Members jrlaudio Posted January 21, 2008 Members Share Posted January 21, 2008 Hi All, I have been a rabid user of EAW products for some 25 now, mostly in the KF, SB and JF series. Well ... I'm pretty much done with them for good. Loud Technologies has really screwed the pooch on support for the product line, especially legacy products. I have a very old set of several original KF-300 in my current in-house system and wanted to do some reconing. These are the old style KF-300's with the side-fire woofers OEM'ed by ATC (mid and highs are RCF). Well ... Loud Tech thought it was a smart idea to change all of their personnel in the parts & service departments. Not smart!!! Not only did they not even know that EAW made a KF-300 with a sidefire woofer but told me I could re-cone the drivers with the current recone kit for the most recent KF-300. Let's see now ... hmm ... recone an ATC driver with an RCF re-cone kit. Mind you I not only gave them serial numbers of the boxes I have, but I also gave them the EAW part number for the re-cone kits and the EAW part number for the drivers themselves. Well they couldn't even figure out what the numbers were I gave them. They couldn't even figure out which diaphram I needed (umm ... maybe an RCF N450 diaphram, no wait is that a N270? Geez!!!) They couldn't even find my account with them. So they suggested instead I send them the boxes and they will repair them for me and have them back to me in three to four months. HA HA HA HA!!!!!!! Hey agedhorse, you got a source for the kits on those ATC drivers by any chance? Well anyway, EAW is now manufactured in China, and the service department is now staffed with dolomites. Kenton ... I'm very disappointed you let this happen. Well I'm done with EAW. Damn ... they were great once. Ah screw'em ... I like the way Nexo sounds anyway. Man ... Renkus-Heinz is looking better everyday! Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Squier Fat Telecaster Posted January 21, 2008 Members Share Posted January 21, 2008 At least Bosch is smart enough to invest in the EV plant in the USA and not move EV to China. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mr Blues Posted January 21, 2008 Members Share Posted January 21, 2008 Some of the guys who run the local PC centre are not happy with the Mackie eqiupment since the switch to China. Are you saying that the build quality is not quite the same. Has RCF also switched over or are they still made by the Italian company? Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jrlaudio Posted January 21, 2008 Author Members Share Posted January 21, 2008 I'm implying nothing. I just fear that having its manufacturing 4000 miles away (or whatever the distance is), quality control will be an issue. At least when they were here in the northeast US, where design, manufacturing and QC was in the same building (let alone same country), if EAW had a bad run or design flaw they knew it right away and could stop the run and fix the problem before a whole lot got messed up. Now, if there is a problem they will not know it until they open the many containers off the ships in Washington state. And in that situation many units will have the problem since the entire lot will be affected. Knowing LOUD's track record on this and its apparent cost cutting practices, they will just ship the defects off to the end users and retailers and wait for complaints. Just like they did with the design defect in the Mackie SRM450 loudspeakers where you couldn't replace the diaphrams since the HF driver was molded into the plastic cabinets, which was a change the OEM in china made without Mackie's knowledge. Or so Mackie claims. But they shipped many hundreds of them anyway to retailers, and just waited for users to complain. Some people waited as long as six-months before they had a working speaker in their hands again, if Mackie accepted them for repair which they didn't do in some cases. From what I hear RCF is still in Italy, but who knows in the future. Loud owns them too, and as soon as they can find a manufacturer in china, I'm sure they'll start saving costs there as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members drumstix Posted January 21, 2008 Members Share Posted January 21, 2008 If I remember my history correctly, RCF is no longer a part of LOUD or Mackie and is back in the hands of RCF-Italy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Audiopyle Sound Posted January 21, 2008 Members Share Posted January 21, 2008 RCF has not been owned by LOUD/Mackie for a few years now. The company has expanded their own lines of finished loudspeaker products and at this point does not provide all of the OEM drivers for other speaker mfgrs as they did in the past. Their products are manufactured in Italy, are well built, reliable and sound good. IMO they are also reasonably priced. http://www.rcfaudio.com/home.phtml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jrlaudio Posted January 21, 2008 Author Members Share Posted January 21, 2008 Oh that's good news Mike. I stand corrected, Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mr Blues Posted January 21, 2008 Members Share Posted January 21, 2008 Infact i was at first going to buy the Mackie SRM 350 but the guys at the PA centre encouraged me to try the RCF , it had more power plus sounded better. Plus compact in size and weight, Ideal for my situation and I absolutly love the sound quality. Some say that the mackie sounds louder to be honest I never heard the SRM 350 as the PA shop I brought the RCF from stopped stocking Mackie. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted January 22, 2008 Members Share Posted January 22, 2008 Nope, haven't ever repaired an ATC driver. Sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Hootchapappy Posted January 22, 2008 Members Share Posted January 22, 2008 Yep, I too WAS an ole diehard fan of EAW, until the day they sold out. I have and use a number of the KF650e's and the SB528e's. Both are the road version. Since I bought mine, i've always taken very good care of them. Didnt even try to overdrive them (didnt have to). Since then, Mackie bought out EAW, which totally blew my mind. I was sad, but it got worse when they started screwing up the designs and playing around too much with the guts and such. And then when they moved everything overseas? I'll keep what I have and go elsewhere for my new gear. And now that they are made in CHINA, I cant say that they are safe for me to handle or touch. I say that on a medical standpoint. It seems that everything else coming from china is contaminating us lately, so I'm not taking any chances.... As always, when someone trys to say "New And Improved", you can just about bet it's worthless to consider buying. Since you cant improve on perfection, why even try? If it aint broke, dont fix it. Right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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