Friends,
Well...we had a couple of other little "snags" last week that slowed things down, but we managed to get another pair out. We also managed to get a bunch of "prep" work done too. Got some boxes/shipping materials made, wires made (you know they're not "ordinary" internal wires - right?) and crossovers ready to "drop in." Now it's "plug and chug." I can say this much, many of you will definitely be getting them before Christmas - all of the "early" guys anyway.
Oh...just so you know - I didn't mean to mislead anybody on those first cherry units. They went to the first 2 guys that ordered and neither of them are AC members or even get on the Internet. The first guy had been waiting since June and was the one that "inspired" me to build the Minis in the first place, and the other is an older gentleman that is a "friend of a friend" and lives in our area. I only made mention of them to show that "hey...we are starting to actually build them." That may not have been a lot of consolation to you AC members, but I figured it was better than saying "nope - still haven't started shipping yet." At least you knew we were finally entering that phase. Sorry...looking back maybe it wasn't such a good idea.
Anyway, the only future bottleneck I see on the horizon is getting more crossover parts from Mundorf. We made so little money on the first batch that it didn't leave us anything to order more parts with when we should have. I have enough in stock to do a number of orders but I'm going to run out. Hopefully the "slow boat from Germany" doesn't hold up our new order too long. I don't think it will though as now we have a "relationship" established with Mundorf and know what parts they can and can't deliver quickly. Specifically, their "top end" silver-gold caps and wire is stuff they don't keep much stock of and often have to build to order. Sorry...no silver-gold in the Minis at this price, but at least we don't have to wait either.
In retrospect, I think the low profit margin/low introductory price backfired on us. The idea was to use it as a form of advertising. Time will tell if that was a good move or not. I think it will have been in the long run but it has been a serious source of the delays. We didn't have enough $$$ to order any more parts from our enclosure part vendor than we absolutely needed. I think they viewed our order as "small potatoes" and sort of worked on it at their "convenience."
That's the kind of crap us small manufacturers have to put up with. Unless you order a "gazillion" parts from a lot of these vendors, they act like they're "doing you a favor" just to take your order. In fact, a lot of them won't if you don't have pretty big numbers for them. Then the ones that do often treat you like a "red headed step-child."
I think if we would have been able to order more parts they would have been a little more "attentive" to our needs.
Oh well... what's done is done. For those of you that have been able to "hang in there with us" we sincerely thank you for your patience. We're pretty sure you're going to agree that the wait was well worth it. Had I thought they were going to turn out this good I wouldn't have sold them so cheap. If there are any of you that are tired of waiting and want to "throw in the towel" - believe me, I understand. You don't even want to know what it's been like on my end. The only positive thing is that I don't have as many gray hairs left... I've pulled most of them out!
So that's the scoop. We're moving as fast as 2.5 guys can. They're going out now as I speak.
Take care,
-Bob
