Are Mael-X's still good or will they crap out eventually?

AFAIK the glue issue was only with the last batch of 21"

The biggest thing that happened this year is the Seos waveguide.

The glue issue would rear it's ugly head quickly so if you get past a month and no problem then the Mael-X should last a long time. It was the later series of 18's and 21's that had an issue with the epoxy not being fully cured but if you have the first gen Mael-X then those are fine.

Like MrK already stated the SEOS is the big news around here along with flat packs and full kits from Erich at http://www.diysoundgroup.com/

NotNyt bought 8 and I bought 2. All 10 crapped out eventually, I repaired mine (and they are still working to this day) and he threw his in the garbage.

So that's "at least" 10 known failures. I'm not sure what is less reliable those, or clone amps.

How did you repair your Mael-X?

I still have 2 18's and a single 21 and have never had any problems. Come to think of it I don't recall anybody reporting a failure on the Vegas subs thread, only my 21" is a Vegas sub.

The glue issue was with the 18's and 21's. That whole ordeal sent Kevin out of business.

It was purely electromagnetic inductance that was causing the metal clacking noises, there was nothing physically wrong with the moving parts and could have played on forever without issue, but it sounded like poo doing so.
At first it started around 120hz and then eventually the resonance grew worse until it was all the way down to 16hz, that the clacking was occurring at. At which point I had gone completely insane trying to apply a crossover work-around to push the noise out-of-band.
So I ripped the thing apart and added more glue. It was a PITA that required hair-like-precision; it took 3 hours of painstaking surgery per sub. It was either do that... or throw them in the dump! A recone kit would have made the job easier (but would have done nothing to fix the root cause, I might add), but I wanted to do it for free, so...

"It was purely electromagnetic inductance that was causing the metal clacking noises..."

what???

The voice coil was inducing a magnetic field into the loose shorting ring causing it to vibrate.

ah, ok. inductance and back emf have their problems, but clanking sounds would not be one of them.

It was a shorting ring that once loose... was just floating around and rattling with any vibration. There was no way to filter the sub in order to avoid the rattle once the glue failed.

I never did get a count on how many of the Vegas subs failed. Many people sent me thank you emails who are still using them today so there were a respectable number of people who lucked-out.

AFAIK they are flat to 10hz-ish.... similar to the EP amps (so ive read)
Are you sure you're not talking about the DSP?

The DSP is unusable under 20hz meaning you can't boost or cut with it that low, like you can with the miniDSP.
I own the NU3000DSP and its a great amp but unless they firmware update I'll probably buy the mini to EQ.

Is the DSP in the iNuke similar to the DCX2496? I know my DCX2496 has a 12dB/octave shelving filter which is also limited to 20hz but it raises the level of the frequency band below the adjusted frequency so a shelf filter at 20hz raises the level below that so you are getting boost below 20hz.

yeah, technically the corners are limited to 20hz, but you can get lower than that by monkeying around with the various filters. i forget offhand, but using a highshelf with a negative gain provides something close to a 10hz filter low shelf with positive gain. don't quote me on that though. the software is downloadable if you wish to see what it can do.

Yes you can do that with the DCX 2496. You can't make the rolloff lower in frequency but you can raise the bottom so it can be flatter lower but it does create a hump in the teens.