An Update to our campaign

[Overture]

Hey kids, I posted this as an update to the Indiegogo campaign page, as I found out that no-one had been updating our backers. Charlie suggested you all might find it interesting, so I'll put it here wholesale for anyone to read.
Cheers
~David

Greetings all. First off, a quick update
We are SO CLOSE. We’re all getting a bit impatient ourselves actually, but as some of you may already know, the last ten percent of a product is the hardest, because that’s when we have to be the pickiest.
How’ve we been spending out time? Well….

About four weeks ago we finished building the first pre-production prototype of ten of the new Y4 system, that’s the combined unit in one box that many of you have opted for over the split unit. Originally the system was plain black aluminium, square edges and corners – basically every hi-fi unit you’ve seen before. As it turns out, the Aluminium / Poly composite that we settled on for the frames of the Y speakers themselves turned out to be well suited to the casing of the Y4 complete system – the look is now more coherent between the speakers and the box, it’s more stylish and curved, and it’s lighter to boot.
Here’s a picture of the front of the unit with one of the PCBs showing.


Close up of the material itself.


And here’s a picture of the base plate, including the step-up transformers for the speakers, and the heat-sink / amplifier / fan / power transformer arrangement, modelled by Max.



At any rate, we tested the new system and ironed out a bunch of bugs that need to be fixed. The remainder of these units will be assembled and sent out as demo units ..
The Y2 – similarly, also matches the look of the Y4, using the Alu/Poly composite, and is almost complete, a few bugs pending. We are making ten demo units of this as well.



In testing both of these systems I can tell you straight up – they easily surpass the quality of the sound we had achieved at the beginning of this campaign. The audio path is less complicated through the system, the speaker mechanical tolerances have improved, we’re hearing even more detail that we had before, on music we have become intimately familiar with – and we’re picky as hell.
Another bit of good news for you all, the current projected retail price for the Y4 complete unit with dual subs is hovering around the USD$5000 mark. That came as somewhat of a shock, though looking at distribution, marketing, getting everything together, tooling up, production quantity pricing and so forth, it makes sense.
Next week: Speaker pics, how we've used 3D printing to solve problems like connectors (we are literally high-voltage rock and roll), and more details on other campaign rewards and how our schedule is looking.
Peace, love and music.
~David

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Pleading ignorance, what is it?

 

[chucky3042]

Hi Kal

The Y4 system incorporates 4 electrostatic speakers (8 panels) complete with dual subwoofers combined with our patented Involve surround decode. In addition it has our patented SST (sweet spot technology) that gets rid of the sweet spot and holds a steady central image in all positions of the room without a center channel. The amplifier section comprises 10 X 70 watt RMS (GENUINE) amplifiers.

The Y4 only accepts stereo input. More info can be found on https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/showthread.php?17946-INVOLVE-COMING-NEW-TECHNOLOGY/page6

Or go to our website www.involveaudio.com also a QQ member had an early audition of SST and Involve compared to Dolby 7.1- for the interview go to https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/showthread.php?18329-Involve-Total-Perspective-interview click the 4 blue links at the top of the first post for the sound interviews.

Regards

Chucky

 

[Overture]

Greetings backers et al!

As promised, more or less, here's a tasty, fun filled, action packed and yet deeply sincere update for you all to peruse.
Firstly, some news - the revised post-prototype board design for the complete Y4 system has been finished and is going out for production. It should be far more manufacturable and reliable.
Now, some behind the scenes. One of the things we've played with in recent times is 3D printing, and we've found a few unique problems that we have been able to solve using the process. Firstly the speaker cords. The speakers are nothing short of striking in looks as well as sound


But they also require special cables to carry the HV signal to the sonic panels. From behind:




At the moment, while this part is out of sight, it's messy. So using 3D modelling and then printing we were able to find an elegant solution for the cables by prototyping ideas until we found one that fit the quality and aesthetic, without having to constantly iterate on a molding, which is an expensive process.


Another functional cosmetic issue is the cable for the speakers - as you can see it's not a conventional connection:



and the plug itself, with the current solution of heat-shrink, functional but fairly inelegant:



And so, we printed a solution that can now be turned into a mould - in the shorter term however we can actually print these at a fine enough quality for retail. 3D printing has come a long long way in a very short space of time.

 

[Overture]

Last but not least we were able to prototype a new heatsink that has been designed with the unique internals of the Y4 Complete in mind, and to solve a myriad of assembly issues:



So there's our prototyping of the trimmings and preparing for the first production run of 120. Here are a few more pictures of the production areas for the woofer, and the surround master:
The prototypes lined up for testing (Busy little box, isn't it?)



Surround Master Lids



Subs in a row



It's not just good. It's REALLY good.



And the sweetest image of all (for me):



Next update should be in a few weeks - I'll show you some of the production areas themselves, the electronics and assembly areas, and will hopefully have an update on the Y2 systems and discuss the future of the two box system.

Peace, love and music.
~David

 

[inkubuzz]

Hi guys, any new updates in this? when do you expect to release it to your backers?

 

[Overture]

Hey there - there was an update posted to indiegogo after easter, I'll paste the text here:

----->

Greetings all. Just got back from Easter break and got a reminder from one of our backers that we haven't said anything here in a while - we've been so focused on pulling all the parts of this together that communication has fallen away a bit.

We're waiting on a couple of things:

We're waiting for our HDMI and HDCP licences.

We also found an issue with the large electrostatic transformers when sending these units via air or sea, they were shaking themselves loose, and being large pieces of iron they had the tendency to do a bit of damage, so we've redesigned the mounting and reinforced it so it's no longer an issue.

Meanwhile we've been working on improving as much as possible in the system while we wait, we've found a really sexy new flat silicone cable for the speakers, it's flexible and unobtrusive - and a new connection system to the speakers that looks a lot better than the previous version, with heat-shrink and round cable, those looms are being made up for our speaker panels. Plus it makes the speakers far easier to replace if they are damaged beyond repair. We've also made improvements to the inside of the unit, it's more manufacturable now, better cabling arrangements, easier to assemble and disassemble for repairs and such.

The other part of the speakers - the frames, and the case for the system is the alucobond, we're awaiting manufacture of those parts by out specialist here in Australia- most of the work with this material is on large scale for building projects and the like, it's taking a little while to tweak and adjust the designs to be right for the smaller fiddly topography but it's coming along nicely and we've started to receive these parts.

We also found the heatsink we had chosen for the unit was taking almost an hour to install with all the clips it came with - it was nice in theory but in practice it was a nightmare to put together. In the end we had to custom design our own that will be far easier to install and will have improved thermal performance, so it's win-win.

update: We received the first off tool samples of the new heatsink and it's very good indeed, and really easy to install

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Bear with us - we're sorry this is taking its time but all the little improvements we've made along the way is worth it. I Hope this update helps, and hope to have more solid information in the next 2-4 weeks that I can share with you all as well.

~D