weber speakers

[RWood]

Does anyone know if Weber speakers are made in USA?
Their website has a banner which states all speakers and products are made by hand, which led me to believe that they make them here but the tranny I bought had a made in China sticker on one of its leads.
Do they import "made by Chinese hands speakers" like some Celestions are...after all it doesn't state " made by hand in the USA.

[pops]

I believe Weber speakers are made here, and not until you order them. I don't believe they inventory a lot of speakers.

[rock_mumbles]

TAWeber says all of their speaker are made in the US ... where the components come from, who knows

most of their components and all Weber brand transformers are from china ...

[TUBEDUDE]

I remember many years ago Ted talked about sourcing the parts for his speakers from locals who were retired machinists and such from the auto industry.

[Scumback Speakers]

They have speakers made in USA and overseas. The overseas models were made in Asia (where exactly I don't remember). I know this because I loved one of their 10" "Signature" series in my old Gibsonette.

But one of my clients bought it from me with the amp, so I can't tell you which one. I did write a recommendation for it, though. Ted was appreciative, but told me that one came from Asia (Malaysia, somewhere over there), it wasn't built in the US.

[Structo]

Jim, when you started out, didn't Weber build your speakers to your specs?

If I recall, after awhile they didn't meet your expectations so you switched manufacturers.

If I am wrong, of course I wound appreciate your input.

[Scumback Speakers]

Tom, when Ted Sr. was alive they were built to specs, but as his health declined, he wasn't there to make sure they kept making them to my specs. It's a tough time frame to call but around the end of 2008 things got dicey.

By the middle of 2010, there were lots of goofs, sometimes over 1/2 an order or more. I started having lots of failures, then I paid to have them examined by a Celestion warranty shop in early 2011 and found the shortcuts and shortcomings of the builds. After comparing to the original prototypes I was told there were...issues. After many emailed excuses from TA about the problems, I flew back to straighten it out.

I had them rebuild a speaker they built, then rebuilt, that failed (twice) in front of me. I guess they figured I wouldn't know if they tried to pull a fast one. I did.

I made arrangements to take over production in late April after seeing they no longer had the will, capacity or skills to build my speakers anymore.

Now I build them, and have a couple of guys I've trained that build as well. I'm still doing mostly the emails, shipping/packing, recommendations, and demos...not to mention sweeping, vacuuming and cleaning the toilets in the shop! Being sick with that nasty chest cold wasn't fun for two weeks plus, either.

January was such a nutty month, it took all three of us to build the 300 speakers that were ordered around being sick, NAMM, etc. We're packing up the last 100 tomorrow to ship out on Friday.

Then I'm taking the weekend off...finally. Uh, kind of went on a rant...sorry!

It's the Mucinex DM that makes me do it.

[rooster]

Woah, Jim, when you say the warranty center showed you the short cuts that weber made, what in the world could that be? All I can think of here is that they didn't glue something together - but there's only three areas that require glue and they are all visible.

Sorry to question this, but honestly I have never had a weber speaker fail. And I will admit I have seen some poorly built ones. Speaker that did not have their voice coils centered in the magnetic field, for example. But that's my only complaint.

[skyboltone]

Tom, when Ted Sr. was alive they were built to specs, but as his health declined, he wasn't there to make sure they kept making them to my specs. It's a tough time frame to call but around the end of 2008 things got dicey.

By the middle of 2010, there were lots of goofs, sometimes over 1/2 an order or more. I started having lots of failures, then I paid to have them examined by a Celestion warranty shop in early 2011 and found the shortcuts and shortcomings of the builds. After comparing to the original prototypes I was told there were...issues. After many emailed excuses from TA about the problems, I flew back to straighten it out.

I had them rebuild a speaker they built, then rebuilt, that failed (twice) in front of me. I guess they figured I wouldn't know if they tried to pull a fast one. I did.

I made arrangements to take over production in late April after seeing they no longer had the will, capacity or skills to build my speakers anymore.

Now I build them, and have a couple of guys I've trained that build as well. I'm still doing mostly the emails, shipping/packing, recommendations, and demos...not to mention sweeping, vacuuming and cleaning the toilets in the shop! Being sick with that nasty chest cold wasn't fun for two weeks plus, either.

January was such a nutty month, it took all three of us to build the 300 speakers that were ordered around being sick, NAMM, etc. We're packing up the last 100 tomorrow to ship out on Friday.

Then I'm taking the weekend off...finally. Uh, kind of went on a rant...sorry!

It's the Mucinex DM that makes me do it.

That's sad Jim. I know you're a perfectionist and that's a VERY good thing in your business. I've seen this sort of thing several times in my life. One that comes to mind was a guy about 30 y/o who inherited a 100 year old family owned florist and ran it to destruction in a little under a year. Up his nose unfortunately.

I ordered a ceramic Californian for a client last year and it was fine but it is NOT a D112.

Oh well. I was thinking about giving the Fane Sovereign copy a try. Maybe not.

[Scumback Speakers]

Woah, Jim, when you say the warranty center showed you the short cuts that weber made, what in the world could that be? All I can think of here is that they didn't glue something together - but there's only three areas that require glue and they are all visible.

Sorry to question this, but honestly I have never had a weber speaker fail. And I will admit I have seen some poorly built ones. Speaker that did not have their voice coils centered in the magnetic field, for example. But that's my only complaint.

I could go on at length, but it's just bad karma and memories of a poor business partner that didn't keep up their end of the agreement. If you really want to know, call me.

[Turret]

Kindergarden

[rooster]

No worries, Jim. I deal with a reconer here locally on occasion, that's why I asked. I buy the parts and he does the work so I have inspected more than a few speakers. And like I said, forgetting the tone of the speaker and all the ingredients that that might require, typically when I end up with a crappy speaker it has been because of a poor voice coil placement. And yeah, I have had a few Webers like that.

By the way, the test for this is to put a 9V battery on the terminals and pulse the speaker in both directions. If the coil is not centered, the speaker will jump in one direction more than the other. Also, FWIW, I had this explained to me by Ted Sr., who said this happens because the surround is not at a right angle to the center line of the cone when the speaker was built - and that a good reconer could prevent this by making sure the cone surround was pre bent to the correct position. Haha! So it is always funny to see this coming from Weber, obviously somebody there knew something at one time or another. (And this is no dis on Brian who works there, he has produced some beautiful recones for me over the years.)

[Scumback Speakers]

Well, I hate to burst your bubble about Brian Spane, but it was Brian who I caught doing the recone of the M75 100w wrong, which is one reason why I elected to produce them myself.

As I said, it's not the same as it was when Ted Sr. was still alive.

[rooster]

Jim. I got your phone message, thanks, I understand your issues. As to Brian messing something up, I appreciate your input. I still have to defend the work he has done for me. Now Ted Jr., he concerns me, and for reasons I won't go into. Ha! Take care. Jim.

[RWood]

I have serious doubts that they make all (if any) speakers here with the way almost all companies do business these days, and they won't convince me otherwise.

It's not that Chinese speakers are inferior, I am just tired of seeing jobs going offshore while companies try to appear to offer locally made products. If it's Asian just say so!

That being said... the bass speaker I received was well made as far as I can tell and sounds great. Much better than the Celestion I got last year.