Ok. I'm going to bitch a little. I've installing Sonance for about 8 years. I have had so few defects, I've eaten the one I have encountered. I almost never needed replacement parts or had a problem with quality. In the last 3 weeks, I've had more than my share.

Complaint #1. New Mariners install easily and look nice but aren't waterproof like their predecessors. EVERY pair I have installed low on a deck with about a 5 degree tilt up has filled with water and smoked the crossovers. Sonance says I'm the only one. Hmmmm. I have had to resort to drilling a hole in the cabinet. I have a job where I replaced 6 year old Mariner 100s with the nice new Mariner 62s. Fill completely in 2 rain storms but the 100s were dry after 6 years and never taken down/in. CRAP!!!

Complaint #2. DAB1 tuner is garbage. Sonance is aware of this and said its too good and needs a 6 db attenuator. Hogwash. JUNK

Complaint #3. As you guys know, I install stuff at/near the beach. There Extreme speakers ain't so Extreme. Over the last year, the grills rust in weeks. I have a job with 5 pairs that are 4 weeks old and they are rusting. I haven't even gotten my final payment. I went on a service call from a September install and their Extreme grills are completely rust colored. Another year and they'll be gone. Sonance says, I'm the only one. I find it hard to believe. CRAP CHINESE STAINLESS!

I have other rants to like @V#D Billing, decorators, unrealistic expectations, OK I ll quit. Rant off.

Sonance is all hype...I got sucked in when I first got started an did a couple big jobs in all Sonance. After both jobs fired up I could not believe how shitty they sounded. I used all the product up and down the line even including their THX theater speakers etc. etc.

never again...they sound horrible compared to the majority of the speakers on the market at any price.

What were you using for electronics?? I have used Sonance for many years with good results as far as in walls go. Just finished up a job with the Symphony 823's I believe with Crestron electronics.

Dan and I thought the set-up sounded just fine.

I'll add to your rant. I've inherited a retail store project that has a plethora of about 30 of their amplified volume controls. Approximately every six months, one of the 4 or 5 power supplies up and dies, and a potentiometer wears out on the VCs. After replacing all of them twice over, I contacted Sonance to see about having them repaired and obtaining replacement pots to fix them myself. I was told that they don't offer parts for these items as they come to them assembled from the Orient. The only recourse is to pitch them instead of replacing a 25 cent part because they can't tell me where to buy it.

I go back 20 years with Sonance; back when they made four models of speakers and not much else. For those who don't know, they used to come packaged in boxes that had the American flag stickered all over the sides.

How far we've come in this wonderful global economy.

At work my boss loves them... another line he "can't afford not to sell."

Boy, am I glad that this was posted now. A rep just brought my some catalogs, and wants to bring the Sonanace guy out to talk to me. I was impressed with how the Mariners mount, but have not heard them.

I currently sell Boston Acoustics right now and not much else. I was looking for a line to take me to the next level. Not that I have any problems with Boston, I love the speakers, and feel it is a great line, but it has its limitations with the customer base. I wanted a little higher end speaker. I didn't want to do Polk because everyone and their brother can buy Polk from A*&D. So any suggestions on another line to look at?

I have Boston and Sonance, I sell the boston 10 to 1 over the sonance, if they want crap sound for cheap I use the sonance, if they want more than the big boston's I use the monster sonance, but keep that boston line, nobody walks into my store and asks for sonance, however they do frequently ask for boston or at least say they have heard of it and want to hear it.

Triad

We sell the Triads and really like them, but mainly use them for the theater and better listening zones. We have been using Speakercraft but looking to another line as well..

Does anyone use Truaudio, Connextion, Monitor Audio Inwall or In ceilings?
Just a few lines we are looking to move too

Speakercraft is on us about keeping our minimum and we seem to have fallen short by a few $$ and dropped us faster than a hot potato....nice support when they drop you for doing your best...you can only sell so much

NHT

A speaker company that is named Now Hear This. Gotta love that name. Speakers are pretty good too. I still miss my 2.9s.

It's a business descision. I'm sure you've dropped a line in your time, and the mfr without doubt feels they did their best for you. IMHO, mfrs drop too few dealers for lack of performance (including me) to their own detriment.

Sorry you lost the line, but if you're small enough for Speakercraft to drop you, thay may be a good thing. There are plenty of other lines that want small dealers that offer great sonics, good margin and good service. I sell Monitor, and plan to do more with them.

I really liked the last generation of Sonance products for low/mid level projects.

I don't know about you guys, but I actually liked the Flex bars for mounting the rectangular product.

They have gone away from the few things that actually set their product ahead in my eyes:
1) Flex bars on the rectangular products
2) bulletproof under-eave speakers.
Like OEX said, the last generation did NOT break!!
Also, the ones with the better drivers (Mariner Jr. 30 & Mariner 300) actually sounded pretty good for the money.
3) baffles and drivers that were mono-chromatic in black so that we did not need to use a scrim.

After more than a few service calls for "bad sounding speakers" just to pull out a scrim cloth that has sponged up paint and dried solid because an idiot painter wasn't smart enough to realize what he was doing.

When they went to an all-black baffle and drivers and ditched the scrim on the Symphony and Virtuoso, I thought that this was a HUGE improvement over the T & TR and D & DR series that they replaced...

Now the drivers are all different colors depending on the model... metallic, blue, black, etc.... and the scrim is back...

All in all, they do treat the dealers right. They owned up to a problem we had with some very early Nav. Harbors, and replaced them with DABs which allowed us to fix the project without taking any more of a beating.

They have a history of making good products at good price points.

I think they have just made some bad product decisions lately.

Love TruAudio. Good speaker, great margin, and even better people to work with.

Monitor Audio. Great sounding speakers, Back boxes for IW and IC.

Triad is a very good speaker; in fact exceptional. But thier least expensive rectangular speaker is 700/pair which is a lot of money for a limited bandwidth background music speaker--even more expensive if you use it as designed and add a subwoofer. To compare Sonace to Triad is to compare Niles or Elan to Crestron, sans Adagio.

Bay Audio is also a very good speaker and it has products at all price points. Their upper priced speakers are very good but infinate baffle designs. Their lower priced models ( in the 250-350/pair MSRP range ) are very well built too. I do not YET carry them but I am giving them serious consideration. If I were QQQ's size I'd already sell them. They are audiophile grade at the upper price points but as they are infinate baffles they are also full range.

I also like RBH but I only use their lower priced products. I find their products well built, well designed and they sound fine. Not Triads but they are not priced as Triads.
I just ordered on wall plasma speakers and I think they come in at 450-500 to Triads 1200. When you are QQQ you can afford to only sell the best as your clients are rarely those who must make choices. Do I sound envious? Yes. Hopefully he will make an offer and I can program his endless supply of cost no object systems for the financially blessed. I also have some nice jobs. I just sent in a 17k order to Triad for one distributed audio job, and that is not counting the theater. I get one of those every so often. QQQ evidently has 2-3 per month. You cannot just sell the best--unless your market only caters to the carriage trade.

OEX has been chided by me to do as I say, in matters audio and video as well as politics. Sea air must have corruded his nurons as he continues to prefer to suffer and epirically discover the same errors most of us have already made. He ought to sell both Triad and RBH or Bay Audio and RBH. RBH's alluminum drivers will not corrude. The pair or two I installed in Deal have held up for years --and that job is on the water. There are other ways to obtian product than distribution or direct but some of us, like the infamous Kangis prefer to bring the experience of suffering to existential level......................................................................................................

Alan