Owners of Meniscus Audio are retiring :(

[cavedriver]

As a recently new customer of theirs I'm saddened to hear they are closing:

One moment, please...

 

[alex-z]

Terribly unfortunate, their kit bundles were a major convenience when recommending DIY builds to people. Parts Express stocks a lot of parts, but you have to manually hunt down all the components and verify they match the original build plans.

 

[VeerK]

End of an era, have been a customer of Meniscus over the years and found them always pleasant to work with.

 

[Rick Sykora]

Ouch, that does hurt…

Any word on plans for the designs and IP they own? Namely, they held a number of Bagby’s designs.

 

[cavedriver]

Ouch, that does hurt…

Any word on plans for the designs and IP they own? Namely, they held a number of Bagby’s designs.

I think someone needs to ask them. The letter mentions keeping the website up for a while and being available for questions, but will they license the designs to other kit vendors and allow them to market them? I don't know. I'm not good enough at running businesses to ask them to sell it all to me or I would.

 

[Wolf]

I've talked with several people close, and it seems that there are some things happening in the near future, as in maybe a kit or 2 that were just shy of release, and the fact that they are trying to keep some of Jeff's kits alive at least for at least a little while longer. He is keeping the CNC.

You have to realize that Mark has been doing this since the mid '80s. With the loss of a close friend recently, difficulties keeping items in stock, inventory dwindling due to, and fairly recent issues where profit margin has been eliminated in a large number of products, it is likely just the perfect storm. It is just the right time.

I will miss the candy with my orders....

 

[Rick Sykora]

Between PE and Madisound, seems they should be able to offer kits where they already have the drivers. Anybody smaller faces the same supply issues that make it a tough business for anyone to take over. I would love to do it, but is just not profitable enough.

 

[dtaylo1066]

Sad to hear this. Best of luck. Please allow someone to post your kit designs for the future. Thanks for all you did!

 

[badspeakerdesigner]

Crazy they are closing buy diysoundgroup keeps things open despite basically not having stock on anything for what feels like years.

 

[tiggerkater55]

hello everybody,
what happens to the built-plans of bagby´s kairos e.g.? i would love to build them, but without plans, i am lost...
kind regards!

 

[cavedriver]

hello everybody,
what happens to the built-plans of bagby´s kairos e.g.? i would love to build them, but without plans, i am lost...
kind regards!

you can still message the meniscus email address and they may send you the plans. It had been said they were going to request that people donate to the original designers in exchange but since Jeff passed away I'm not sure if anyone in his estate cares or if someone acquired his designs.

 

[Prana Ferox]

That's interesting, I had been planning to build a Helios pair at some point and had been wondering the same thing. Now that I google it I see that Madisound offers the kit (and it's nicely come up in price.)

 

[Rick Sykora]

Not looking very promising at this point. If no major legal questions are in play, the designs could simply be published. Given that has not happened, the intellectual property could be tied up for decades. In even less time, drivers change or get discontinued. The Dayton ES180 used in Craig’s Integrity is already NLA. Any design using a Peerless driver is likely obsolete given their DIY market exit.

On a positive note, we have better, less expensive design tools now. Driver options and values are improving too. Any older designs often lack sufficient measurements to help compare them to alternative offerings. We are also fortunate to have newer designers that do more comprehensive measurements than in the past. Hopefully, we will soon have enough newer designs that we can forget about ones that are lost and/or no longer viable.

 

[tiggerkater55]

hi rick,
yes you are right, but it seems that the chassis from sb acoustics are still available and good to build with....
so would be still a nice project, right?

 

[Rick Sykora]

hi rick,
yes you are right, but it seems that the chassis from sb acoustics are still available and good to build with....
so would be still a nice project, right?

Seems promising but even with Jeff’s seal on it, would be better to have some measurements to be sure. Along with a driver revision, this made validating his Mandolins more problematic when I built them. Am a bit of a stickler notably when am shipping a speaker for Amir to review, but if am building something I have devoted money and time to buy, want to know I am attaining the best desired outcome.

This can be said for buying a completed speaker too. As I spent more to get better speakers, I encountered some that were not a well-matched pair. In this case though, at least you usually have a warranty to potentially remediate. Since DIY speakers usually cannot rely on warranty, think it is essential to be able to validate them to a known baseline. At a minimum for me, this means an impedance and phase plot and on-axis response under documented conditions.