BigPaul

LOL

Simple way to put it is look at the price of the HDC3 12, then go look at the price of a Digital Designs 9512 that is roughly 3-4 times the price while they are very similar woofers with the HDC3 line being a generation behind in tech usually it seems.

Why you are paying more for the DD woofer is because the cones (and surrounds I believe) are actually made in Wisconsin, I forget where the spiders are made but are US made, carbonfiber dustcaps and composite cones are made in house at DD, the voice coil is made at Precision Econowind in FL (which many companies will use on their higher tier subs (dd, dc, fi, aa, sundown, etc)), their CA glue comes from Cyberbond in IL, and their dust cap rubber glue and clear glue for composite dustcaps comes from CP Moyen in IL. However the steel, ferrite or neo, and basket are still coming from China, but built to spec that said company actually researched and tested and continuously improved prior to releasing the driver. Now the SoundQubed line is basic off the shelf parts picked from a catalog without much done to them to make them special. Meanwhile American Bass offers the same damn woofers with a different logo on them.

This is one reason I like Sundown, they are always showing you what they are working on and upgrade, revision after revision until its ready to replace a current model, not many companies seem to really do this besides them and Pride from what I noticed. Also year after year Sundown has their bargain sale where they clean out the shop and sell b-stock items, items taken in on trade, and misc prototypes which are usually revisions of upgrades that they built and tested over and over. Plus I think they are the only company saying Assembled in USA and not built in USA with no mention of the Chinese parts as if everything was USA sourced when that is far from the truth.

/rant

with all this free info, I'm going to be upset if you buy some L7's, lol