[Kevin Haskins]

Thought I'd compose a quick run-down of the new products/services that we are releasing either now or within the next couple months.


#1.   The Exodus EX-700 Monoblocks are ready to ship.   I have yet to update the web site but we are building/shipping product now.    These are our top of the line model and I'm particularly tickled over their price/performance level.   Right now we are only selling a finished version but somewhere down the road I'll probably get the documentation done for a kit.   Assembled Price: $2475/pr with Asylum Cables.   Either XLR or RCA options.



#2.   Bent Audio/Music First Audio TVC Preamps.   I have four TAP-X preamps burning-in right now.   John was down last week and we had a good time sniffing solder.   Watch for Bent Audio stuff (boards, TVCs, TX-103s etc... ) to show up as I get free time to do the web development.   John has done a killer job on these and the S&B TVCs are spectacular.   Expect to see some interesting products coming out that marry some of John's parts & Exodus Hypex amplifiers into a single platform.



#3.  New EX-6.5 Midbass driver.   This is going to be the foundation for our next generation Exodus Speaker Kits.   We took what we learned from the Extremis, added a couple twist including a phase plug, more open basket, curvelinear paper cone, new shorting ring and a proprietary venting system to maximize VC cooling.   I'm particularly fond of this baby, smooth response (+/- 1.5db unsmoothed from 200Hz-2.5K on my measurement baffle), spectacular linearity over its usable stroke (Le < 0.3-0.55 over 15mm PP), really cool looking motor, and it has absolutely gorgeous midrange performance.  The sensitivity is a more traditional 88-89db.   Expect to see the Generation-X lineup of Exodus loudspeaker kits over the next 6-8 months.

#4.  Erse Capacitors, Inductors:   I'm bringing on the entire line of Erse caps and a partial lineup of their inductors.   I like this company... they offer great value and fantastic products.   Expect to see film-foil parts and maybe even a Teflon lineup.



#5.  Expanded Cardas Lineup.    I'll be offering the entire lineup of the Cardas Pro-audio cables and components.   There are lots of good values in this lineup.   The G-Master Reference is my new favorite line level cable.   Great value, great workmanship and Cardas is a fantastic company to work with.

There is more in the cooker but these are the most immediate happenings.   Stay tuned for more details.

[kfr01]

Very exciting.  Keep innovating, Kevin!

[Kevin Haskins]

Very exciting.  Keep innovating, Kevin!

The partnership with John should spin off several interesting Bent/Exodus products.   I'm particularly keen on those since the engineering is pretty much done.   

From a personal standpoint I'm most interested in working on active loudspeaker designs.   Loudspeaker design is my favorite engineering job.   I'm in the process of building a small CNC machine to help me prototype cabinets and experiment more with unusual baffle shapes.    Hopefully that will open up some new tricks for us on the cabinet side of things.

[Voodoo Rufus]

#2: Tubes or not? No tubes would be good (to me at least).

#3: Neodymium or ceramic motor? And here I thought the 2641 was as good as it was going to get. Going to give me something else to dream about now? Any prototype pictures or is patience a good thing?

[Kevin Haskins]

#2: Tubes or not? No tubes would be good (to me at least).

#3: Neodymium or ceramic motor? And here I thought the 2641 was as good as it was going to get. Going to give me something else to dream about now? Any prototype pictures or is patience a good thing?

The integrated is totally passive so I guess you would say "no tubes".   The Hypex units have a nice buffer that I can configure for however much gain I desire.   John's resistor boards will allow for a perfect stepped attenuator (channel to channel matching +/- 0.25db) and no additional noise.   Of course John has done a great job on the interface via remote with balance control, phase swap, source selection etc...

The new motor will use neo, simply to keep weight, size/profile down.   I have a couple of the prototype drivers that I could photo next week.   There is going to be a lot to dream about.... this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of delicious loudspeaker toys.    There are a couple really cool technologies that make significant improvements in loudspeaker/room performance that I've been working on.  One is the the acoustical domain, the other is a signal processing solution that will work great with the Exodus amps.   The goal is to deal with the largest issues facing loudspeaker performance, power response, room-loudspeaker interaction issues, early diffraction effects and large signal distortion products.