Elemental Designs amp failures - Page 7

I have to admit that it's a little funny that people come in here and are surprised by the negative responses, when after all, the whole tone of this thread was negative from the very first post.

The people that do state they have no problems are labled fanboys. Those that see what they want, toot their own horn because they supposedly saw this coming years ago.

You're all just beating a dead horse. I have my issues as well, but you know, I also have issues with Emotiva, Onkyo, Pioneer and Samsung. Why don't we all go blast them too?

This mob mentality is truly apalling. If you have a bad experience, post your findings and move along. Take your issue up with eD or move your business elsewhere. Do you think you're going to get some award for predicting eD is having issues in a sad economy? If you're that bright, perhaps you should run for president too. /rant

EDIT: I wanted to add that I agree with you all that eD isn't helping themselves one bit. They need to have higher quality amps, better supply chain, more accurate and timely customer service. They have cut down on the amount of products they carry to help make sure things get out in a timely order, but most of you want to over look the fact that they're trying.

BTW the whole Audyssey thing is pretty ridiculous. I wouldn't purchase a sub from a manufacturer that said the most popular room correction software voids the warranty either. However, when I have talked to the guys at eD about Audyssey this has never been mentioned.

I think it should be brought up that just because someone in this thread says "Alex told me this"...doesn't mean it's true. It's very easy for Alex's point to be taken differently by the customer. Does this customer have logs of the conversation, cause it would surely help prove a point if he does. Does Audyssey overdrive the sub in some rooms....YEP! When we buy the subs from ID companies, we're buying them because we're enthusiasts, not your typical Best Buy customer. Knowing how to get the most out of your sub without doing damage is actually like a form of art. I sure don't know how to do it, but these are the risks you take when you get into the higher end stuff.

And right on cue LMAO

That's the best you got? An infantile response to a thought out post?

....and you want people to listen to you, but you make it hard when all you do is call people fanboys and troll.

Have you missed the point where I too am having issues with eD, or how about the part where I think they have issues as well?

At least I own eD products and actually have first hand experience. This is getting absolutely stupid. You can't seem to make a relevant post about anything eD related, except for passing along some information you read somewhere else.

I've tried to be cordial and nice to you and accept your opinions. At this point in time, you're just as bad as the so called trolls you want to talk about so much.

I'm all for a debate, but it's hard to have one when you don't open your mind to any other opinion.

UMMM They are labeled fanboys because they refuse to take the rose volored glasses off and see what is really happening. And yes years ago when the A5-350 was introduced there were MASSIVE amounts of complaints about the wait times when customers who ordered were told 3 weeks and were waiting 3 months. Excuse was its such a popular sub, problems with this supplier, and I think even the packaging was back ordered IIRC. Then the amps started blowing up and even more unhappy customers were being ignored. FF to the amps on the A2-300 blowing up, drivers failing, customers paying for drivers when they are under "warranty" and now the Audyssey excuse that its blowing drivers up. As a matter of fact look at Etans thread about his experience with his eD sub and how heated things got with him and Alex.

And BTW there are quite a few threads on here bashing Pioneer, Onkyo, Samsung, and Emotiva. I had a problem with a brand new Pioneer Elite AVR 5 years ago and was told I had to pay shipping to get it fixed. It went back for a full refund and I will never own another Pio as long as I live.

Let take your mob mentality and flip it and apply it to the happy customers shall we? Since that seems to be your logic with complaints it should be your logic with the compliments to then correct?

What would be your excuse for eD when the same problems have been happening for 5 or 6 years? Is it still the economies fault? Was the economy sad back in 06? 07? Why is it it takes posting something negative on AVS before a customer gets taken care of by eD? Are you going to go over to the blu ray forum and tell everyone with their complaints there what you have just enlightened us with?

+1^

Except for the Prez bit at the end LOL.

Well when I started looking at subs back in 05, 06 it was between the A5-350 and the MFW-15. I choose the MFW because the truck liner finish didnt appeal to me. Suffice it to say I never got the MFW (as AV666 had their own supply problems LOL) and bought a used one. That was a HUGE mistake on my part. Can you say MFW kindling? But I used to talk up the A5-350 if people did not care about the look factor. So call me atroll all you like as I have been called much worse and it really does not bother me. I will speak my mind on any subjecy, on any thread, on any forum I so choose. Until I am no longer allowed too.

I've said before that I acknowledge all these issues, and agree that things need to be better. I have read all of Ethans thread and I don't agree with how things were handled on either side, but that issue has been put to rest.

The difference between you and I is that I believe in what eD is trying to do. I don't have a problem with someone taking their business elsewhere. I just don't understand why the same people, come around every week and bring up the same issues acting like they're brand spankin new.


I had a similar issue with Onkyo. I think the point to be made here, is that I am not in the Onkyo thread telling everyone how much they're garbage. I'm assuming you don't do that with the Pioneer thread, so why do it with the eD?


I don't frequent the blu ray forum. But again, I don't think eD is perfect, FAR from it. But they also don't need to be beaten up over stuff that has already been taken care of or by users who DO abuse their equipment.


I don't really care much about the presidency. The elections have become a choice of picking the lesser evil.

The reason the EX is out of stock is they had a sale on them back before Christmas and then the sale in January. The January sale had more demand than they expected and part of it came from AVS. There were a lot of people on here that missed out on the Christmas sale but myself and a few others made sure that everyone who cared knew about this January sale LOL. I even PM'ed a few fellow AVS'ers that had posted in the Outlaw thread that they missed the sale and Outlaw had no more B stock. Didnt want them to miss out on another sale LOL.

I recently bought a used A2-300 that had a dead amp, I knew it was dead when I bought it, and that is why I bought it, cause it was cheap... I knew I could either get a new amp, or have the amp that was in the sub refurbished, which is what I chose to do. I got the RMA, sent the amp in, and when I got an email from eD I called in and spoke to Alex who said I could wait and get the amp I sent in back, or just get a different one and that would speed the process up. I chose to get whatever LT.200 amp they could send me first, and when I had follwed up with eD to see how much longer it would be, I was told the testing had been completed and my amp was shipping out that day, I was even able to get a tracking number while I waited. I got the amp in and it works great so far, hopefully it will stay working great too. But the whole process from sending it in, to getting it back was 4 weeks. I don't think that was too bad considering the stories I'm hearing from other people. Just wanted to share my experience, as I have always had good experiences with eD in the past, and every time I called or chatted with someone online, they were always courteous and helpful.

I wonder how may of those with issues were using a y-spliter for the increased power boost? verses those that do not use one.

I'm not sure, but I know with the newer amps eD reccomends using a splitter, but not using one just means lower input voltage meaning you need to up the gain a little bit to get the same output... so I really don't think a using or not using a y-splitter would have any effect on amp failure.

Add me to the list.

My A2-300 amp died on me last year. My A5-350 amp died on me today.

Awesome.

Bought my A2-300 in late '08 and my amp died on me a couple months back.. No y-splitter, and I never really pushed it very hard either. I just noticed one day that no sound was coming from it anymore. I'm gonna pay Daveds50 to fix the amp for me.

I just finally got around to wanting to get the thing fixed and was shocked when I did some googling and found that eD has gone out of business. It's a shame, really. The A2-300 has been a damn good sub for the price that I paid, save the whole amp dying thing.

Hi, my A5-350 amp died about a month ago and found out that "daveds50" username was the person that fixed EDs bad amp. Search him on the thread and he can get your sub working for a low price...Let me know if I can be any assistance. I still have his information.

Ken

I actually sent my amp off to him a few days ago. He should be getting it today.

and it is done ! just a couple more of hours burn in, and it's ready to come home.

Damn, just checked my a5 350 and it's dead.

Gonna have to get help...

Amp arrived today. I put it in and it sounds better than ever. Thanks for fixing it for me.

So with the help and patience from daveds50 I've discovered that the speaker itself is blown as well in my A2-300 and that the speaker is commonly the weakest link in the unit, and this part being crap (for lack of a better word) is most likely what blew the amp. I'm going on his recommendation to purchase what is apparently a great deal in a replacement driver: T3 Audio T200 12" 200 Watt Subwoofer and I'm sending my LT-200 amp up to get fixed by him. All in all, a pretty good deal IMO to get practically a new sub in this perfectly good cabinet rather than having to spend an ungodly amount on a comparable SVS sub instead. Big thanks to Daveds50 for the assistance.

I have a 12" ED sub and I'm wondering if I should go ahead and upgrade the sub now if it will extend the amp life. I'm not sure which model it is though. How could I determine that?

Thanks!

i was pleasantly surprised when i heard one of these in a car, with a ported box running on 220 watts RMS. did not sound like a $35 speaker. they get loud and deep on very little power. ( for those of you that do not know, T3 went out of business and Parts Express bought all the stock. they were much more than $35 before this ) when my custom box gets made, i'll be running eight of these powered by two modified LT500's. you may think that is overkill... however, it is a 1100 sq/ft room with 12 foot ceilings and open to the rest of the house. yeah, 13,000 cu/ft plus. my Klipsch sounds really weak... and is not a very good sub to begin with.
but this will cost very little. my box designer and builder is a car SPL competition guy, and i supply modified car amps to him, and he builds me boxes for free. the guy is good, and knows exactly what he is doing. ( this will be designed for SQ, not SPL )
yes, there are much better drivers... however, for those of us that dont want to spend money, these perform much better than the $35 price suggests.
anyone want to have a "less than $400 sub competition" ?

depends... while most of the amp failures ( from any brand, not just eD ) can be traced down to a blown speaker, it depends on how you use it. if you abuse it like i do, then maybe it is time to replace depending on it's age. but if you are a normal user, then i would not. but from eD amp repairs lately, like out of around 50-60 amps, we found 60-70% had bad speakers. i know... you people think that the eD amps are failure prone... i think the drivers are failure prone, and are taking the amp out with it. no amp from any manufacturers can survive a shorted voice coil. the unmodified eD amps i am currently using, get extreme abuse, and they are fine... but then again, i dont use eD drivers.

I'm using a LT.300 I got from daveds50 in an A2-300 enclosure, with a JL 12W3V3-4 and it is awesome, it blows away the original A2-300 config. I bought the sub used, with a dead amp that I sent in for repair, now I'm wondering if it was the original woofer that caused the amp failure, how can I check the woofer to see if it was the problem? I checked the coils on the original woofer and it's a dual 6 ohm voice coil sub, and the coils were wired in series, so it's no wonder it didn't seem to have a lot of output. I'm just wondering if the LT.200 would be stable with a 3 ohm load.
Edited by GlocksRock - 10/31/12 at 3:57pm

Elemental Designs A5-350 sub blown?

ok now im screwed

last night i heard a funny sound coming from my sub , it was a cracking sound even at low volumes.... i tested the amp adjustments and freq adjustments and all settings make the same sound , if i turn up the gains on the amp it would shut down.... now im not sure if the sub is blown or if there is a issue with the amp. i have the Elemental Designs A5-350 with LT/550 plate amp.
So i come to find out today that ED is closed down for good ... now what am i to do??? do you think its the amp or sub???? does anyone one what model ED 15" sub is in there??? Does anyone know of a good swap out sub would be??? OR if it is the amp what should i do??


thanks guys
FiddlyD

It's most likely the amp. If you have very basic electrical skills, you can swap out the amp with a new one. Finding an amp that will fit perfectly will be challenging, but if you have basic woodworking skills, you can probably make any amp fit.

You can get the amp repaired if that is the problem. But you can check to see if the woofer is blown as well. Just take the driver out and test it with a mulitmeter to see what impedance the voice coils read.

try the above to see if it's the driver. if not, and the amp is the culprit (likely), get in touch with member daveds50 on these forums.. he has been repairing eD amps for people here and has good turnaround times

So, based on feedback in this thread, I decided to proactively replace the sub in mine to increase the chances of extended amp life. I bought the above referenced T3 Audio T.200 12" sub. I swapped out the the subs and noticed right away that the T3 sub was much lighter. Once installed, it doesn't have anywhere near the output my original sub did at similar levels. One note is that the T3 is a SVC. The ED 13Kv.2 is DVC. Anyway, I'm certainly not content with the T3 but don't want to take unnecessary risks if these ED subs are known to be a weak point. Any guidance or suggestions would be appreciated.

The new woofer may not be as sensitive as your old one, so you may just need to bump up the gain a bit to compensate for the lack of output. The voice coil config has nothing to do with the output or sound quality, it just means different wiring options, one is not better or worse than the other. If you don't like the woofer, get a different one that will offer more output. I'm guessing since it was a clearance item that you can't return it, so either hold onto it since you got it so cheap, or just put it on craigslist or ebay and try to recoup some of your loss. There are many other good woofers out there that will work well in that particular box, I use a JL 12W3V3-4 that I got used on Criagslist and it works well, but it's not inexpensive. You may try a dayton audio woofer, or the TC Sounds Epic 12, or ask around to see what else may work well with 200 watts in that box.

I'm not very knowledgeable on the topic, so I appreciate the info, GlocksRock. Any subs < $100 that would be a good fit? How about this sub? http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=295-204
Edited by IA_Chiefs_fan - 11/10/12 at 7:52am

That sub would work for sure, it's actually the same driver eD was using as an OEM driver for the last couple years.