Elemental Designs...
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5th Gear Member
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 2,292
From:
Elemental Designs...
On my way home from Dallas visiting family. I was driving through Des Moines heading back to Davenport. And I figured why not drop by eD and check this place out.
What an amazing place, with amazing employees. I walk in and it's 2 minutes before they close, I got held up on the highway from an accident but I called and got directions and the guy said don't worry about it, i'll be here when you get here. I got there right at 6 and was there for 45 minutes, which I must say was far too short of time there, and heres how my 45 minutes was spent there.
He took me into a room that had all car audio, amp's with just internals shown, subwoofers assembled and all the componenets that go into each... I was simply blown away at how much they wanted to show why their equipment is so great, they even had a couple other companies drivers to really show you what else was out there and why it is so important these companies make these subs, so they can look at it, put their spin on it (which includes making it more durable, louder, and better sounging) and selling it far more inexpensive. They had a OEM driver, and he was telling me when a company makes a deal with them they also say if we build these for you we also get the rights to make them available to our customers. This was a 10" that simply rivaled the JL 10W0, I have listened to many JL drivers, the last placed I worked at was JL nuts, so I know the capabilities of JL. He played it for me, this thing, although it truly wasn't anything rediculous, would annihilate a W0 anyday. Want to take a wild guess on the price tag? Here's a hint, 25 McChicken's is damn close... They also made a 10" version that cost what??? Less than 4 gallons of gas does. [sm=smiley3.gif]
He then showed me a little side room or area that is filled with numerous experiments and prototypes. First off I want to mention the SPL specific comp amp that produced an insane 5000 watts that came just short of my elbow from the floor end-to-end. To the 13Av.2 which all they had was a demo piece that was actually "smaller" than the one that is being produced, they are on pre-order right now for $315 and once those 200 are sold they will be bumped up to $450. This thing is insane, please check it out once they have photos on the sub aside from the cone, it's rediculous. At the price of a W3, this will destroy a W7 with half the power. It's amazing, many other prototypes he wanted to show me that I asked to skip because I had to get back on the road sadly.
After about 10 minutes in there, we moved over to their HT equipment, which I told him that was the main reason I was stopping by, I want some of those towers!, We go in there and they have a plasma setup with their 5.1 set-up, towers, MTM center and their little rears. He played a few music tracks for me, Metallica, Ludacris and Jazz im unaware of the artist. But I was very impressed when this entire setup of speakers would cost me $610 dollars, and they were using a crap $150 Pioneer reciever, coincidentally was identical to mine. Now comes the point where he says, "You want to hear it with a sub on now?" I said you gotta be kidding, now I didn't go in their not knowing eD's performance, I know who they are and their quality. But now comes the point where with that same Ludacris track I could feel my lungs start to compress ever so slightly to the same beat. He played the Dual 12" Ov2 enclosure for me. We were in there for about 20 minutes.
Now the part that has opened my eyes to a side of a company I never seen before, and why I will be doing business with eD very soon and often. I walk back in the warehouse where the have piles and piles of amps, subs you name it, then he takes me to the production area where they are/were assembling the drivers a huge assortment of cones, surrounds, magnets, motor structures, baskets I mean everything. Then into the wood shop where the have a CNC machine that cuts out all then enclosures they build with .0001 accuracy. If you look on the website you'll see the massive enclosures they built for a Battle of the Bands, one the were getting ready to install the horns and corssovers into the other was outside the shop door drying, and wouldn't know it a big gust of wind blew that thing over, it cracked on one part but for something that was about 10 foot tallfalling that farto a cement floor it held up. Talked to me about their 5 year warranty, their turn around time and cost on driver re-builds and re-cones, on average from the day you mail it out until the day you recieve it back, about a 5-7 business days, we also talked about my loyalty to Adire and the direction their going in. Now with their 8 person crew, they have a little more info on the biz then I do of course. They know their competition, where they get their parts and all the details. They went to the last CES show and started talking to a company that recently started working with Adire. The know Adire's status in the industry and ordered a sample piece from the same company because they are always trying to improve. They recieved the sample back after they sent in the specs and showed it to me. Handed me the sheet the mailed the specs in on, and hand me the part and a micrometer and pointed the part where they ordered it chrome finished, the company made the measurements before the chroming so now the whole piece is off and wont fit into the magnet and basket they had set-up for this. And I wondered why my surround needed to be Gorilla glued when I recieved the Tempest in the mail...
I will continue to look into Adires quality and so forth but for the time being I suspend all suggestions on purchasing them, we also talked about how Acoustic Visions pulled all sales of Tumults until further notice, why customers were waiting upwards of 1 year for re-cones, etc. You all may notice I am now rocking the eD sig, I have post-poned the Adire logo as of right now due to my statements just made.
I was also told next time I come out to bring a group of buddies, give them a day or two notice so they can set aside someone so when we come in they can give us a full and 100% question answering tour of the shop and all of their products and also what kind of food we like so they can take us out for lunch after the tour of the shop. Similiar to mine but so much further in detail and spend a couple hours with them learning about who they are and what they love to do. I was introduced to a guy that couldn't stop thanking me enough for stopping in although I was keeping them all there so they could close, kept saying thank you so much for stopping in and seeing us, I was later told his name just before leaving and also informed he was the owner. The dude is like 28 maybe 30. Very smart and very cool.
Anyhow this is my rant and info on my experience I hope alot of you can use some of this info in your future car audio needs and suggest to always check in with eD to see what they can do to meet your needs. I told them a couple guys on here, P and Hisss, send them alot of people just getting into the underworld of car audio, and he said they really appriciate other than the fact that their business is going through the roof lately and they need to hire about 3 more people as of right now. If it wasn't 2 hours away from where I live, I would be on that faster than me on Eva Longoria. Anyhow tell them Matt sent you.
P.S. Who wants to make a trip to Iowa sometime to go on this tour?
What an amazing place, with amazing employees. I walk in and it's 2 minutes before they close, I got held up on the highway from an accident but I called and got directions and the guy said don't worry about it, i'll be here when you get here. I got there right at 6 and was there for 45 minutes, which I must say was far too short of time there, and heres how my 45 minutes was spent there.
He took me into a room that had all car audio, amp's with just internals shown, subwoofers assembled and all the componenets that go into each... I was simply blown away at how much they wanted to show why their equipment is so great, they even had a couple other companies drivers to really show you what else was out there and why it is so important these companies make these subs, so they can look at it, put their spin on it (which includes making it more durable, louder, and better sounging) and selling it far more inexpensive. They had a OEM driver, and he was telling me when a company makes a deal with them they also say if we build these for you we also get the rights to make them available to our customers. This was a 10" that simply rivaled the JL 10W0, I have listened to many JL drivers, the last placed I worked at was JL nuts, so I know the capabilities of JL. He played it for me, this thing, although it truly wasn't anything rediculous, would annihilate a W0 anyday. Want to take a wild guess on the price tag? Here's a hint, 25 McChicken's is damn close... They also made a 10" version that cost what??? Less than 4 gallons of gas does. [sm=smiley3.gif]
He then showed me a little side room or area that is filled with numerous experiments and prototypes. First off I want to mention the SPL specific comp amp that produced an insane 5000 watts that came just short of my elbow from the floor end-to-end. To the 13Av.2 which all they had was a demo piece that was actually "smaller" than the one that is being produced, they are on pre-order right now for $315 and once those 200 are sold they will be bumped up to $450. This thing is insane, please check it out once they have photos on the sub aside from the cone, it's rediculous. At the price of a W3, this will destroy a W7 with half the power. It's amazing, many other prototypes he wanted to show me that I asked to skip because I had to get back on the road sadly.
After about 10 minutes in there, we moved over to their HT equipment, which I told him that was the main reason I was stopping by, I want some of those towers!, We go in there and they have a plasma setup with their 5.1 set-up, towers, MTM center and their little rears. He played a few music tracks for me, Metallica, Ludacris and Jazz im unaware of the artist. But I was very impressed when this entire setup of speakers would cost me $610 dollars, and they were using a crap $150 Pioneer reciever, coincidentally was identical to mine. Now comes the point where he says, "You want to hear it with a sub on now?" I said you gotta be kidding, now I didn't go in their not knowing eD's performance, I know who they are and their quality. But now comes the point where with that same Ludacris track I could feel my lungs start to compress ever so slightly to the same beat. He played the Dual 12" Ov2 enclosure for me. We were in there for about 20 minutes.
Now the part that has opened my eyes to a side of a company I never seen before, and why I will be doing business with eD very soon and often. I walk back in the warehouse where the have piles and piles of amps, subs you name it, then he takes me to the production area where they are/were assembling the drivers a huge assortment of cones, surrounds, magnets, motor structures, baskets I mean everything. Then into the wood shop where the have a CNC machine that cuts out all then enclosures they build with .0001 accuracy. If you look on the website you'll see the massive enclosures they built for a Battle of the Bands, one the were getting ready to install the horns and corssovers into the other was outside the shop door drying, and wouldn't know it a big gust of wind blew that thing over, it cracked on one part but for something that was about 10 foot tallfalling that farto a cement floor it held up. Talked to me about their 5 year warranty, their turn around time and cost on driver re-builds and re-cones, on average from the day you mail it out until the day you recieve it back, about a 5-7 business days, we also talked about my loyalty to Adire and the direction their going in. Now with their 8 person crew, they have a little more info on the biz then I do of course. They know their competition, where they get their parts and all the details. They went to the last CES show and started talking to a company that recently started working with Adire. The know Adire's status in the industry and ordered a sample piece from the same company because they are always trying to improve. They recieved the sample back after they sent in the specs and showed it to me. Handed me the sheet the mailed the specs in on, and hand me the part and a micrometer and pointed the part where they ordered it chrome finished, the company made the measurements before the chroming so now the whole piece is off and wont fit into the magnet and basket they had set-up for this. And I wondered why my surround needed to be Gorilla glued when I recieved the Tempest in the mail...
I will continue to look into Adires quality and so forth but for the time being I suspend all suggestions on purchasing them, we also talked about how Acoustic Visions pulled all sales of Tumults until further notice, why customers were waiting upwards of 1 year for re-cones, etc. You all may notice I am now rocking the eD sig, I have post-poned the Adire logo as of right now due to my statements just made.
I was also told next time I come out to bring a group of buddies, give them a day or two notice so they can set aside someone so when we come in they can give us a full and 100% question answering tour of the shop and all of their products and also what kind of food we like so they can take us out for lunch after the tour of the shop. Similiar to mine but so much further in detail and spend a couple hours with them learning about who they are and what they love to do. I was introduced to a guy that couldn't stop thanking me enough for stopping in although I was keeping them all there so they could close, kept saying thank you so much for stopping in and seeing us, I was later told his name just before leaving and also informed he was the owner. The dude is like 28 maybe 30. Very smart and very cool.
Anyhow this is my rant and info on my experience I hope alot of you can use some of this info in your future car audio needs and suggest to always check in with eD to see what they can do to meet your needs. I told them a couple guys on here, P and Hisss, send them alot of people just getting into the underworld of car audio, and he said they really appriciate other than the fact that their business is going through the roof lately and they need to hire about 3 more people as of right now. If it wasn't 2 hours away from where I live, I would be on that faster than me on Eva Longoria. Anyhow tell them Matt sent you.
P.S. Who wants to make a trip to Iowa sometime to go on this tour?
Thread Starter
5th Gear Member
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 2,292
From:
RE: Elemental Designs...
Like I said, find a few people that want to go and come by. It's totally worth it. Bring some money too. I was pissed I dont have my Talon sold yet, had I of, I would have walked out of there with a couple towers, center and surround speakers atleast. Maybe an amp or subwoofer as well.
5th Gear Member
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 2,447
From:
RE: Elemental Designs...
Thats awesome.....
They used to have some cusotmer service issues like 5+ years ago, but now it seems like they are doing great.
I have recommended ED to another couple friends and look forward to installing two nine.2x's and a 10.O.V2 in my friends G35 coupe in a couple weeks. If only I had an excuse to go toIowa.
They used to have some cusotmer service issues like 5+ years ago, but now it seems like they are doing great.
I have recommended ED to another couple friends and look forward to installing two nine.2x's and a 10.O.V2 in my friends G35 coupe in a couple weeks. If only I had an excuse to go toIowa.
more of a reason actually, why are you Preal anyway?
Thread Starter
5th Gear Member
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 2,292
From:
RE: Elemental Designs...
They are doing a 10-10" SQ slimline box in their Scion I believe, 3 cube box! It'll be cool. Those are BMW OEM replacement ones I believe. 10 of anything will be loud, with eD quality you couldn't go wrong though! could you imagine 12 of those in a wall, for the price of 1-W3?!?
