32" IST (Mach 5)

[mlah384]

There's a new thread on AVS talking about a new 32" IST (Mach 5) http://www.avsforum.com/forum/155-diy-speakers-subs/2244754-new-ist-mach-5-32-sub-thread.html

 

Looks very interesting! That thing is HUGE!

[Electrodynamic]

Interesting.

[shadyJ]

After a certain size, doesn't getting the cone balanced become an issue? Like if the cone sagged, and tilted the VC or something like that? I would guess if the cone gets too heavy, then the surround isn't going to be able to hold it straight, at least in a side-firing orientation. The Mmd on that thing must be enormous. Still, it would in interesting to see what it can do.

[Ricci]

He should shoot for 400 Bl^2/Re at minimum for that much cone. 500 would be better.Needs to be neo. Going to need a lot of coil mass and air cooling too to use 25-30mm excursion. That's if trying to use it in a 12 ft sealed cab. 35x35x21 should be close to that and about what would be required to house it. Be really tough to prevent rocking too. $$$ Will be required.

[Electrodynamic]

After a certain size, doesn't getting the cone balanced become an issue? Like if the cone sagged, and tilted the VC or something like that? I would guess if the cone gets too heavy, then the surround isn't going to be able to hold it straight, at least in a side-firing orientation. The Mmd on that thing must be enormous. Still, it would in interesting to see what it can do.

Shady J,

 

  If the surround was a different profile on one side than the other you could be concerned, but it is not. It is a half-roll surround that is incredibly stiff. The cone is very heavy and it is not of "glass fiber" only as Mach5/IST has eluded to as it is primarily a paper deriviative with glass fibers being added to the mix. And the coil opening is a massive 7" hole so the coil to cone OD ratio is no different from any other large format driver negating the "cone balance" issue. 

[Ricci]

Nick is right. The cones are really stiff and the surrounds are as well. When I mentioned rocking I don't mean the coil assembly I meant the cabinet itself. Thin but tall cabs with a driver having a ton of moving mass tend to do that. I'd expect the moving mass to be near 1000-1500g or maybe more depending on the size of coil used. With that type of moving mass the spiders will need to be very stiff to keep the Fs in a normal range of say 16-20Hz. That will help keep it centered and prevent sag also.

[shadyJ]

I see. Thanks for the info fellas!

[Electrodynamic]

Ricci's right on the cone weight. It is HEAVY. I was surprised how heavy it was when I picked it up two years ago [maybe one year ago] at CES. About half the weight is in the surround though as the accordion surround version of the cone/surround is much lighter and much more compliant. And Ricci's also correct on the stiffness of the spiders to combat the weight. Mms? 1500 g minimum with a one layer aluminum wire 7" coil. The 24 project was neat to tackle but I passed on the 32 due to the motor it would require and the cost of said motor and the latter translating into the cost of the driver. Mark's team is claiming a price at $2k shipped inside the USA for a 32 with a .707 alignment in 10 ft^3. If he is willing to loose that much money on a product I'll be the first one to give him that $2,000 for a driver like that. Seriously. The neo motor cost alone is going to be astronomical to meet the aforementioned goal. 

[lukeamdman]

Ricci's right on the cone weight. It is HEAVY. I was surprised how heavy it was when I picked it up two years ago [maybe one year ago] at CES. About half the weight is in the surround though as the accordion surround version of the cone/surround is much lighter and much more compliant. And Ricci's also correct on the stiffness of the spiders to combat the weight. Mms? 1500 g minimum with a one layer aluminum wire 7" coil. The 24 project was neat to tackle but I passed on the 32 due to the motor it would require and the cost of said motor and the latter translating into the cost of the driver. Mark's team is claiming a price at $2k shipped inside the USA for a 32 with a .707 alignment in 10 ft^3. If he is willing to loose that much money on a product I'll be the first one to give him that $2,000 for a driver like that. Seriously. The neo motor cost alone is going to be astronomical to meet the aforementioned goal. 

 

As Nate already said, the $2k price tag was just a suggestion in the AVS thread from other members and not a price Mark posted.

[Electrodynamic]

As Nate already said, the $2k price tag was just a suggestion in the AVS thread from other members and not a price Mark posted.

 

Not a price Mark posted but a price that n8 eluded to. Is that how his company and his reps work now? Eluding to prices and specs that they may not meet at all but publish anyway to gain recognition? 

[lukeamdman]

Not a price Mark posted but a price that n8 eluded to. Is that how his company and his reps work now? Eluding to prices and specs that they may not meet at all but publish anyway to gain recognition?

 

What's abundantly clear in the thread is that neither price nor specs have been decided in any way.

 

It's a thread to gain interest and see what people would want to see in the driver. Why are your pants all bunched up about it?

[shadyJ]

Whatever the cost is, it looks like it may be one of those flagship products that are rarely ever actually purchased and are really only used to promote the business- not that that's a bad thing. He could end up losing money on the units themselves, but it might not bother him if few are ever sold and if he enjoys the attention it brings. I don't see a 32" like that ever getting very popular, because a forklift would be needed to move a serious cabinet for it. It will be neat to see if gets anywhere and to see what some of the crazy things that the more adventurous DIYers might do with it.  

[Electrodynamic]

What's abundantly clear in the thread is that neither price nor specs have been decided in any way.

 

It's a thread to gain interest and see what people would want to see in the driver. Why are your pants all bunched up about it?

 

Then why have Mach5/IST's reps been posting all over AVS with theoretical specs and pricing without even the slightest hint of a working single driver?

 

Why do you have interest in the driver? It's not going to be a horn driver with limited bandwidth. Your perception of my pants being in a bunch is completely erroneous but your panties are clearly already mangled. 

[lukeamdman]

Then why have Mach5/IST's reps been posting all over AVS with theoretical specs and pricing without even the slightest hint of a working single driver?

 

Why do you have interest in the driver? It's not going to be a horn driver with limited bandwidth. Your perception of my pants being in a bunch is completely erroneous but your panties are clearly already mangled. 

 

By "posting all over AVS" do you mean that single thread? 

 

Who in this hobby doesn't like to see the boundaries pushed?  I don't see myself ever purchasing a 32" driver, but that doesn't mean I don't like seeing advancement in what a single driver is capable of.

 

I suggest you re-read this post of mine if you question my motives:

 

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/155-diy-speakers-subs/2185953-stereo-integrity-24-monster-version-9.html#post38820953

 

Props to you for lighting a fire under the competition.  Instead of posting the same thing over and over, get to work on making a better 32" than IST. 

 

You can certainly try and insult me for using limited bandwidth horns in my HT, but my HT is comprised of ported, sealed, and horn alignments.  Did you insult your customer with the two BHS-24 in his vehicle because he chose a bandpass alignment? 

 

Lastly, your attitude towards others on this board has already lost you sales, so have the business sense to be nice to your customers. 

[Electrodynamic]

By "posting all over AVS" do you mean that single thread? 

 

Who in this hobby doesn't like to see the boundaries pushed?  I don't see myself ever purchasing a 32" driver, but that doesn't mean I don't like seeing advancement in what a single driver is capable of.

 

I suggest you re-read this post of mine if you question my motives:

 

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/155-diy-speakers-subs/2185953-stereo-integrity-24-monster-version-9.html#post38820953

 

Props to you for lighting a fire under the competition.  Instead of posting the same thing over and over, get to work on making a better 32" than IST. 

 

You can certainly try and insult me for using limited bandwidth horns in my HT, but my HT is comprised of ported, sealed, and horn alignments.  Did you insult your customer with the two BHS-24 in his vehicle because he chose a bandpass alignment? 

 

Lastly, your attitude towards others on this board has already lost you sales, so have the business sense to be nice to your customers. 

 

No, I just like insulting you who dumps in threads to elicit a reaction from other people. You have done it before and you are doing it again. Nothing new and pretty pathetic. We were discussing the drivers potential design and you shoved your head into the thread hoping to bring a new "realization" to the discussion, which is nothing more than drama for you to feel better to sleep at night. 

[lukeamdman]

No, I just like insulting you who dumps in threads to elicit a reaction from other people. You have done it before and you are doing it again. Nothing new and pretty pathetic. We were discussing the drivers potential design and you shoved your head into the thread hoping to bring a new "realization" to the discussion, which is nothing more than drama for you to feel better to sleep at night.

 

You posted blatantly false information and were called out on it.

 

Instead of trying to insult me and judge my motives, realize what you're doing to your reputation and stop shooting yourself in the foot.

[Diogenes]

Might I suggest an emotional breather? Welcome advice from a stranger, eh? Yeah, yeah, not very, but, still, from this outsider's perspective, one looks to be called for. Insults may be satisfying for the short term (alright, they are pretty damned satisfying), but they do tend to blind one to appreciating where the other is coming from.

 

Luke, it may be that you missed the various threads concerning Stereo Integrity's HS-24, pushed them out of mind, or gotten caught up in the emotion of the moment and moved on not yet having the chance to later reflect upon them, but they are key to understanding Nick's position and subsequent behavior. Take another look at them again and approach them from as an outsider would view them. I tend to miss out on these discussion in real time and catch up at a later date in those rare moments when I've the luxury to sit and give my mind some fodder for my interests. (Since I've more dreams than dollars, these places let me live a bit vicariously.) From that perspective of catching giant swaths of dialogue in one go, weeks of postings in a sitting, there are particular patterns of behaviors to be seen. The most obvious? The most active posters in the thread linked to in this thread explaining why the 32" will be awesome are the same who devolved into spouting vitriol over why the HS-24 was a terrible idea. (Mind you, he already had a working prototype at that point and video on YouTube, not simply a pile of manufacturer's sample soft parts and a phantomware motor. [Or that first now disappeared thread about the 32” parts my bud clued me into that was conveniently timed to coincide with Beast’s GTG that was done when the parts were still in shipment.]) The comments are almost mirror imaged, the reversal is astounding. Even career politicians would blush at the level of hypocrisy represented in the first couple of pages of that thread that I read before I found the experience too off-putting (disgust in an intellectual sense). There really is no way to mince words on that, whatever the angle of approach, the hypocrisy of those posters remains glaring. Nick took a big risk for his small company trying for the 24" that no one else was willing to take. We benefitted and all he caught was grief for it. Now that's he's blazed the trail, the me-toos are being received as saviors of the big woofs. Cripes... Still, that's the minor thing in the face of a more general trend...

 

Before ongoing family medical issues demanded a career hiatus, I was possessed of a peculiar kind of insanity: I was a high school teacher. :-) So, I'm quite familiar with particular social group dynamics as found in that environment and, I can assure you, the behaviors of teenage millennials are remarkably akin to those found on audio forums. So, when a particular pattern began to show over the last couple of years with regards to a handful of major forum "personalities" and their postings against the HS-24 and Nick, I recognized something all too familiar from my teaching days: they were acting like a teenage girl clique targeting someone who wasn't one of them for bullying. Straight up, the only deviation from the parallel I can see is that  they're keeping it at "school", id est the forum, and not taking it to facebook. No thread about SI's 24" driver has been allowed to go unthread crapped with posts of a severity that would not have gone unmoderated elsewhere, no post of Nick's unattacked unless it is straight pabulum and even then there was always insinuation of something wrong...they even got the others to join in aping what they saw. It's become the forum culture, a set of assumptions pushed as truth by a vocal group with an agenda, but that doesn't make it fact. Looking from the outside in, I see only an out and out bullying atmosphere exactly of the sort you will find created by a group of teenage girls seeking to enhance their own sense of group identity worth. (It's the kind of bs that's allowed too often on audio forums and is why, in disgust, I became an audio hermit [i even have the long hair and beard now, just need a cave.] a few years back even leaving my own little audio forum that I had created behind [nothing of note, it only had around 65k posts when I handed it off, but it was all a big breaking off from the hobby for me].) They may have hidden behind claims of technical debate, but when their positions were shown to be ill-considered by measurements, they conveniently ignored them and slimed and slipped around the numbers because truth isn't the goal of the clique mentality, only the social destruction of the target, or business destruction in his case.

 

I ask you, if you faced a couple of years of consistent bullying by a small group of posters doing basically everything in their power to undermine the reputation of your company when you know you're providing quality products and being held to a debate evidence standard no one else is for providing evidence by technobabble philosophasters (who, of course, never return the favor and to whom any logician would've flipped off long ago for being such argumentative posers [pretty sure that's the technical term :-)]), how restrained would be your temper? You've matched Nick here and you've been at it for a much shorter time and your livelihood and name aren't even at stake. Were it me, I'd have probably told everyone to go screw themselves and stopped providing any driver to any DIYer at all over a year ago to spite the jerks (objectively speaking :-)). So, as I asked at the beginning, pause for a moment to consider Nick's position before considering verbal retaliation as the proper course of action? Tit for tat isn't always called for. Take a breather and let some things slide now and again.

 

You say N8 is unaffiliated with Mach5. Yet, looking through the posts, he's often a guest at Mark's home or shop (Personally, he'd be one of the few in the hobby who I would not allow in my own home, not for his tone of posting nor since he bragged about violating a good faith contract [social] in the selling of his Maelstrom-X 21s and forced the potential buyers into a bidding war far above his asking price. That speaks much of one's character and none of it good in my experience.), calls for Mark to post or speaks outright for him in the case of the thread you linked to, his input dictates designs from that company including, as it would appear, being the drive the whole 32" project, he test drives prototypes (FTW-21-LTE), pushes the products rather strenuously beyond mere fandom and engages in serious campaigns to diminish the reputation of a competitor beyond the point where moderation at most forums would take action. He may not receive financial compensation, but that is not required to fit the spirit and definition of "shill". To another's eyes, in behavior, effect and practice, he is expressly affiliated with Mach5 audio and nothing Mark has done could dissuade an impartial person of that impression.

 

Ultimately, we are judged by those we are affiliated with. Who we call friend and call us friend in turn is most telling. In the AVS thread, we see a particular group of posters who are shown to be hypocritical and strongly tending to bullying behaviors supporting N8 and his pet Mach5 project and attacking Nick, yet again. Yet, there and here, those who call Nick friend on the forums and real life are class acts and among the best characters to be found at AVS. That tells me the important thing to know on which position to come down on. Mark might be a gentleman in person, I've had no dealings with him (only a little bit of wariness about his not posting inductance, the strange mismatch of published and measured T/S parameters in Ricci's UXL-18 sample [still kind of curious about that] and that uncomfortable anti-Chinese rant on his FTW-21 page). I had even been mighty interested in pursuing one of his products (the Phallus 18, specifically) for a future project in better times, but what's happening on the forums and those who aggressive rally in his stead have made his brand I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with buying from as he has not distanced himself from these disagreeable characters, but rather reinforces his seeming connections to them. For ethical reasons, I've already warned off a couple of folks I know off the forums from buying IST/Mach5 drivers for those reasons combined with the excessive wait times, so that's a couple of potential (always potential until the order is placed and fulfilled or cancelled else it's just talk) lost sales to balance yours Luke, so the chit is clear. At this point, he could offer the most incredible 32" variant possible for $100 shipped and, honestly, I'd have to think long and hard about it. Speaking as an old planar speaker fan and so an advocate of Sd over Xmax in the Vd equation (thus a big fan of the HS-24 and probably would be of a 32"), that pains me to admit it, much as I'd love another big driver in my system, but it is so.

 

I feel like such an ass right now butting in, but, seriously, this whole thing is ridiculous. It pains me to try to find a break in something I enjoy and only see vitriol, especially of the unfounded, one sided sort. You know it's bad when people come here and think this place is a SI love fest when, really, the comments here are normal, ordinary comments any brand could usually expect most anywhere among hobbyists when the products are good except when contrasted against the absolutely toxic atmosphere at AVS. I'm biased just as anyone is (see disclaimer), but this whole conflict is beyond simple ownership bias: it's several levels of malicious from one h8er and company. So, can we all not feed into it or be led by the little group that can't stand any way but it's own? Can't we all just have a little perspective and enjoy time with fellow enthusiasts and not let the trolls and those who invest too much self-worth in what they own by tearing down what others own and enjoy dictate the discourse?

 

Disclaimer: I have a HS-24. I absolutely love it. I've really enjoyed myself in listening to it over the past couple of years when I've been too busy to sit and comparing it to other subs (TC Sounds, Exodus, Adire, etc) as I can finagle ownership or loans of them to do personal shoot outs for my own gratification and 'cause it's fun. 

 

(My apologies for the disjointedness of this post. As I'm caring for someone with mean dementia amplified by stroke damage, anything I type involves dealing with a great many interruptions in an atmosphere of wild mood swings.)

 

[Diogenes]

Anyways, 32" soft parts now... It would seem the manufacturers are channeling the Diatone D-80Ms (PW-8012 driver) of the '80s that the Japanese audiophiles hold in almost mythical standing or the Fostex that followed. It'll be interesting to see what comes to market from whoever using these parts.

 

Ricci's right on the cone weight. It is HEAVY. I was surprised how heavy it was when I picked it up two years ago [maybe one year ago] at CES. About half the weight is in the surround though as the accordion surround version of the cone/surround is much lighter and much more compliant. And Ricci's also correct on the stiffness of the spiders to combat the weight. Mms? 1500 g minimum with a one layer aluminum wire 7" coil. The 24 project was neat to tackle but I passed on the 32 due to the motor it would require and the cost of said motor and the latter translating into the cost of the driver. Mark's team is claiming a price at $2k shipped inside the USA for a 32 with a .707 alignment in 10 ft^3. If he is willing to loose that much money on a product I'll be the first one to give him that $2,000 for a driver like that. Seriously. The neo motor cost alone is going to be astronomical to meet the aforementioned goal. 

 

 7" coil? Cripes, that's a beastie. A custom coil for that would be pretty change in itself as it seems most coil shops stop at 5" formers. Even a conventional motor design would be costly. Stuff you already know, but for my own curiosity, on a whim, I took a look at a chunk of generic 7" steel rod long enough for a pole piece would be $275 from the one outfit I looked at. Not even 1008 or 1010, just run of the mill stuff. Bulk price would hardly put a dent in the price of machining that to the purpose. Even a pole piece type neo would be crazy expensive ($600 for a 6"x2" disc, a strong enough ring magnet would have to be custom...), radial would probably add up to more, but...sometimes a man needs something to dream about, the supercar for the poster on the wall of the Toyota driver.

 

So, are you totally against building a 32"? What about that Team motor or Jake's NEO-SPL? Would one of those with the vc cut out collared down as you can do be enough to get one of these moving roughly on par with a HS style variant? Or something else not for the value conscious, but just for the joy as the craftsman of building the best that you can build? The apprentice locksmiths of centuries past would build one masterpiece to demonstrate their ability to their masters and clients, so why not do it with a sub? You've done that with the 24", but with relative affordability still in mind. What about an all out assault to show how awesome a driver you're capable of? As was mentioned before, it would certainly be a way to draw traffic to your table at the trade shows even if not a one was sold. A traditional motor might require too much investment in custom parts, but a Parthenon style motor can be pure off the shelf magnets and machine shop work. There seems to be a guarantee in these things: no matter how expensive the best ends up being, there will always be someone who wants to buy it just to have the best or to have something no one else has. Gaudy it up with copper or gold plating on the motor, it might even sell to particular clientèle. Someone's buying those MTX Jackhammers, afterall, and most of their weight is just aluminum thrown on for show.

 

Besides...don't you want to see a Deep Sea Sound Challenger Deep 32 "Rapture of the Deep Edition" or something over the top awesome like that? I know I would. (Or playing off Velodyne's 1812 idea with a 2432 [for a future more awesome than the past] because overkill is underrated.)

[lukeamdman]

Might I suggest an emotional breather? Welcome advice from a stranger, eh? Yeah, yeah, not very, but, still, from this outsider's perspective, one looks to be called for. Insults may be satisfying for the short term (alright, they are pretty damned satisfying), but they do tend to blind one to appreciating where the other is coming from.

 

Luke, it may be that you missed the various threads concerning Stereo Integrity's HS-24, pushed them out of mind, or gotten caught up in the emotion of the moment and moved on not yet having the chance to later reflect upon them, but they are key to understanding Nick's position and subsequent behavior. Take another look at them again and approach them from as an outsider would view them. I tend to miss out on these discussion in real time and catch up at a later date in those rare moments when I've the luxury to sit and give my mind some fodder for my interests. (Since I've more dreams than dollars, these places let me live a bit vicariously.) From that perspective of catching giant swaths of dialogue in one go, weeks of postings in a sitting, there are particular patterns of behaviors to be seen. The most obvious? The most active posters in the thread linked to in this thread explaining why the 32" will be awesome are the same who devolved into spouting vitriol over why the HS-24 was a terrible idea. (Mind you, he already had a working prototype at that point and video on YouTube, not simply a pile of manufacturer's sample soft parts and a phantomware motor. [Or that first now disappeared thread about the 32” parts my bud clued me into that was conveniently timed to coincide with Beast’s GTG that was done when the parts were still in shipment.]) The comments are almost mirror imaged, the reversal is astounding. Even career politicians would blush at the level of hypocrisy represented in the first couple of pages of that thread that I read before I found the experience too off-putting (disgust in an intellectual sense). There really is no way to mince words on that, whatever the angle of approach, the hypocrisy of those posters remains glaring. Nick took a big risk for his small company trying for the 24" that no one else was willing to take. We benefitted and all he caught was grief for it. Now that's he's blazed the trail, the me-toos are being received as saviors of the big woofs. Cripes... Still, that's the minor thing in the face of a more general trend...

 

Before ongoing family medical issues demanded a career hiatus, I was possessed of a peculiar kind of insanity: I was a high school teacher. :-) So, I'm quite familiar with particular social group dynamics as found in that environment and, I can assure you, the behaviors of teenage millennials are remarkably akin to those found on audio forums. So, when a particular pattern began to show over the last couple of years with regards to a handful of major forum "personalities" and their postings against the HS-24 and Nick, I recognized something all too familiar from my teaching days: they were acting like a teenage girl clique targeting someone who wasn't one of them for bullying. Straight up, the only deviation from the parallel I can see is that  they're keeping it at "school", id est the forum, and not taking it to facebook. No thread about SI's 24" driver has been allowed to go unthread crapped with posts of a severity that would not have gone unmoderated elsewhere, no post of Nick's unattacked unless it is straight pabulum and even then there was always insinuation of something wrong...they even got the others to join in aping what they saw. It's become the forum culture, a set of assumptions pushed as truth by a vocal group with an agenda, but that doesn't make it fact. Looking from the outside in, I see only an out and out bullying atmosphere exactly of the sort you will find created by a group of teenage girls seeking to enhance their own sense of group identity worth. (It's the kind of bs that's allowed too often on audio forums and is why, in disgust, I became an audio hermit [i even have the long hair and beard now, just need a cave.] a few years back even leaving my own little audio forum that I had created behind [nothing of note, it only had around 65k posts when I handed it off, but it was all a big breaking off from the hobby for me].) They may have hidden behind claims of technical debate, but when their positions were shown to be ill-considered by measurements, they conveniently ignored them and slimed and slipped around the numbers because truth isn't the goal of the clique mentality, only the social destruction of the target, or business destruction in his case.

 

I ask you, if you faced a couple of years of consistent bullying by a small group of posters doing basically everything in their power to undermine the reputation of your company when you know you're providing quality products and being held to a debate evidence standard no one else is for providing evidence by technobabble philosophasters (who, of course, never return the favor and to whom any logician would've flipped off long ago for being such argumentative posers [pretty sure that's the technical term :-)]), how restrained would be your temper? You've matched Nick here and you've been at it for a much shorter time and your livelihood and name aren't even at stake. Were it me, I'd have probably told everyone to go screw themselves and stopped providing any driver to any DIYer at all over a year ago to spite the jerks (objectively speaking :-)). So, as I asked at the beginning, pause for a moment to consider Nick's position before considering verbal retaliation as the proper course of action? Tit for tat isn't always called for. Take a breather and let some things slide now and again.

 

You say N8 is unaffiliated with Mach5. Yet, looking through the posts, he's often a guest at Mark's home or shop (Personally, he'd be one of the few in the hobby who I would not allow in my own home, not for his tone of posting nor since he bragged about violating a good faith contract [social] in the selling of his Maelstrom-X 21s and forced the potential buyers into a bidding war far above his asking price. That speaks much of one's character and none of it good in my experience.), calls for Mark to post or speaks outright for him in the case of the thread you linked to, his input dictates designs from that company including, as it would appear, being the drive the whole 32" project, he test drives prototypes (FTW-21-LTE), pushes the products rather strenuously beyond mere fandom and engages in serious campaigns to diminish the reputation of a competitor beyond the point where moderation at most forums would take action. He may not receive financial compensation, but that is not required to fit the spirit and definition of "shill". To another's eyes, in behavior, effect and practice, he is expressly affiliated with Mach5 audio and nothing Mark has done could dissuade an impartial person of that impression.

 

Ultimately, we are judged by those we are affiliated with. Who we call friend and call us friend in turn is most telling. In the AVS thread, we see a particular group of posters who are shown to be hypocritical and strongly tending to bullying behaviors supporting N8 and his pet Mach5 project and attacking Nick, yet again. Yet, there and here, those who call Nick friend on the forums and real life are class acts and among the best characters to be found at AVS. That tells me the important thing to know on which position to come down on. Mark might be a gentleman in person, I've had no dealings with him (only a little bit of wariness about his not posting inductance, the strange mismatch of published and measured T/S parameters in Ricci's UXL-18 sample [still kind of curious about that] and that uncomfortable anti-Chinese rant on his FTW-21 page). I had even been mighty interested in pursuing one of his products (the Phallus 18, specifically) for a future project in better times, but what's happening on the forums and those who aggressive rally in his stead have made his brand I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with buying from as he has not distanced himself from these disagreeable characters, but rather reinforces his seeming connections to them. For ethical reasons, I've already warned off a couple of folks I know off the forums from buying IST/Mach5 drivers for those reasons combined with the excessive wait times, so that's a couple of potential (always potential until the order is placed and fulfilled or cancelled else it's just talk) lost sales to balance yours Luke, so the chit is clear. At this point, he could offer the most incredible 32" variant possible for $100 shipped and, honestly, I'd have to think long and hard about it. Speaking as an old planar speaker fan and so an advocate of Sd over Xmax in the Vd equation (thus a big fan of the HS-24 and probably would be of a 32"), that pains me to admit it, much as I'd love another big driver in my system, but it is so.

 

I feel like such an ass right now butting in, but, seriously, this whole thing is ridiculous. It pains me to try to find a break in something I enjoy and only see vitriol, especially of the unfounded, one sided sort. You know it's bad when people come here and think this place is a SI love fest when, really, the comments here are normal, ordinary comments any brand could usually expect most anywhere among hobbyists when the products are good except when contrasted against the absolutely toxic atmosphere at AVS. I'm biased just as anyone is (see disclaimer), but this whole conflict is beyond simple ownership bias: it's several levels of malicious from one h8er and company. So, can we all not feed into it or be led by the little group that can't stand any way but it's own? Can't we all just have a little perspective and enjoy time with fellow enthusiasts and not let the trolls and those who invest too much self-worth in what they own by tearing down what others own and enjoy dictate the discourse?

 

Disclaimer: I have a HS-24. I absolutely love it. I've really enjoyed myself in listening to it over the past couple of years when I've been too busy to sit and comparing it to other subs (TC Sounds, Exodus, Adire, etc) as I can finagle ownership or loans of them to do personal shoot outs for my own gratification and 'cause it's fun. 

 

(My apologies for the disjointedness of this post. As I'm caring for someone with mean dementia amplified by stroke damage, anything I type involves dealing with a great many interruptions in an atmosphere of wild mood swings.)

 

I appreciate you took the time to write that, and there's definitely a history to some of this I wasn't aware of so thank you. 

 

I don't have anything against SI products, and you can search here or AVS and you won't find a negative comment from me.  If you read through the more recent thread about the BHS-24, I'd like to think I was very complimentary of Nick and his accomplishments.

 

The only history you need to understand my comments in this thread are Nick's comments in the 32" IST AVS thread and then his comment here.  I personally find it distasteful to post things like that in a thread of a competitors product (by no means am I insinuating that Nick is the only one guilty of this).  He then started to repeat those same comments here, which are not true, and I called him out on it.

 

It's really as simple as that.

 

His insults in return were uncalled for, and this isn't a first for him.

 

Lastly, and I'm really fine with the thread getting back on track and will let this go , I never said anything about who was or was not affiliated with Mach5/IST. 

[shadyJ]

 

 

Someone's buying those MTX Jackhammers, afterall, and most of their weight is just aluminum thrown on for show.

 

Are you sure someone is buying them? It looks to me like just an impractical novelty. A flagship for sure, but not one that is supposed to be bought and used. It strikes me as a showpiece for the manufacturer, and commercial availability is incidental if anyone wants to pony up the cash for one. But the logistics make it nearly impossible to do anything with it.

[tuxedocivic]

You say N8 is unaffiliated with Mach5. Yet, looking through the posts, he's often a guest at Mark's home or shop (Personally, he'd be one of the few in the hobby who I would not allow in my own home, not for his tone of posting nor since he bragged about violating a good faith contract [social] in the selling of his Maelstrom-X 21s and forced the potential buyers into a bidding war far above his asking price. That speaks much of one's character and none of it good in my experience.), calls for Mark to post or speaks outright for him in the case of the thread you linked to, his input dictates designs from that company including, as it would appear, being the drive the whole 32" project, he test drives prototypes (FTW-21-LTE), pushes the products rather strenuously beyond mere fandom and engages in serious campaigns to diminish the reputation of a competitor beyond the point where moderation at most forums would take action. He may not receive financial compensation, but that is not required to fit the spirit and definition of "shill". To another's eyes, in behavior, effect and practice, he is expressly affiliated with Mach5 audio and nothing Mark has done could dissuade an impartial person of that impression.

 

Nobody said that N8 isn't rep. Though I think N8 claimed he isn't. Personally I think he does bring a lot of representation to IST, paid or not.

 

Perhaps if you reread the posts in this thread honestly, you'd see Luke was just trying to keep the record straight. Doesn't matter if someone knows the history or not, Nick shouldn't insult people. This has happened to me. I didn't follow any of the mash up, but when I saw him insulting AVS I confronted him on it and also was insulted. I think he might have confused me with someone else, but he's never explained himself. I appreciate what you've said in your very long post, but not everyone is attacking Nick as often assumed. Heck, Luke has even purchased SI drivers. Perhaps you've taken to long of a break from forums to catch all the drama yourself (not a bad thing ). Just something to consider from another perspective.

[N8DOGG]

Might I suggest an emotional breather? Welcome advice from a stranger, eh? Yeah, yeah, not very, but, still, from this outsider's perspective, one looks to be called for. Insults may be satisfying for the short term (alright, they are pretty damned satisfying), but they do tend to blind one to appreciating where the other is coming from.

 

Luke, it may be that you missed the various threads concerning Stereo Integrity's HS-24, pushed them out of mind, or gotten caught up in the emotion of the moment and moved on not yet having the chance to later reflect upon them, but they are key to understanding Nick's position and subsequent behavior. Take another look at them again and approach them from as an outsider would view them. I tend to miss out on these discussion in real time and catch up at a later date in those rare moments when I've the luxury to sit and give my mind some fodder for my interests. (Since I've more dreams than dollars, these places let me live a bit vicariously.) From that perspective of catching giant swaths of dialogue in one go, weeks of postings in a sitting, there are particular patterns of behaviors to be seen. The most obvious? The most active posters in the thread linked to in this thread explaining why the 32" will be awesome are the same who devolved into spouting vitriol over why the HS-24 was a terrible idea. (Mind you, he already had a working prototype at that point and video on YouTube, not simply a pile of manufacturer's sample soft parts and a phantomware motor. [Or that first now disappeared thread about the 32” parts my bud clued me into that was conveniently timed to coincide with Beast’s GTG that was done when the parts were still in shipment.]) The comments are almost mirror imaged, the reversal is astounding. Even career politicians would blush at the level of hypocrisy represented in the first couple of pages of that thread that I read before I found the experience too off-putting (disgust in an intellectual sense). There really is no way to mince words on that, whatever the angle of approach, the hypocrisy of those posters remains glaring. Nick took a big risk for his small company trying for the 24" that no one else was willing to take. We benefitted and all he caught was grief for it. Now that's he's blazed the trail, the me-toos are being received as saviors of the big woofs. Cripes... Still, that's the minor thing in the face of a more general trend...

 

Before ongoing family medical issues demanded a career hiatus, I was possessed of a peculiar kind of insanity: I was a high school teacher. :-) So, I'm quite familiar with particular social group dynamics as found in that environment and, I can assure you, the behaviors of teenage millennials are remarkably akin to those found on audio forums. So, when a particular pattern began to show over the last couple of years with regards to a handful of major forum "personalities" and their postings against the HS-24 and Nick, I recognized something all too familiar from my teaching days: they were acting like a teenage girl clique targeting someone who wasn't one of them for bullying. Straight up, the only deviation from the parallel I can see is that  they're keeping it at "school", id est the forum, and not taking it to facebook. No thread about SI's 24" driver has been allowed to go unthread crapped with posts of a severity that would not have gone unmoderated elsewhere, no post of Nick's unattacked unless it is straight pabulum and even then there was always insinuation of something wrong...they even got the others to join in aping what they saw. It's become the forum culture, a set of assumptions pushed as truth by a vocal group with an agenda, but that doesn't make it fact. Looking from the outside in, I see only an out and out bullying atmosphere exactly of the sort you will find created by a group of teenage girls seeking to enhance their own sense of group identity worth. (It's the kind of bs that's allowed too often on audio forums and is why, in disgust, I became an audio hermit [i even have the long hair and beard now, just need a cave.] a few years back even leaving my own little audio forum that I had created behind [nothing of note, it only had around 65k posts when I handed it off, but it was all a big breaking off from the hobby for me].) They may have hidden behind claims of technical debate, but when their positions were shown to be ill-considered by measurements, they conveniently ignored them and slimed and slipped around the numbers because truth isn't the goal of the clique mentality, only the social destruction of the target, or business destruction in his case.

 

I ask you, if you faced a couple of years of consistent bullying by a small group of posters doing basically everything in their power to undermine the reputation of your company when you know you're providing quality products and being held to a debate evidence standard no one else is for providing evidence by technobabble philosophasters (who, of course, never return the favor and to whom any logician would've flipped off long ago for being such argumentative posers [pretty sure that's the technical term :-)]), how restrained would be your temper? You've matched Nick here and you've been at it for a much shorter time and your livelihood and name aren't even at stake. Were it me, I'd have probably told everyone to go screw themselves and stopped providing any driver to any DIYer at all over a year ago to spite the jerks (objectively speaking :-)). So, as I asked at the beginning, pause for a moment to consider Nick's position before considering verbal retaliation as the proper course of action? Tit for tat isn't always called for. Take a breather and let some things slide now and again.

 

You say N8 is unaffiliated with Mach5. Yet, looking through the posts, he's often a guest at Mark's home or shop (Personally, he'd be one of the few in the hobby who I would not allow in my own home, not for his tone of posting nor since he bragged about violating a good faith contract [social] in the selling of his Maelstrom-X 21s and forced the potential buyers into a bidding war far above his asking price. That speaks much of one's character and none of it good in my experience.), calls for Mark to post or speaks outright for him in the case of the thread you linked to, his input dictates designs from that company including, as it would appear, being the drive the whole 32" project, he test drives prototypes (FTW-21-LTE), pushes the products rather strenuously beyond mere fandom and engages in serious campaigns to diminish the reputation of a competitor beyond the point where moderation at most forums would take action. He may not receive financial compensation, but that is not required to fit the spirit and definition of "shill". To another's eyes, in behavior, effect and practice, he is expressly affiliated with Mach5 audio and nothing Mark has done could dissuade an impartial person of that impression.

 

Ultimately, we are judged by those we are affiliated with. Who we call friend and call us friend in turn is most telling. In the AVS thread, we see a particular group of posters who are shown to be hypocritical and strongly tending to bullying behaviors supporting N8 and his pet Mach5 project and attacking Nick, yet again. Yet, there and here, those who call Nick friend on the forums and real life are class acts and among the best characters to be found at AVS. That tells me the important thing to know on which position to come down on. Mark might be a gentleman in person, I've had no dealings with him (only a little bit of wariness about his not posting inductance, the strange mismatch of published and measured T/S parameters in Ricci's UXL-18 sample [still kind of curious about that] and that uncomfortable anti-Chinese rant on his FTW-21 page). I had even been mighty interested in pursuing one of his products (the Phallus 18, specifically) for a future project in better times, but what's happening on the forums and those who aggressive rally in his stead have made his brand I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with buying from as he has not distanced himself from these disagreeable characters, but rather reinforces his seeming connections to them. For ethical reasons, I've already warned off a couple of folks I know off the forums from buying IST/Mach5 drivers for those reasons combined with the excessive wait times, so that's a couple of potential (always potential until the order is placed and fulfilled or cancelled else it's just talk) lost sales to balance yours Luke, so the chit is clear. At this point, he could offer the most incredible 32" variant possible for $100 shipped and, honestly, I'd have to think long and hard about it. Speaking as an old planar speaker fan and so an advocate of Sd over Xmax in the Vd equation (thus a big fan of the HS-24 and probably would be of a 32"), that pains me to admit it, much as I'd love another big driver in my system, but it is so.

 

I feel like such an ass right now butting in, but, seriously, this whole thing is ridiculous. It pains me to try to find a break in something I enjoy and only see vitriol, especially of the unfounded, one sided sort. You know it's bad when people come here and think this place is a SI love fest when, really, the comments here are normal, ordinary comments any brand could usually expect most anywhere among hobbyists when the products are good except when contrasted against the absolutely toxic atmosphere at AVS. I'm biased just as anyone is (see disclaimer), but this whole conflict is beyond simple ownership bias: it's several levels of malicious from one h8er and company. So, can we all not feed into it or be led by the little group that can't stand any way but it's own? Can't we all just have a little perspective and enjoy time with fellow enthusiasts and not let the trolls and those who invest too much self-worth in what they own by tearing down what others own and enjoy dictate the discourse?

 

Disclaimer: I have a HS-24. I absolutely love it. I've really enjoyed myself in listening to it over the past couple of years when I've been too busy to sit and comparing it to other subs (TC Sounds, Exodus, Adire, etc) as I can finagle ownership or loans of them to do personal shoot outs for my own gratification and 'cause it's fun. 

 

(My apologies for the disjointedness of this post. As I'm caring for someone with mean dementia amplified by stroke damage, anything I type involves dealing with a great many interruptions in an atmosphere of wild mood swings.)

Ya I did sell my 21s, well after Kevin went out of business, about 5-6 years after the fact. Kevin gave me 100$ off each driver and I sold 2 of them, with boxes and inuke 6000dsp amp for 1200$.... Pretty reasonable considering the drivers cost me 1000$ each to bring into Canada and they sold on canuck audio mart. 2 people messaging me offering me more than asking because of the questions asked in the comments section on the Cam add....

 

 

Yes I do get to check out/test drivers because I'm one of the few people that has enough power to actually put them through their paces. If it passes my punishment, then they will likely hold up to anyone.

 

I'm a bass enthusiast. I love drivers. You can think whatever you want about me, if you believe I'm a Rep? Go right ahead. It makes no difference what I say, since in your 500 page essay, you've formed all your own opinions anyways... And that's fine as well.

 

Everyone will have some sort of affiliation/preference with one company or another. Yours is obviously with SI and that's fine too, we all have our reasons for liking what we like.

 

Why do I like mach 5? A few reasons, I get to check out new stuff. I have watched him wind my own subs coils, and cnc all the steel for the driver, from initial to final Assembly. How would anyone not love that if your into subs?

 

In the end, it's extremely clear you are 100% bias but condone me for being bias..lol

 

And Btw, I think I will be OK not being invited over.

[Diogenes]

I appreciate you took the time to write that, and there's definitely a history to some of this I wasn't aware of so thank you. 

 

I don't have anything against SI products, and you can search here or AVS and you won't find a negative comment from me.  If you read through the more recent thread about the BHS-24, I'd like to think I was very complimentary of Nick and his accomplishments.

 

The only history you need to understand my comments in this thread are Nick's comments in the 32" IST AVS thread and then his comment here.  I personally find it distasteful to post things like that in a thread of a competitors product (by no means am I insinuating that Nick is the only one guilty of this).  He then started to repeat those same comments here, which are not true, and I called him out on it.

 

It's really as simple as that.

 

His insults in return were uncalled for, and this isn't a first for him.

 

Lastly, and I'm really fine with the thread getting back on track and will let this go , I never said anything about who was or was not affiliated with Mach5/IST. 

 

Thank you for the measured response. That's all I wanted to see, really, just an understanding of where the other person is coming from and to be most excellent to each other. There's more history to all this than what is in this thread and that dictates response. Put yourself in Nick's shoes and think how you'd respond after a couple of years of increasing hostility, that, really is all I ask. I know I'd be a lot worse by this point than he, but then I am an ill-tempered ass.  The last bit was more addressing a related issue that's been showing up in related threads and I didn't want to spam this in more than one place. (Plus, I was a bit giddy, this past weekend was my first day off in four and a half months. [Woo!])

 

Are you sure someone is buying them? It looks to me like just an impractical novelty. A flagship for sure, but not one that is supposed to be bought and used. It strikes me as a showpiece for the manufacturer, and commercial availability is incidental if anyone wants to pony up the cash for one. But the logistics make it nearly impossible to do anything with it.

 

That was kind of what I was saying. Consulting the Great Oracle of Google, there are builds using it, mostly as dealer demos and "look at what I can buy" kind of builds, but they are out there. (Pimp My Ride with the dual Jackhammer build exempted. I read that those were pulled by MTX right after and were just there for the show as a commercial of sorts.)

 

Nobody said that N8 isn't rep. Though I think N8 claimed he isn't. Personally I think he does bring a lot of representation to IST, paid or not.

 

Perhaps if you reread the posts in this thread honestly, you'd see Luke was just trying to keep the record straight. Doesn't matter if someone knows the history or not, Nick shouldn't insult people. This has happened to me. I didn't follow any of the mash up, but when I saw him insulting AVS I confronted him on it and also was insulted. I think he might have confused me with someone else, but he's never explained himself. I appreciate what you've said in your very long post, but not everyone is attacking Nick as often assumed. Heck, Luke has even purchased SI drivers. Perhaps you've taken to long of a break from forums to catch all the drama yourself (not a bad thing ). Just something to consider from another perspective.

 

You get attacked enough, you get a bit defensive. After a point, it even becomes righteous to be so. You've got to stick up for yourself, afterall, or be walked all over. (AVS is bad, by the way, nothing like it was years ago. I miss the Basslist and the forums of ten, fifteen years ago. Now there was good reading where actual PhDs in magnetic theory and patented driver designers posted about inductance effects and legendary crossover designers who had design approaches named after them posted, not self-styled experts who depend on the equations and software designed by these true experts.) Seems to be a pattern shared by others as well. I've had a couple of years to catch up with my reading and what I've missed (literature guy way back in my grad school days, so I'm trained to read if nothing else), I just don't post. Kind of obvious here as to why and why I don't miss it. It's also why I've not shared my opinions of my own personal sub shootouts, fun as they have been. (To afford to build a cabinet for the HS-24 when I got it and to help rebuild my post-recession system, I sold my beloved kayak since I couldn't use it anymore after a car wreck four years back messed up my joints some and had a bit of extra cash [it was a very good kayak from better days]. I've used that to pick up other raved about drivers and do comparisons for the fun of it. Doesn't seem like anyone else has done that. I suppose it's easier to talk smack than buy the dang things and have the fun of cranking them side-by-side for some extended listening. This hobby for me is about listening and enjoying music and movies with badass bass, not arguing over models that assume ideal conditions and ignore important variables.) Not worth dealing with the people who thrive on the drama.

 

Ya I did sell my 21s, well after Kevin went out of business, about 5-6 years after the fact. Kevin gave me 100$ off each driver and I sold 2 of them, with boxes and inuke 6000dsp amp for 1200$.... Pretty reasonable considering the drivers cost me 1000$ each to bring into Canada and they sold on canuck audio mart. 2 people messaging me offering me more than asking because of the questions asked in the comments section on the Cam add....

 

 

Yes I do get to check out/test drivers because I'm one of the few people that has enough power to actually put them through their paces. If it passes my punishment, then they will likely hold up to anyone.

 

I'm a bass enthusiast. I love drivers. You can think whatever you want about me, if you believe I'm a Rep? Go right ahead. It makes no difference what I say, since in your 500 page essay, you've formed all your own opinions anyways... And that's fine as well.

 

Everyone will have some sort of affiliation/preference with one company or another. Yours is obviously with SI and that's fine too, we all have our reasons for liking what we like.

 

Why do I like mach 5? A few reasons, I get to check out new stuff. I have watched him wind my own subs coils, and cnc all the steel for the driver, from initial to final Assembly. How would anyone not love that if your into subs?

 

In the end, it's extremely clear you are 100% bias but condone me for being bias..lol

 

And Btw, I think I will be OK not being invited over.

 

Your story, it's ever changin'.

 

Oh, I'm definitely biased: I'm a huge fan of Adire Audio. 

 

Whelp, that is all. You've shown your character times aplenty and life's too short to deal with your type.

[Shredhead]

Might I suggest an emotional breather? Welcome advice from a stranger, eh? Yeah, yeah, not very, but, still, from this outsider's perspective, one looks to be called for. Insults may be satisfying for the short term (alright, they are pretty damned satisfying), but they do tend to blind one to appreciating where the other is coming from.

 

Luke, it may be that you missed the various threads concerning Stereo Integrity's HS-24, pushed them out of mind, or gotten caught up in the emotion of the moment and moved on not yet having the chance to later reflect upon them, but they are key to understanding Nick's position and subsequent behavior. Take another look at them again and approach them from as an outsider would view them. I tend to miss out on these discussion in real time and catch up at a later date in those rare moments when I've the luxury to sit and give my mind some fodder for my interests. (Since I've more dreams than dollars, these places let me live a bit vicariously.) From that perspective of catching giant swaths of dialogue in one go, weeks of postings in a sitting, there are particular patterns of behaviors to be seen. The most obvious? The most active posters in the thread linked to in this thread explaining why the 32" will be awesome are the same who devolved into spouting vitriol over why the HS-24 was a terrible idea. (Mind you, he already had a working prototype at that point and video on YouTube, not simply a pile of manufacturer's sample soft parts and a phantomware motor. [Or that first now disappeared thread about the 32” parts my bud clued me into that was conveniently timed to coincide with Beast’s GTG that was done when the parts were still in shipment.]) The comments are almost mirror imaged, the reversal is astounding. Even career politicians would blush at the level of hypocrisy represented in the first couple of pages of that thread that I read before I found the experience too off-putting (disgust in an intellectual sense). There really is no way to mince words on that, whatever the angle of approach, the hypocrisy of those posters remains glaring. Nick took a big risk for his small company trying for the 24" that no one else was willing to take. We benefitted and all he caught was grief for it. Now that's he's blazed the trail, the me-toos are being received as saviors of the big woofs. Cripes... Still, that's the minor thing in the face of a more general trend...

 

Before ongoing family medical issues demanded a career hiatus, I was possessed of a peculiar kind of insanity: I was a high school teacher. :-) So, I'm quite familiar with particular social group dynamics as found in that environment and, I can assure you, the behaviors of teenage millennials are remarkably akin to those found on audio forums. So, when a particular pattern began to show over the last couple of years with regards to a handful of major forum "personalities" and their postings against the HS-24 and Nick, I recognized something all too familiar from my teaching days: they were acting like a teenage girl clique targeting someone who wasn't one of them for bullying. Straight up, the only deviation from the parallel I can see is that  they're keeping it at "school", id est the forum, and not taking it to facebook. No thread about SI's 24" driver has been allowed to go unthread crapped with posts of a severity that would not have gone unmoderated elsewhere, no post of Nick's unattacked unless it is straight pabulum and even then there was always insinuation of something wrong...they even got the others to join in aping what they saw. It's become the forum culture, a set of assumptions pushed as truth by a vocal group with an agenda, but that doesn't make it fact. Looking from the outside in, I see only an out and out bullying atmosphere exactly of the sort you will find created by a group of teenage girls seeking to enhance their own sense of group identity worth. (It's the kind of bs that's allowed too often on audio forums and is why, in disgust, I became an audio hermit [i even have the long hair and beard now, just need a cave.] a few years back even leaving my own little audio forum that I had created behind [nothing of note, it only had around 65k posts when I handed it off, but it was all a big breaking off from the hobby for me].) They may have hidden behind claims of technical debate, but when their positions were shown to be ill-considered by measurements, they conveniently ignored them and slimed and slipped around the numbers because truth isn't the goal of the clique mentality, only the social destruction of the target, or business destruction in his case.

 

I ask you, if you faced a couple of years of consistent bullying by a small group of posters doing basically everything in their power to undermine the reputation of your company when you know you're providing quality products and being held to a debate evidence standard no one else is for providing evidence by technobabble philosophasters (who, of course, never return the favor and to whom any logician would've flipped off long ago for being such argumentative posers [pretty sure that's the technical term :-)]), how restrained would be your temper? You've matched Nick here and you've been at it for a much shorter time and your livelihood and name aren't even at stake. Were it me, I'd have probably told everyone to go screw themselves and stopped providing any driver to any DIYer at all over a year ago to spite the jerks (objectively speaking :-)). So, as I asked at the beginning, pause for a moment to consider Nick's position before considering verbal retaliation as the proper course of action? Tit for tat isn't always called for. Take a breather and let some things slide now and again.

 

You say N8 is unaffiliated with Mach5. Yet, looking through the posts, he's often a guest at Mark's home or shop (Personally, he'd be one of the few in the hobby who I would not allow in my own home, not for his tone of posting nor since he bragged about violating a good faith contract [social] in the selling of his Maelstrom-X 21s and forced the potential buyers into a bidding war far above his asking price. That speaks much of one's character and none of it good in my experience.), calls for Mark to post or speaks outright for him in the case of the thread you linked to, his input dictates designs from that company including, as it would appear, being the drive the whole 32" project, he test drives prototypes (FTW-21-LTE), pushes the products rather strenuously beyond mere fandom and engages in serious campaigns to diminish the reputation of a competitor beyond the point where moderation at most forums would take action. He may not receive financial compensation, but that is not required to fit the spirit and definition of "shill". To another's eyes, in behavior, effect and practice, he is expressly affiliated with Mach5 audio and nothing Mark has done could dissuade an impartial person of that impression.

 

Ultimately, we are judged by those we are affiliated with. Who we call friend and call us friend in turn is most telling. In the AVS thread, we see a particular group of posters who are shown to be hypocritical and strongly tending to bullying behaviors supporting N8 and his pet Mach5 project and attacking Nick, yet again. Yet, there and here, those who call Nick friend on the forums and real life are class acts and among the best characters to be found at AVS. That tells me the important thing to know on which position to come down on. Mark might be a gentleman in person, I've had no dealings with him (only a little bit of wariness about his not posting inductance, the strange mismatch of published and measured T/S parameters in Ricci's UXL-18 sample [still kind of curious about that] and that uncomfortable anti-Chinese rant on his FTW-21 page). I had even been mighty interested in pursuing one of his products (the Phallus 18, specifically) for a future project in better times, but what's happening on the forums and those who aggressive rally in his stead have made his brand I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with buying from as he has not distanced himself from these disagreeable characters, but rather reinforces his seeming connections to them. For ethical reasons, I've already warned off a couple of folks I know off the forums from buying IST/Mach5 drivers for those reasons combined with the excessive wait times, so that's a couple of potential (always potential until the order is placed and fulfilled or cancelled else it's just talk) lost sales to balance yours Luke, so the chit is clear. At this point, he could offer the most incredible 32" variant possible for $100 shipped and, honestly, I'd have to think long and hard about it. Speaking as an old planar speaker fan and so an advocate of Sd over Xmax in the Vd equation (thus a big fan of the HS-24 and probably would be of a 32"), that pains me to admit it, much as I'd love another big driver in my system, but it is so.

 

I feel like such an ass right now butting in, but, seriously, this whole thing is ridiculous. It pains me to try to find a break in something I enjoy and only see vitriol, especially of the unfounded, one sided sort. You know it's bad when people come here and think this place is a SI love fest when, really, the comments here are normal, ordinary comments any brand could usually expect most anywhere among hobbyists when the products are good except when contrasted against the absolutely toxic atmosphere at AVS. I'm biased just as anyone is (see disclaimer), but this whole conflict is beyond simple ownership bias: it's several levels of malicious from one h8er and company. So, can we all not feed into it or be led by the little group that can't stand any way but it's own? Can't we all just have a little perspective and enjoy time with fellow enthusiasts and not let the trolls and those who invest too much self-worth in what they own by tearing down what others own and enjoy dictate the discourse?

 

Disclaimer: I have a HS-24. I absolutely love it. I've really enjoyed myself in listening to it over the past couple of years when I've been too busy to sit and comparing it to other subs (TC Sounds, Exodus, Adire, etc) as I can finagle ownership or loans of them to do personal shoot outs for my own gratification and 'cause it's fun. 

 

(My apologies for the disjointedness of this post. As I'm caring for someone with mean dementia amplified by stroke damage, anything I type involves dealing with a great many interruptions in an atmosphere of wild mood swings.)

Powerful Diogenes.  Sounds like you're going through a tough period of time, stay strong buddy. 

 

 

 I've used that to pick up other raved about drivers and do comparisons for the fun of it. Doesn't seem like anyone else has done that. I suppose it's easier to talk smack than buy the dang things and have the fun of cranking them side-by-side for some extended listening. This hobby for me is about listening and enjoying music and movies with badass bass, not arguing over models that assume ideal conditions and ignore important variables.) Not worth dealing with the people who thrive on the drama.

Right on the money.

[N8DOGG]

Thank you for the measured response. That's all I wanted to see, really, just an understanding of where the other person is coming from and to be most excellent to each other. There's more history to all this than what is in this thread and that dictates response. Put yourself in Nick's shoes and think how you'd respond after a couple of years of increasing hostility, that, really is all I ask. I know I'd be a lot worse by this point than he, but then I am an ill-tempered ass.  The last bit was more addressing a related issue that's been showing up in related threads and I didn't want to spam this in more than one place. (Plus, I was a bit giddy, this past weekend was my first day off in four and a half months. [Woo!])

 

 

That was kind of what I was saying. Consulting the Great Oracle of Google, there are builds using it, mostly as dealer demos and "look at what I can buy" kind of builds, but they are out there. (Pimp My Ride with the dual Jackhammer build exempted. I read that those were pulled by MTX right after and were just there for the show as a commercial of sorts.)

 

 

You get attacked enough, you get a bit defensive. After a point, it even becomes righteous to be so. You've got to stick up for yourself, afterall, or be walked all over. (AVS is bad, by the way, nothing like it was years ago. I miss the Basslist and the forums of ten, fifteen years ago. Now there was good reading where actual PhDs in magnetic theory and patented driver designers posted about inductance effects and legendary crossover designers who had design approaches named after them posted, not self-styled experts who depend on the equations and software designed by these true experts.) Seems to be a pattern shared by others as well. I've had a couple of years to catch up with my reading and what I've missed (literature guy way back in my grad school days, so I'm trained to read if nothing else), I just don't post. Kind of obvious here as to why and why I don't miss it. It's also why I've not shared my opinions of my own personal sub shootouts, fun as they have been. (To afford to build a cabinet for the HS-24 when I got it and to help rebuild my post-recession system, I sold my beloved kayak since I couldn't use it anymore after a car wreck four years back messed up my joints some and had a bit of extra cash [it was a very good kayak from better days]. I've used that to pick up other raved about drivers and do comparisons for the fun of it. Doesn't seem like anyone else has done that. I suppose it's easier to talk smack than buy the dang things and have the fun of cranking them side-by-side for some extended listening. This hobby for me is about listening and enjoying music and movies with badass bass, not arguing over models that assume ideal conditions and ignore important variables.) Not worth dealing with the people who thrive on the drama.

 

 

Your story, it's ever changin'.

 

Oh, I'm definitely biased: I'm a huge fan of Adire Audio. 

 

Whelp, that is all. You've shown your character times aplenty and life's too short to deal with your type.

 

John, I remember your message asking if I could ship them, you were far away yadda yadda, didn't have the money at the time to get them when Kevin had them, a typical tire kicker message that I got from 30 different people, I just didn't want to deal with you, you didn't want the cabs and I'd lose out on the money from the cabs. Why would I when I can get a few hundred $ more locally and not have to ship them? what person would want to loose money just because? gimme a break man.Just so happens I have the add on Cam ( since I also had an add on kijiji, audiogon, craigslist and buy and sell) that sold the subs...  he was coming down from Kenora to pick up the subs a week later and gave me a 500$ deposit. In the end I sold him both subs and amp for 1200$, regardless of what I told you, some random person on kijiji I didn't want to deal with BUT did want to make jealous you misses out

 

Feel free to look up my rating on CAM, ebay.ca, SVTforums or anyone I've ever sold anything to on AVS (go on the JTR section of AVS, I've sold 2 amps and 4 different sets of JTR speakers and everyone was perfectly happy) all 100%. Next time when replying to a add, don't tell the person that money is really tight, they 100% know you're gonna be looking for some crazy discount. In the end, I hung out with the buyer for about 4 hours and really liked the guy, he wasn't gonna take the amp but I said screw it and gave it to him for 300$ and 900$ for the subs. 

 

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