DS18 as a reputable company - yes or no?

I've been around the block a few times - so I know better than to ask the you-know-what question. :tape:
It's not about "Is this company good?" I think a better rating of a company is do they do what they say?

So in the decade since I was a dealer, there's a bunch of brands that exist that didn't back then. DS18 is one of those that has me scratching my chin.

Mainly I'm wondering this -
If I go to their website, I actually see some respectable specs on some products - are they true?
I mean, I can't believe the range of products they make... there's some serious money behind them - Look at all this, damn. I think they have some sister-brands too. Maybe not.
That's potentially a good sign, but then again, well, coughBOSScough.

And Skar also has lots of product lines and money behind them (and specs), but something about them just really rubs me wrong. I can't put my finger on it.

All I know is last fall, I did a system in a friend's car, needed an LOC for it, randomly picked up a DS18 one, and was actually surprised at the high build quality, and it worked fine.

Any DS18 dealers out there? Are they reputable? Actual real specs?

BigDWiz tested a couple of their amps...an older one didn't make rated power, but the newer one was close to rated at 4ohms, but slightly over at 2 and 1 ohm.
I've never dealt with Skar, but several people claim to have been screwed over by the owner in years past, but I don't know if it was initial growing pains.

Yeah I'm with you on not being able to place your finger on what makes you second guess them a bit. I ran a Skar 4 channel for a few months and had no issues with it....it got warm one time but I was HAMMERING on it one day like it owed me money. Other than that...their stuff seems decent. I have a friend that's running their 3k currently and it is savage.

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Originally Posted by geolemon

I've been around the block a few times - so I know better than to ask the you-know-what question. :tape:
It's not about "Is this company good?" I think a better rating of a company is do they do what they say?

So in the decade since I was a dealer, there's a bunch of brands that exist that didn't back then. DS18 is one of those that has me scratching my chin.

Mainly I'm wondering this -
If I go to their website, I actually see some respectable specs on some products - are they true?
I mean, I can't believe the range of products they make... there's some serious money behind them - Look at all this, damn. I think they have some sister-brands too. Maybe not.
That's potentially a good sign, but then again, well, coughBOSScough.

And Skar also has lots of product lines and money behind them (and specs), but something about them just really rubs me wrong. I can't put my finger on it.

All I know is last fall, I did a system in a friend's car, needed an LOC for it, randomly picked up a DS18 one, and was actually surprised at the high build quality, and it worked fine.

Any DS18 dealers out there? Are they reputable? Actual real specs?

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I've partly done a small deep dive because I came across an amp line that's cosmetically perfect for my install... I even already have some of this mesh on hand to use in my install:
Attachment 15817
Thought it looked cool, but also integrates with my car:
Attachment 15818
I've been shopping for compact amps, and came across these - which I think could look killer on top of an under-glass hatch floor amp rack whose floor would be a sandwich of 1/2" clear acrylic and that black mesh, with the lower chamber backlit with red LEDs:
Attachment 15819
I've also just ordered all the supplies to make my own custom RCAs including some fancy plugs, to route cables in the amp rack to the millimeter. These amps have RCA jacks right on board which would look much cooler than some of my other, potentially higher end options.
If I could have an RF T750x1bd and two RF T400x4ad that looked like these I'd do it. Not that the RF don't look good, but the RCA dongles are going to take extra work and extra space to make look nice.

The thing is - these things are almost cheap enough to impulse buy and try... but I can't discount my installation time and materials either, for the amp rack, routing, making cables, etc. All would be throwaway if they are crap.

Anyway - what I can find:
These amps are a new product line owned by DS18 that's supposed to be a "higher end" product according to their marketing, but that doesn't make sense because the prices are downright cheap. Who knows what "higher end" means to a company like DS18? I suspect DS18 is a brand from south America, with all their horns and pro-audio-emulating drivers... the fact that they sell a remote for their equipment that can work for up to 1.8 miles away - that doesn't exactly say "SQ" :lol:

I was thinking maybe they share the guts with the DS18 Candy line, because the dimensions look similar and I would expect a company like this to possibly do parts sharing like that.... but that's just a hypothesis based on nothing, and it's equally possible that they could be a de-tuned version as much as they could be an up-tuned version, even if there was truth to my guess.
They claim 0.1% THD - who knows if that's accurate, if that's full range or just at 1Khz...

Oh, how a part of me wishes they'd be good, matching that cosmetic... :lol:

Lol, now that you mention it they do come across as a fancier looking PRV line. Even down to their neo mids having the same type of magnet as some PRVs I've seen on Parts Express. They definitely were at car shows touting how loud they could get but their mids rarely drop below 100-125 hz and go all the way up to like 8k.

You're right though, it would go beautifully with your setup. I don't know if I would play that game. I was feeling the same way about trying to get this Orion amp that was "H class" and was basically a 3500x2 amplifier to drive my subs. Only problem was I couldn't find anywhere that didn't make me nervous to purchase it. I know Orion has a deeper rep than DS18 could hope to have but it still seems like their distribution is janky. DS18 being sold on Amazon makes me feel odd about it as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by geolemon

I've partly done a small deep dive because I came across an amp line that's cosmetically perfect for my install... I even already have some of this mesh on hand to use in my install:
Attachment 15817
Thought it looked cool, but also integrates with my car:
Attachment 15818
I've been shopping for compact amps, and came across these - which I think could look killer on top of an under-glass hatch floor amp rack whose floor would be a sandwich of 1/2" clear acrylic and that black mesh, with the lower chamber backlit with red LEDs:
Attachment 15819
I've also just ordered all the supplies to make my own custom RCAs including some fancy plugs, to route cables in the amp rack to the millimeter. These amps have RCA jacks right on board which would look much cooler than some of my other, potentially higher end options.
If I could have an RF T750x1bd and two RF T400x4ad that looked like these I'd do it. Not that the RF don't look good, but the RCA dongles are going to take extra work and extra space to make look nice.

The thing is - these things are almost cheap enough to impulse buy and try... but I can't discount my installation time and materials either, for the amp rack, routing, making cables, etc. All would be throwaway if they are crap.

Anyway - what I can find:
These amps are a new product line owned by DS18 that's supposed to be a "higher end" product according to their marketing, but that doesn't make sense because the prices are downright cheap. Who knows what "higher end" means to a company like DS18? I suspect DS18 is a brand from south America, with all their horns and pro-audio-emulating drivers... the fact that they sell a remote for their equipment that can work for up to 1.8 miles away - that doesn't exactly say "SQ" :lol:

I was thinking maybe they share the guts with the DS18 Candy line, because the dimensions look similar and I would expect a company like this to possibly do parts sharing like that.... but that's just a hypothesis based on nothing, and it's equally possible that they could be a de-tuned version as much as they could be an up-tuned version, even if there was truth to my guess.
They claim 0.1% THD - who knows if that's accurate, if that's full range or just at 1Khz...

Oh, how a part of me wishes they'd be good, matching that cosmetic... :lol:

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To me, DS18 seems like equipment for the younger crowd that likes loud music, but not really "SQ" gear. In fact their motto is "WeLikeItLoud", so there you go... :-) It's stuff that looks cool, but not really at the performance level that SQ folks typically look for. That is just my impression though. I've bought a few DS18 items - a 5-channel LOC, which has a decent build quality, but I never actually used it - and some "high quality" RCA cables, which seem pretty crappy (again, I never actually used them in a real install - just on my test bench). They are definitely not what I'd consider "high quality" RCA cables though. :-)

Personally, to me - they seem like the Pyle, Boss, Skar, Planet Audio, etc brands. Inexpensive gear that looks cool and plays loud, but not really "SQ"-level gear.

Again - that is just my impression though...

Sent from my ASUS Chromebook Flip C302 using Tapatalk

Well that's my guess as well - except I wouldn't trust some of those brands to be good OR loud.

I don't know if you are familiar with Brazil's flavor of car audio, but there's a thing where they build systems to be as loud OUTSIDE the car as possible. It's really bizarre:
https://www.pinterest.com.au/veejay3...-soundsystems/
With all the pro-audio type stage gear, I am speculating that these are part of that "brazillian" amp scene, but I'm totally guessing. And that "loud" motto... although you know, Kicker has always been "We like it loud", right? I used to sell Kicker and they have some good sounding stuff too.

Parts Express recently started carrying DS18, and that's interesting to me because I just heard an interview with a Parts Express manager - I forget his name but he was being interviewed in part because he took over the car audio division of Parts Express, and was planning to introduce some car audio brands that were higher quality but still affordable. And it seems like DS18 is the first one of those that PE now carries, so I have no idea how much evaluation PE has done, but it's a DIY supply house. Of course, not everything PE sells is high-end - in fact they skew more low-end, so as much as I love PE, part of my love is that there's a hunt for diamonds in the rough. It's fun. Not necessarily a confidence inspiring "everything over there is good".

I'm grounded in reality, but part of me is still wishing someone pops in this thread and says "You won't believe it, but I'm a dealer and... it's not crap!" :lol:

Honestly, I'm even half wondering if I could send it to an amp tweaker to have it recapped, and perhaps make other mods to MAKE it not crap. I'm already planning on providing some external support for filtering and smoothing the voltage supply in. It sure would free up a LOT of budget for amp mods! :lol:
Do we have any amp repair/mod pros among us? :hmm: Could be at least worth a chat before I move on and buy the RF's or a Helix V Eight DSP and P6...

Chinese build houses are great at making things that are stylish and look high end. Getting them to make a consistently good product on the other hand typically takes massive oversight/cost, or massive volume and budget.

But hey, those are cheap, they can't be that bad right?

Actually your comment is perfect for expressing some of the reasons that I started this thread, while others might dismiss the thread with a sense of incredulity - and their incredulity makes sense in today's USA, at least. If you don't mind my indulging for that sake as opposed to "directly responding to you":

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Originally Posted by FAUEE

Chinese build houses are great at making things that are stylish and look high end. Getting them to make a consistently good product on the other hand typically takes massive oversight/cost, or massive volume and budget.

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About 15 years ago (and true story - because of a relationship I had in the car audio industry with the owner of Pro Tech, who also was a head sales agent for a local contract manufacturing assembler for aerospace and military) I was one of three founding members of an SMT contract manufacturing business - pick-and-place automated circuit board manufacturing. I programmed and occasionally ran the lines, once the facility was set up. This was true high-end manufacturing, of devices that were manufactured to highest specifications far exceeding consumer-grade electronics, and subject to substantial post-manufacturing inspection and testing, as you'd expect of electronics that keep people alive or are running a satellite in space that can't be serviced or replaced. This is the kind of manufacturing that remains in the USA, and there's many valid reasons for that.

The reality is, equipment and manufacturing don't work differently in China than anywhere else in the world. There's truly an unjustified "Made in America is better" perception that really comes from pride and propaganda. Part of my perception of reality comes from a painful awareness of "you can't generalize". They have the same SMT equipment as we had in our much-smaller facility - plus a much larger capacity. And they are nearly ALL contract-manufacturing facilities.

More importantly - most of these Asian countries (China included) have done a FAR better job embracing Deming's Lean Manufacturing methodologies than the US has. It's what led Toyota (closely followed by Honda) to be a global leader in quality while simultaneously reducing expenses and waste in the 1980's - and in the '00's allowed Hyundai and Kia to leapfrog from "laughing stock" to "global leaders" in quality and competitiveness. It's no different in China. Yes, "they" (again - you can't generalize, hence the quotes) have some history of laughable shameless faux-clones of products - but so did Hyundai in the early '00s. Look at their quality ranking today... even look at it 10 years ago. Quality CAN improve quickly!

The truth is - China does a FAR better job of investing in manufacturing BECAUSE they have a socialized capitalist system. (but despite the con-man ineptitude and awareness-masking propaganda of 4 years of Trump - don't blame any iteration of the US government either - the reality is China is also physically positioned ideally in the world for global trade - including access to precious metals and materials that we inherently incur import difficulties and expenses on. There's no "just open manufacturing plants in the USA" argument, as many Malaise-era factory-worker former middle-class families unfortunately ignorantly lament today - and that ignorant lamenting is a huge part of the problem causing our middle class to continue to decline in income) By contrast, the USA has a purely privatized capitalized system - and one that's currently inarguably skewed to afford incumbent too-big-to-fail companies all the advantages and benefits, and smaller start-up attempts (not to mention mom-and-pop size businesses) all the penalties. And yet all the conservative marketing efforts today are aimed at divisiveness that's required to hold power, rather than make the USA globally competitive. That's a serious problem, when the conservative parties are supposed to be the ones MOST focused on our economic health. Starting a trade war is flat-out arrogant denial of reality, and that's strengthened China further, while weakening the USA further. It's even weakened high-end contract manufacturing like that company I cofounded.

Sure, any given USA-based car audio manufacturer could "step up" and build according to any set of standards they want - at great expense to them - including reduced customer base - especially in today's world, where middle class incomes continue to fall, and awareness of these global manufacturing realities continues to be whitewashed. But here's the rub: So can any Chinese company. They are, in fact, in a better position to do that. Those laughable Chinese copies of products are the result of having SO many factories that you don't want any sitting idle. Even many of THOSE factories are inherently geared up, laid out, and staffed to support Deming's Lean Manufacturing principles. Or not. Selectively, based on product needs.

...meanwhile, in the USA - our government is bailing out GM and Ford for the reduced sales that naturally resulted from them simply failing to produce competitive products - and ironically, the "I buy American" bumper sticker crowd gave those companies management a sense of arrogance that "we can do anything we want, and people will buy our stuff anyway!" It's ironic because the crux of the unregulated capitalist free-market economy is supposed to be that "natural market forces" will eliminate the need for regulations and government interventions. And that might be true, if it weren't for the depth of American consumer and American economic propaganda that causes people with the best patriotic intentions to actually be the forces stopping the progress that's needed to be competitive and actually create jobs in the USA.

The TL;DR version - Don't believe the hype. China is better prepared to implement Lean Manufacturing workflows and produce higher quality products than the USA is, even though they are also better prepared to produce better-quality low-cost products than the USA is.

Consistency is actually an advantage that the Chinese have. Sure, they are manufacturing consumer-grade electronics. No, they aren't making $5000 circuit boards that are X-ray inspected and pre-tested so they can be shot into space - neither are any American consumer electronics companies. But everything from their often-newer equipment, to the processes used to manage larger manufacturing facilities using Lean Manufacturing principles, is an advantage that Chinese manufacturing can embrace.

The reasons that cheaper Chinese products are often lower grade has nothing to do with consistency - if you engineer something sub-par, and spec it with a minimal bill-of-materials using not only the cheapest available, but giving the manufacturer free-reign to substitute any parts they find that can increase profit margin further - they can just as consistently manufacture crap as they could manufacture anything else. Including quality products.

The USA's "natural market forces" actually encourage "higher profit margin" over "higher quality". Especially for consumer grade products... which ALL of car audio is - without exception.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FAUEE

But hey, those are cheap, they can't be that bad right?

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It follows that "cheap" and "not bad" literally ARE Deming's Lean Manufacturing principles. In fact "inexpensive", "low waste/high efficiency" and "highest quality" are Lean Manufacturing principles.

It also follows that today's "high end" and "crap" are often differences in the engineering of the boards, with some (but less!) dependency also on the actual parts specified on the bill of materials, and freedom for substitutions given to the contract manufacturer. It's not black magic.
Even today's mid-grade boards are often "crap" boards that have been cost-effectively re-engineered and optimized with minor updates made to Chinese-engineered salad-bar contract-manufacturing offerings that are available in the Chinese open market. Honestly, I don't hate that approach - take something sub-par and make it better by engineering away the flaws. Why not? Well - one "why not" is because the minimums required to modify core components goes up substantially, so it is only a strategy that LARGER mid-grade companies can do.

Back when I was coordinating engineering and manufacturing of subwoofers in the car audio industry for small brands, those minimums were real limitations that were (to me) fun to process-engineer around. We built a high-excursion subwoofer that we could have engineered for over 30mm of one-way, flat-BL excursion - but there were no open-market baskets available with enough spacing between the spider landing and cone, much less sufficiently sized spider landing to even facilitate a flat-CMS spider to go with the flat-BL motor. To create our own custom baskets would have cost about $20,000 per basket size. Since our manufacturing runs were on the order of 25 or 50 subwoofers per-size - there's no way to distribute $60,000 in tooling expense across 150 subwoofers. The baskets alone would cost more than $400 each. Actual "cost" per sub would be over $500 each, after manufacturing, before ingestion shipping. We'd have to sell for over $1000 direct to make significantly less than 50% profit margin - or support a dealer network with an MSRP of $2000 to give ourselves the same sub-par margin, and a product the dealer wasn't discouraged from selling (why sell a less-profitable expensive sub, over a more-profitable easier-to-sell inexpensive sub that you could sell multiples of with less effort?).
Now, on the other hand, if you are a JL or a Kicker, and will be manufacturing tens of thousands - who cares about $60K in tooling expenses? Hey, why not also make molds for some plastic or rubber covers that make our magnets look bigger? It'll only cost another buck or two and all the kids will go "Oooh!" [emoji106] It's all about scale and that's what the Chinese ALSO do best.

So I'm open minded about companies like DS18, who appear to have the business mass that would generate the income needed to have the engineering staff capable of utilizing that strategy. The downside is that I don't know IF they do that - or even want to do that. So you start to look for clues... in their marketing materials... do they list full specs or do they appear to be hiding some... or maybe even are marketing exclusively to people who say "What are specs?"... do they print bogus wattage numbers (especially if on their heatsinks, for no necessarily valid reason other than going back to that who-are-they-marketing-to approach)... etc.

There's still some larger manufacturers who do engineer their own boards (RF, Kicker, JL) as well as smaller SQ brands who are enjoying success in today's car audio market. Lots of those manufacture in China as well. And by manufacture, I mean "the circuit board", even though by law they are allowed to stick that circuit board in a heatsink and screw a bottom panel down and say "Made in the USA" on the box they stick it in.

So basically - that's the background. I really still know nothing of DS18... seems not many people do, despite the HUGE catalog of product they offer!

But at any rate I ended up going neither this route NOR the RF T-series route...
Perhaps somewhat lamenting the DLS Ultimate A3 and A6 that I didn't ever use and have been sitting in my (climate controlled!) storage for a decade now, I picked up one DLS-CC1000 and two DLS-CCi44 and figured out a way to make three fairly-compact amps fit where I was planning to fit two super-compact amps. Since I do know DLS's history and target customer, I have better confidence buying blind - something that I hate to do, as any of us do.
So for my needs at this point this is a moot thread, although I'd still love to learn if these are crap or not.

So, I'll take your theory and raise you real world experience.

China COULD implement quality. In fact, they often do.. But it doesn't come free. The vast majority of the time though, they play the odds, because it's cheaper, and their customers are going to China for cheaper. So they sample 1 in 10k pieces or something, do no in process checks, ignore their process indicators in the name of longer run times, etc.

Certainly, there's been companies that have made it work. But 90% of them don't, and the ones that do charge what it would cost to do it in the US.

Again, a cheap amp made in China is likely going to be just that, a cheap amp, unless it's selling in large volume or super thin margin, but electronics have pretty slim margins in general outside of boutique brands.