had that should be big enough to carry us until we receive the next one.

However, I have a sneaking suspicion that sales will jump once inventory is consistent so we'll see if this actually resolves the issue or if we simply have a boost in volume that eats up the inventory buffers.

Good problems to have, though.

[Micah D. Cranman]

Originally Posted by renpar61

I guess I could agree or disagree with anything said here, but I have a E93 and the stage 1 for my car has been "in development" forever. I couldn't buy it if I wanted to...

We wrapped testing on final production samples on Wednesday.

We had originally planned to use the same driver that we do in E90 cars because it is SO close in terms of mounting depth and it works if you tear a little hole in the foam of the door, but it just wasn't what we wanted to do.

So we redesigned the driver, maintaining all the performance (same efficiency, suspension travel, FR, etc.) but getting those extra couple of millimeters of clearance by inverting the surround and moving everything "up" a couple millimeters.

Anyway, we just gave the green light on production, and we are now waiting on an estimate of when the first run will be completed. We are expecting to have product in mid to late Winter, MAYBE early Spring if things take longer than expected.

[ken530i]

Originally Posted by Micah D. Cranman

Not a question of if. Question of when. Spring is best estimate at this time.

In the meantime, you're welcome to purchase a Stage 1, see if it sounds good enough to you to get you through until we release the amp upgrade, and if it does keep it. If not, send it back for a full refund and reorder when the amp comes out if you haven't tried another route.

what aftermarket amp spec would you recommend for stage 1?

[Micah D. Cranman]

Originally Posted by ken530i

what aftermarket amp spec would you recommend for stage 1?

I can't since we don't support our Stage 1 with 3rd party aftermarket amps.

However, if I had, say, an E90 with a HiFi and a BSW Stage 1, I would use an amp that's 4x50w RMS (no more) and 2 Ohm stable.

[hudmamma]

Hi all you. I all ready have the stage one .! you won't get the sound you hope for. No matter how expensive a speaker system you get, it will always sound like S _ _ _!!!!!!! Why ..? because the Logic 7 is not worth one dime.!! I did a complete rebuild of the sound system, wanna see.? then search google . logic 7 kills good music

Peace out.