Most Speaker Kits - Temporarily Out of Stock

Subwoofer flat packs have been moved to the new building and will be back in stock very soon for ordering, but many speaker kits are still waiting for parts. Covid issues have made it very difficult to get needed components in just about every industry and it seems there are products out of stock everywhere. Unfortunately the audio business is going through the same thing. Parts that normally take 2-3 months to receive are now taking 5-6 months, with delivery dates changing all the time.

Our speaker kits use hundreds of different crossover parts, tweeters, woofers, and port tubes so it's been very difficult getting the needed parts for most of them. I check availability on a weekly basis but many kits have one or two missing items keeping them out of stock.

At this point I feel like my time could be better served organizing the new shop and prepping things for faster shipping once the components start becoming available again. My plan is to clear out things we don't need anymore and try to get things running smoother. Unfortunately I won't be able to answer every email about when certain kits will be back in stock because I likely won't know the exact time frame.

To keep everyone up to date, here are my plans over the next month or so:

• Finish setting up the new shop and post photos of the progress. You might be surprised out how far things have come in the past 8-9 years.
• Hire someone to help with speaker kits, packaging, inventory, etc. This will be a high priority.
• Get the newest subwoofer flat packs listed along with other new kits that haven't been put on the site yet.
• Update the clearance section. This will include the Vortex-15 kits that people have been asking about.

 

I'll give updates here on how things are progressing and also give some notice on when the Vortex-15 kits will be listed. I'm really just waiting on their compression drivers that I was told are finally in the US ready to ship.

 

Photos from some work done last week:

 

There's no need to put any deposit down on the Vortex-15's because I have a lot due to them rarely getting ordered. Both Vortex models required custom tooling for multiple parts, so a good number of them had to be ordered to get them made up. Even at clearance prices I bet they're in stock for quite a while. Not sure what will happen to the Vortex-12 just yet. I've always wanted to put a Vortex-12 between two 12" Hyperlites or something along those lines, so they might not be clearanced out if that design can happen. I might put the 12's back up but not sure who will buy them if they're more than the clearanced 15's.

As mentioned on the AVS forum, there's a lot amount of work that needs to get done but I'm going to do my best. Covid made it difficult to find people that wanted to work (still does). Contractors are booked solid trying to catch up from last year and I was hoping to find one to rework the bathrooms and office area. At this point I'm just going to start that myself and make the best of it.

The employee I hired a few months ago is struggling to learn how to package up kits so I might see how he does with flat packs and look for someone else on the kits. Kits have so many options that it would take years for someone to really get things nailed down. Roundovers or not, flat packs or not, circuit boards or not, matte or gloss waveguide. Just those options mean 16 different ways.....for one kit. Now do 20 or more kits all with different crossover parts and components and it's completely overwhelming for anyone new. So that's going to be a top priority for me to figure out.

 

I do have crossover parts for the HTM-12, HT-12, some HT-8's, S2000 MT and MTM's, and some 1099's. MTG-90 sent me some assembled crossovers for some of those as well. So this next week I will be prepackaging some of those kits and get them in stock. I have everything for the Titan-818's, but waiting on the 16 gauge 5.0mH inductors. ERSE said they are waiting on the plastic 'bobbins' before they can make any. Parts Express is out of stock on those. A lot of crossover parts we need are supposed to be here on the 15th.

Still haven't found an employee to help with packaging.

I'm pretty much done with what I was hoping to do inside the new warehouse area. It took longer than I thought because the floor in the back on one side wasn't level so I had to get a concrete company in to pump some mix under the floor to raise it back up to level for pallet racking.

Here's before the walls were sealed inside and out:




Half done, waiting for the back floor to be leveled and got the pallet racking in:



Completed last week: Yes, those are some of the custom shipping boxes needed for kits and flat packs!

 

While waiting for the concrete company to raise that back corner slab I worked on this opposite wall to get it done. Pressure washed, primed, sealed and painted on the inside and outside. It really was a lot of work. Three coats of paint on the inside walls, only 2 needed on the outside because the outside had already been painted years ago.