Expectations for High End Sub?

Is that one of your Dual ULS-15's?

If you go to the trouble to take it apart, take pictures, and complain about it on the forum.... Why be mysterious about what sub this is ???

Haha so its a Rythmik ??

I have many years in high end electronics where the quality requirements far exceed what is sent to the consumer market.
To say I was shocked at the poor solder quality in my old Sony Trintron would be an understatement.
I know I would like to know the brand of the sub you found this in.

How many of us take our gear apart unless we're looking for something?

Quality is in the details.

It is disheartening to see poor work on a relatively expensive product.

That said, this is IPC Class 1 consumer stuff. Solder balls are fine as long as they aren't so large as to short out adjacent fine-pitch components (if there are any). Additionally, as long as said solderballs are encapsulated or 'entrapped' it would also 'pass'. Honestly, its too hard to tell from your picture what we're looking at there. Maybe its a mass of solder 'fines', not a solder ball or bead per se.

The bent (and out-of-contact) pin is wholly unacceptable. I would hope that pin is not used in the circuit design.

Through hole soldering has ALWAYS had a higher defect rate than SMT. Combine that with (very likely) hand soldered components built in a sweat shop and this is the result you get.

The supplier has no excuse not to weed this stuff out however. Please complain to them if you haven't already..

yeah, yeah but how does it sound???

Not many I suspect. Mainly due to warranty denial afterwards. Perhaps we see the real reason why manufacturers don't want their stuff opened up here. We may not like what we see..

The quality of that amp is almost as bad as the grammar in you pictures.

Now YOUR just trying to be funny :P doh.


as am i...

I am new to this forum, but have lurked a long time and read thousands of posts. I think that the members' opinions on build quality of the various makers of subwoofers has been something that has been lacking as a discussion point IMO. I certainly am a person who likes to know what's under the hood. I know he didn't mention the maker, but that is his choice. I would love to see more people talk about what we are actually getting when we purchase an internet direct subs. These companies don't even provide decent hi res pics to look at. This REALLY makes me worry about what brand to buy.

It shouldn't be just internet direct brands, the other brands that are sold in stores can be just as likely to have bad quality inside as the ID brands. Most are not going to open up their $1k plus subwoofer to check for solder balls or extra glue or anything like that. Buy it, plug it in and enjoy is what 99% is going to do. It can void the warranty too. So in the end if the sub meets the expectations performance wise and is reliable its really not an issue is it? Still doesn't mean its exceptable though.

Enough with the teenage games Shnapper. What sub are we talking about here?

How does this help anybody if you don't tell what sub it is?

As a Rythmik owner, I can tell you that this is NOT a Rythmik plate amp-the component installation sequence,ie, switches, potentiometers, input/output jacks, in no way match any of the Rythmik plate amp configurations. Since I assume the pictured amp has XLR inputs, the reduces the number of Rythmik amps to compare it to.

You can look at the OP previous posts to find out what subs he is refering too.

That's exactly the point of complaining on a public forum... its useless unless you identify the source of your complaint. If I'm dissatisfied with my Rythmiks for example, you can bet I will name it... and when those that got MFW-15s that were less than what they'd expected, what would it have done to start a new thread to say something like "I've just had two new subs arrive with half of the screws missing... the drivers about fell out during shipping." and then refuse to name the model or manufacturer? Or being cagey by saying its a popular model or its from a company known for quality. That is soooo lame and its basically a worthless complaint to anyone bothering to read the thread without supplying the name and even giving the manufacture's rep a chance to explain (many ID brands actually have reps that visit this forum and will comment). Just let everyone know its the HSU ULS-15 since it appears that is the newest sub you've purchased.... and be done with it. If you can't stand up and name the model then it would have been better you forgo starting this thread to complain... like what's the point? And who knows maybe Pete would respond by shipping you out a new sub.

Expectable quality of "High end" all depends on your definition of "high end" Price is not the sole determining factor.


I completely agree, just for the record we provide high res pictures of, outside, inside our products, and the components used. To anyone who asks. Often we will send in progress pictures of our customer subs to them, as most are built to order.

So how about just posting what it is?

He did say that he recently purchased "Dual [HSU] ULS-15's"

I'd be very interested, because I just bought a HSU VTF-3 MK3, and want to know if I should be peeking under the hood myself.

Have you contacted the manufacturer with your findings?

Hi guys,

I really don't know what else to say other than that we always stand by our products, and we always stand by our customers too and appreciate their feedback. We will be sending out replacement amplifiers checked by our chief technician, with some slight soldering modifications per customer request. Note that in the many years of selling this amplifier, we have not had even one single failure due to that particular IC, nor due to the soldering balls, nor due to a power lead getting loose and blowing the amp. In fact, this is the first complaint we have ever received about these items. I don't mean to imply that there is no issue here, and we always feed back to our suppliers to improve things, but just want to put things into perspective. With respect to the ULS-15, we take great pains during assembly here in SoCal to make sure that the moving parts are working well and that the performance is as good as can be when the unit is shipped out. No matter what, we will try our best to satisfy our customers.

Sincerely,

To the OP

Maybe that should have been your first course of action.


I find it very refreshing to see ppl on this forum who have class such as Pete. That is one of the reasons I bought my ULS-15s from Hsu.

Second in case the OP needs other examples of shoddy work of high end products. How about a Velodyne HGS-12 ($1,800 new) that needed the amp replaced twice in a span of 7 years. Or maybe the Sony SXRD Rear Projection TVs ($2,000 new) that ended up in a class action law suit because the Optical Board that actually makes the TV work is of such shoddy design that the TV only lasts 4 years. And yes I own both products. But when they went bad I went to the manufacturer first. Now if they were not resovled, then by god, I will be posting like mad on every forum I can find.


But like I said some ppl have class and some ....

Thanks for your attention to this.

If I were to open mine up and check the boards, would that void any warranty?

I agree. That's not cool to make this thread without giving the company a chance to fix it. HSU research has a great reputation for quality and for you to attempt to damage that reputation in exchange for some attention on a Internet forum is the wrong thing to do.

I believe this really comes down to outsourced production. The workers are low paid, not well trained, and have no vested interest in the company that eventually puts their name on the finished product. You get what you pay for. Some day we'll all learn this lesson. If there is a question about the quality of goods the contract house produces, then the OEM should do a final inspection on receipt of the goods. In this case, the sub manufacturer probably isn't the next company to work with the PC board. That is probably the amp maker. It was their duty to ensure proper assembly. The next one up the line isn't going to inspect the solder joints or IC insertion as that is assumed to be done by the amp maker.

I was an electronics inspector for 10 years and I would have rejected excess or balled solder as I would have done for a cold solder joint. Solder balls can be an indication of a cold joint and those can be difficult to troubleshoot. Though I don't believe anyone actually troubleshoots anything that isn't in the $1K plus price range. These amps are more easily and cost effectively replaced.

As for a pin on an IC not inserted in the socket, well sometimes this is on purpose. An engineer may have a reason to lift a Vcc ground pin. Don't know if that's the case here.

Since the quality of the photos is worse that the quality of the soldering, I can't comment more on the subject.

On the other hand, I've seen some poor quality construction in higher priced products. Quality goes down to the component level. When you pay for quality, you should expect and get quality builds throughout the product.