Dean brown certainly way to avoid the typical ipod speaker.

“The Audio Can is positioned as an mp3 companion that embodies simplicity, basic functionality and…could be appropriated for different contexts,” writes Brown, who runs his own UK-based design consultancy. “We are proposing that it be used in the kitchen, parkland, fire station, coffee shop, bedroom or yoga class – anywhere where music is played as an ambient companion to the immediate activity in hand. In this context added features, and volume can be traded off for portability, simplicity and a generic design language.”

Any ICIX DIY’ers brave enough for this one?

http://bit.ly/4CEjXc

I’m old enough to remember when you would actually see a cool music video once in a while.

I saw this through BBH in New York and had to share. Slick music. Slick design. Hope you enjoy.

This video was just too cool not to share.

This creative sculpture takes “waves” and forms from nature and puts them into action.

As of this week we are currently out of stock on eDead 45.  This item will be back in stock shortly. For the mean time we reduced every day cost on the eDead 80.

eDead 80, our 80 mil thick sound damping material with butyl rubber and an aluminum backing is now 25% off.

.50 per square foot.  No coupon needed.

eDead 80 Sale Page.
Forum discount codes do not apply to this item.

You can still order eDead 45, and it will ship once in stock.

This week has been, as always, very interesting and incredibly busy for the staff here at Elemental Designs. As you may remember from blogs of the past (hum.. http://blog.edesignaudio.com/?p=897 ) we had a very unique custom request come through that required baltic birch. We cut it with unbelievable excitement, so much that everybody had to come watch the machine work it’s magic. That day we smelled real wood in the woodshop, instead of EFS.

Birch on the right, EFS on the left.

Here’s some detail shots:

Yeah it was exciting to cut something other than EFS. Speaking of cutting EFS, we cut A LOT! We just got our weekly wood order in.

Sometimes I need reminded about how many sheets of wood we run through the table on a weekly basis.

We’ve also started ramping up more in house speaker production. There’s speakers all over in different stages of production!

More painted products waiting to get assembled! Looks like the current production run of A7S-450’s are close to being boxed up.

I’ll leave you guys with Ryan working very… safely? I guess you just never know what’s going to happen around here.

The last couple weeks have been great here at Elemental.  Lots got accomplished, including finalizing of some projects sitting in the que for a while.  We had a really cool guy visit (more on him later.) The best part, is that most subwoofers from the A7S-450 and smaller are now in stock.

Now that more and more of the smaller home audio subwoofers are in stock, we are running into a good issue to have…..how do we store the stocking inventory?

Simple…

Condense, and utilize your available space in a more effective manner.

Brett and Anthony started to move some items around, and clear out pallet spots for the models. Now to clean out the whole aisle with stacked and packaged subwoofers.

Once again, a good problem to have.  This means we have A2-300, A3S-250, A3-250, A3-300, A5S-300, A5-350, and A7S-450’s ALL in stock and shipping same day.

Remember the baltic birch from last week, well its almost time to start cutting this stuff. I mentioned a really unique design for this project. Behold the 3D drawing:

If you keep an eye out on the forum, you will notice 19Ov.2 vented home audio subwoofers are pretty popular.  Here is a DIY kit project we have been working on for a while.

19Ov.2+LT.500+15hz tuning = low end BEAST.

Can you spot the A5-450 kit in the room?
Last week we talked about custom cabinets. But thats not all we do. Here are some photo’s of some coil and suspensions going into some large custom driver. You also see a 15″ driver using a motor similar to the 13Av.2

We also started a production run of the 18″ drivers used in the A7-450 subwoofer. These are done in small quantity runs at our Newton, IA location. Here are the first two finished up. Im sure some more will make it in the blog over the upcoming weeks.

Pictures really dont do any justice to how large these guys really are.

Our cleaning lady had a little extra time this week as she came in a bit early. She had a mission to clean underneath the main lobby’s couches. Since we had to move everything for her to vacuum, we decided to change it up a bit. What do you guys think?

This past Saturday I came in and met some local buys for a tour. One of them had a pretty rare item in the back of his car. He brought it in for Matt and I to take a look.

Its not every day you see one of these. I think he said the guy he purchased it from owned like 14 of them.

We also had our friend BEN from Gathering of Gamers stop out for some lunch.

For those of you not familiar with the site, we suggest checking it out.  They are a video game community for the once in a while gamer, to the hardcore.  Matt our Production Manager is pretty active on the website under the name Wolvatron.

We will most likely be helping out with their “5000″ member all night video game party. I know we are all pretty excited.

I will leave you all with a beautiful Iowa fall sunset.

and to tease you people from up north….it was 72 degrees here in IA today.

Pass Labs has released their latest integrated amplifier, a 30 watts per channel pure Class A model called the INT-30A. The INT-30A’s circuitry is derived from the company’s XA.5 Series Class A power amplifiers, and includes the Pass “Super-Symmetry” technology designed to minimize noise and distortion.

Continue reading Pass Labs Class A Integrated Amp

Its a pretty common question we get around here.  Most of you know the answer already.

We basically need budget and size requirements along with goals of the project.  Ooh the joys of having an in house CNC machine.  We not only have the option to cut and assemble the product, but we can assist with the cabinet design.  Dont know how to design a speaker or subwoofer cabinet? Thats no problem, let us do the work.

We stock EFS, our superior to MDF building material, in .5″, .75″, and 1″.  We can get the product in 1.25″ if required.  One custom project on the schedule calls for some baltic birch. No problem.

Its nice to see a building material with a wood grain.

A project getting finished up at this time are some cinema speakers.

Something about slot ports in full range products I really enjoy. The backs are the last part to get put onto the cabinet, after the crossovers are mounted and tested. You can see crossover pictures in a previous blog.

Here is a teaser picture of some new towers in the works. I put up a picture of a 3D model a month ago. 8″ midbass drivers look alot larger in person than one would think.

You should see more on these soon. They will be getting a really nice wood finish, of the green nature.

We had another customer looking at a pair of A2-300’s, but was unable to fit them into his room. Unless we did some custom units to build into a cabinet space. Thus Brett designed these little guys.

Dont want us to assemble the cabinet? Thats no problem, we ship flat packs as well.

We also had been working on some full range in wall speakers. The driver baffles shipped out today. Matt built some really neat shipping containers out of scrap wood that would either get tossed, or cut into coasters.

As you can see, we used V4 in the rails to protect the finish.  We say it time and time again, but V4 gets used for EVERYTHING around here.

So if your looking for something custom done on the CNC machine, it doesnt even need to be audio related, just let us know. Give us a call at 641.792.2501, or send an email to sales@edesignaudio.com

We have a limited number of A2-300’s in stock and shipping same day.

2 years later. It’s been quite a process to get caught up. We finally have.

A2-300

Its always an exciting time for us to have A2-300’s in stock.  After increasing production multiple times, we are finally to the point of having A2-300’s along with its larger brothers available for same day shipping.  This is a huge thing, as some of you might remember waiting over 4 months for theirs a couple years ago.  Boy o’ boy have things changed.

Increased production staff….Check!

Bigger…better…faster…more accurate CNC machine….Check!

Better production processes…cutting construction and finish time…Check!

Better materials…Check!

Better products…Check!

This week has been very productive yet odd.  Everywhere you turn someone is sick.  Either with a cold, flu, or they got the “hog flu.”

Our guys have been troopers trying to stick it out and work while sick. But you can see we had an empty parking lot every once in a while.

I also wanted to say thank you to FedEx.  A couple new computers came in today. One being for the shipping computer. This means even faster shipping.

I spent part of the day working on some crossover layouts for custom speakers. Let the soldering begin!

It was a dark and gloomy day in Iowa.  I  wanted to warm things up a little bit, so I lit a couple candles in the office.  It added a nice touch.  The candles are actually made by Adam, one of our speaker cabinet specialist.

Just to mention, one last time, the veneer sale ends tonight.  Here is one A7-900 getting ready to get some cherry veneer added. Pictures dont do justice for how large these really are.  In a good way.

And for those of you looking to get your custom Elemental product fix… Baltic birch. Wait till you see what they will become.

It has been almost three weeks now, and the veneer cabinet sale is almost over.

The first cabinets are starting to ship, and expect some more pictures to surface in the upcoming weeks.

To learn more about the premium wood veneers please read the following link.

Veneer Information.

Just to recap a couple important parts.

• Build here in Iowa using the greenest materials available.
• Cabinets constructed with superior EFS.
• High quality real wood veneer, not fake laminates.

Introductory pricing is as follows:

A3-300 Upgrades start @ .00
A5-350 Upgrades start @ .00
A7S-450 Upgrades start @ .00
A7-350 Upgrades start @ .00
A7S-650 Upgrades start @ .00
A7-450 Upgrades start @ .00
A7-900 Upgrades start @ .00

These prices will be going up at the end of the day on the 22nd.

Here are some pictures of a prototype maple cabinet before assembly.  This shows what the maple species will look like, but not the style of wood grain layup.  These cuts of veneer are spaced closely together. Production versions will more closely represent the last pictures wood grain.

How production veneers will be laid.

We have two sample A3-300 veneer cabinets for sale at this time as well.  For more information on these, please give us a call at 641.792.2501