Sub Enclosures For The East Coast!

[kmbkk]

If anyone on the east coast is looking for an alternative to the Integrity Concepts sub enclosures, there's a shop in Alabama making one very similar and for a lower price. I like the IC enclosures, but the shipping to the east coast is very expensive. So if you're in the market for one, check out these:

http://www.caraudio.com/forums/subwo...enclosure.html

A 8" version is also available for $219+ shipping, and they're working on a driver's side enclosure as well.

You can also check their website at www.256motoring.com

[Integrity Concepts]

Originally Posted by kmbkk

If anyone on the east coast is looking for an alternative to the Integrity Concepts sub enclosures, there's a shop in Alabama making one very similar and for a lower price. I like the IC enclosures, but the shipping to the east coast is very expensive. So if you're in the market for one, check out these:

http://www.caraudio.com/forums/subwo...enclosure.html

A 8" version is also available for $219+ shipping, and they're working on a driver's side enclosure as well.

You can also check their website at www.256motoring.com

If the shipping charges to the East coast are the only thing holding you back from purchasing our enclosures, just ask, we have other shipping carriers that we can use to save you money. In addition to this our shipping rates through UPS have come down about 10% in the last few months due to our volume shipped and the slightly smaller packaging we have switched to.

For instance: A shipment that was roughly $60.00 with UPS Ground 2 months ago is now $54.00. If this is still too much: while we primarily use UPS Ground for our shipping because it is reliable and offers the customer continuous up to date tracking information for the shipment, if you do not care so much about tracking the package every step of the way, we can use USPS Parcel Select Nonpresort and the same package only costs $35.00 to ship to the East coast.

I also have a few thoughts on the 256motoring enclosures which I will share in a separate post. Ultimately the decision to go with another product is totally up to you, I just want to keep everyone informed.

[Integrity Concepts]

As posted in another thread:

I as well noticed this enclosure posted on another forum about 2 months ago while doing market research for obvious reasons. While their 10" enclosure size seems to be a good airspace at .72 cu ft, their 8" enclosure appears to be the exact same enclosure with just a different mounting ring which makes it a very large internal volume for most 8" woofers.

Their website says that their 8" enclosure's internal airspace is .69 cu ft. which confirms just a swapping of the mounting ring/face on the 10" enclosure. Link to 8" product: http://www.256motoring.com/index.php/vse-products.html#!/~/product/category=5817112&id=23500659

My question is: If they are planning to release another 24 models in the next 4-6 weeks (according to this article: http://www.12voltnews.com/2013/07/02...ub-enclosures/) that's more than 1 new model released each week, and at that speed I wonder why they can't just make an actual 8" version, with a more proper airspace?

I have no idea what proprietary specialized materials they are using (I would guess an FRP - Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic), how their enclosure's sound, or even how they can realistically research, develop, cast molds, and release a new product model each week while still continuing to manufacture the actual products. And while I can't speak of the quality either, it does seem to me that they are focused more on the quantity of products they can push out, regardless of how well it fits an average 8" woofer's suggested airspace range. Yet they mention that they "incorporate analytical data for lower resonant frequency" and perform "extensive testing of a vehicle’s specific low range resonant frequency".

The price is great, and they claim to be "far superior to those found anywhere else in the marketplace" but even if I didn't research and develop a competing product and I was just another fellow audio nut, I would probably look the other way based solely on their fancy terminology and low price.

I do think that their incorporated RFID tagging technology could be pretty useful for dealer tracking, but who pays for this extra added tag / feature that is relatively useless to the end user, or is it just further taking away from the overhead cost of building this already inexpensive "far superior" product.

Just some food for thought.

With the time and materials put into every one of our Integrity Enclosures the sale price we have them at is a steal, and honestly leaves very little overhead for a small business of our size. I'm sure that 256motoring is probably a much larger company that has the flexibility to reduce their costs, but it is said that no matter how you cut it, you get what you pay for. As stated before, obviously the decision is totally up to you, I just like everyone to be informed.

[256 Motoring]

I was forwarded a link to this post response by a couple of ft86club forum members who found it to be incorrect after researching our products and thought we might want to clarify the subject for forum members who are not aware and may be receiving biased or misinformation.

I am the owner of 256 Motoring, manufacturer of the Chameleon line of Vehicle Specific Subwoofer Enclosures. Part of my background in the 12 volt industry includes, but is not limited to, working with 5 major manufacturers of car audio products, producer of 8 How-to Instructional DVD's under the name Glassman's Custom Forum and the GCF Group in early 2000-2005 wherein we illustrated some basic to advanced fabrication and molding techniques to substantially reduce the consumer's cost of custom fabrication if they learned to do it themselves (DIY), having owned several car audio stores over the past 27 years, and current independent representative for RE Audio for 10 states on the east coast.

As a previous retailer and current manufacturer of vehicle specific OEM aftermarket automotive parts we knew then that the shops throughout the US were charging outrageous prices back in the late 90's and early 2000 which seems to be happening to this day. With our background we felt the need to introduce a line of products to consumers using our mass casting techniques and through volume materials purchases and a super quick proprietary manufacturing process we were able to make this happen and nearly 25% cheaper than it would cost a stereo shop to produce it and that's BEFORE they added in their labor, time, etc. Our manufacturing time per enclosure less finishing options is 8=15 minutes depending on the enclosure and it's size. Yes, you read that correctly. This is why we can provide extremely reduced prices directly to consumers now.

If a stereo shop spent an average of $200-$250 in materials molding and casting a vehicle specific enclosure (tape, resin, hardener, mold fabric, bondo/marglass, highbuild polyester primer, sanding pads, labor hours, and everything else one would need to complete the job correctly) and it took them an average of 6 hours start to finish (usually a day) @ $65-85+ an hour for labor, the customer wouldn't be walking out of the shop without having spent $800-$1,000.00 and then never having the benefit of owning an enclosure designed around the acoustics of the specific vehicle in question. This was mostly because the installer had no idea HOW to design it properly and learned his fabrication techniques through some YouTube videos tutorials which only meant duplicating a cavity and shoving a sub over in the corner somewhere and calling it "vehicle specific."

Knowing the car audio market's average woofer theile/small parameters for small box applications (or large versions as appropriate), especially the qtc and qts (sealed applications since we're talking about the FR-S/86/BRZ) one can design and fabricate a proper high output enclosure. One simple step in our process, without getting into too much detail, is we take a reading with a B&K SPL meter while sweeping the interior of a given vehicle from 30-80 hertz in order to identify the loudest "lower resonant frequency" of the two louder bass frequencies ranges typically found in all vehicles. The first and lower one is usually between 42-58hz and the higher of the two is around 120-180hz. We use the data from the lower of the two which holds true for any ported applications we produce.

With this data and an average qtc and qts of the woofers out on the market today, that were designed for small sealed applications, using our materials and mass casting techniques we were able to create an enclosure that would offer a higher output than any other enclosure whether mass produced, hand-built, or otherwise, on the market today and do it for the less than the cost that a stereo shop could do it for calculating ONLY the materials used and not their labor!

With that said, the 8" FR-S/86/BRZ Chameleon Enclosure, by 256 Motoring is $179.99 after a forum member discount code is applied. We debuted this actual 8" enclosure at 2013 CES in a joint venture with RE Audio and are working with two other major manufacturers to bring vehicle AND woofer specific models to consumers; one is Digital Designs (DD). See the following link for details on the Sonic Elec. introduction to the RE Audio/256 Motoring branded versions http://256motoring.com/index.php/12-...audio-256.html.

This 8" version was the FIRST enclosure produced for the FR-S/86/BRZ and NOT the 10" version thus rendering moot the claim that we simply added an 8" ring to the foundation mold or the 10" version. The 10" version wasn't casted until 5 months after the 8" was completed and only done so because of the demand we received for a 10" model. We debuted the 10" version on our Facebook page later for those who are interested.

For further clarification, the materials we use are not plastic although we use fillers and additives that are found in some plastic alternatives. Although the materials we use wouldn't necessarily be considered "proprietary" the mix ratio and application certainly IS. A few of the materials we use are Talc, Styrene oxide, Calcium Carbonate, Magnesite, Glass Enamel, Titanium Dioxide, Quartz (Crystalline Silica), Reichhold Light Weight Casting Resin, MEKP-10 (NOT MEKP-9, 9H, or 925), Thixotropic Powder, a Du Pont color additive, and a few others which we won't mention (or we'd have to shoot you) that help us to achieve the perfect density enclosure.

Another example of higher output designs we use is the test conducted with a JL Audio Stealth Enclosure or a specific vehicle for a single sealed 10" driver. We first obtained a stealth enclosure from a customer and we casted a copy of it using our techniques. With mold in hand we duplicated the JL enclosure using our mix and ratio of materials and proprietary manufacturing techniques. With the JL enclosure an our duplicated version of same in hand, we took an airspace reading and built an enclosure of the same airspace out of MDF. We took these three enclosures and placed them each individually in a sealed acoustically flat chamber and took a reading with a sweep from 30-80hz. For the vehicle this JL enclosure was designed for the lower resonant frequency that it played loudest was nearly a -9db loss when analyzing and comparing the JL enclosure made of fiberglass (same as most of those "custom" enclosures on the internet) against the duplicated version we built using our process and materials which was nearly equivalent (actually about +1db louder) playing the vehicles lower resonant frequency than the MDF enclosure. Again, this was done using the same sub and amp on each enclosure individually to make the test fair and accurate. In short, the design and materials made the difference, and out performed one of the top enclosures for only a quarter of the cost or less.

In closing, I hope that anyone who may have found this information prior to this clarification forgives any misunderstanding about our products that may have been posted by us or conveyed through a third party. For those that may be "butt hurt" because an ft86club forum member or other forum member posted or posts an alternative option to their product and is now having the size of their wallet size reduced because of it, we understand your concerns as it should be a concern but understand that we are tired of seeing people get ripped off when it comes to overpriced car audio products, especially fabricated enclosures. It does hold true... you get what you pay for and in this day and age these type enclosures are NOT made of gold but some think they are and still charge for it.

If anyone has questions or comments feel free to email us as we do not frequent this site often but are looking to become a supporting vendor in hopes of keeping this forum the awesome forum that it is today. If you're out in the Huntsville, AL area for the Joint Car Audio World Finals stop by and see us.


All the best,

Greg Gentry
256 Motoring