The one thing I'll give eD credit for is that they finally got smart and commissioned Image Dynamics to build subs for them. And CDT for components. The bad is that the customer service is still poor. May as well go with the real deal, after all ID and CDT are reputable companies that offer good product at a good price. No need to deal with eD and get the relabeled version.
As far as Elevation, here's my take. I've never dealt with Elevation, I know nothing about the product or the company. I may as well be considered a potential customer. The more this debate surfaces, the more you deter me from the product. It would be different if this could be backed up by any factual evidence (hinting at the materials used and the build quality of the sub), but all this word of mouth would make me nervous about making about purchasing the product. Furthermore, all this bickering takes place between dealers. Most people don't trust a dealers opinion, no offense to anyone, it's just assumed by most that a dealer is biased. And the one that is saying that they aren't that great is ALSO a dealer for them, or was anyway (not sure on that one), which brings all positive feedback to a screeching halt.
I am a firm believer in allowing a product to speak for itself. Though I'm not familiar with Elevation's dealer network, seeing that you guys are pretty spread out in location makes me guess that dealers expand far enough across the country that there are plenty of potential customers to form and express their opinion. Consider companies like JL, MB Quart, Dynaudio, Morel, SEAS, Scan-Speak, etc. These companies gained popularity before internet car audio forums became a factor, or even existed for that matter. Word will get around if the product is worth talking about, just be patient and let the reviews come in. If the product is mediocre, then the company will get the deserved response-which is none at all.
I also don't believe in forum support to help companies get on their feet. For example, this comment:
"Or anywhere else for that matter, except that ICXX site or somthing like that. Thats were ben hides, and is protected by all his cronies"
Whether this is true or not is irrelevant, dedicated forums such as this develop such opinions from outsiders. After all, go to SIN (now carstereos.com) and ask for a comparison between the Brahma and whatever other sub you are considering. Since they also have a dedicated Ascendant and RE forum as well, you could ask the same comparo with those products as well. 90% of the time, you're getting a highly influenced opinion.
To Elevation as a company, if you wanted to sell your product to someone like myself, you need to offer good specs in the form of a white paper, or just on the website. For example, the Concert components, this is what I get:
Poly-mica cone
High-temp vented voice coils
Progressive nomex spiders
Balanced passive crossovers with flex-tweeter control
3/4" PEI Titanium Tweeter
and the description "Clean, Detailed, and Amazing." These are too general to be meaningful in any way, and I would think any component speaker manufacturer would have the goal of creating speakers that are clean, detailed and amazing. If you aren't well known in the industry, you need specs.
For example, take a look at Adire Audios Extremis overview. First, they state that the midwoofer is "Designed to take on - and beat - drivers like the legendary ScanSpeak 8545, Seas Excel offerings, and other high-end European drivers the Extremis 6.8 simply takes everything to another level." They then give you their marketing chutzpah and offer graphs of the BL curve, frequency response, impedance curve, THD, spectral contamination, a waterfall plot, and motor cutaways. Does it really perform to the aforementioned goals? Is it really an Excel or Revelator beater? Do most people actually have the opportunity to a/b all of these the drivers? Not usually. Do I feel it accomplishes this task? Nope, but it accomplishes the intended goals well enough to sell the product and gather positive reviews, thus the marketing did it's job. People will assume that since you're offering this information, you aren't trying to hide anything. I guess it's important to note that the independant testing on DIYMA differs from Adire's given specs, basically it doesn't perform as well as the Adire site would make you think. Most customers wouldn't know that, though
. Just my $.02
