A9 IMPORTANT NEWS: Hibernation imminent for all A9 products.
Just a heads up that all of our products will be entering a period of hibernation through and into 2016. The hibernation is due to some really exciting things about to change with A9 as we move into the new year. One of these is the materials and color of the armature. If you look at the bottom of our armaturenine.tumblr page you'll recall what happened with our tan color earlier this year. Ever since then I've been nostalgically wanting to return to it or something similar. A door may be finally opening for this to be the case.
Also, the hands and feet are currently undergoing a design change as well. Lots more detail is going to be put into them. And we're finally addressing comments by many customers that would prefer the feet not be offset at the ankle.
With most products, when new iterations come out, it seems companies just keep making them cheaper and cheaper, which in turn, creates weaker and weaker results. But with A9 it's been completely the opposite. It just keeps getting better and better and consequently more and more expensive for us to make.
When we first started selling the biped in 2012 we were charging $20. Now A9 costs over $100. And once these improvements are implemented the cost will likely go up even further which I'm really torn about. Because, while on the one hand, I really want to make a product that artists can afford I also want to create a product that is as perfect as possible and that we can sustain as a company. In the end, I believe the most important thing is to strive for excellence. In fact, we'd probably be making $1,000 armatures if we knew how, lol!
As a businessman I know that's an odd thing to admit and confess but you all know that from the very beginning I've always been honest and transparent with you guys about our capabilities at Digital Double. we don't have any financial backing or sponsors other than you guys. So everything we do always makes our customer our first priority and that means getting you the best possible product that can provide you with the best possible value that we can possibly squeeze out of every single resource and skill we have as a company.
I find comfort in knowing that we will continue to do our monthly contests and armature giveaways and massive "like" milestone sales. That way there will always be an opportunity for someone that is less advantaged financially to get an armature half off or even for free.
Also, there is still hope we will be able to figure out the injection molding problem. But once we do, we've decided to continue with two versions of A9. The less-expensive molded version and the growing and evolving 3D printed version. Establishing this fork in the road, will really help us, because it's been far too difficult to solve this problem with A9 being such a moving target. So we're going to set a simpler version of the armature aside and lock it in place for molding.
That's the season's news for now. If you'd like to get a more complete recap of what Digital Double did this year and has coming up for 2016, I encourage you to join our company mailing list: http://eepurl.com/py4Oz. This is a different mailing list from our armature list. If you sign up you'll get our once a year newsletter that we send out on January 1st.
I hope you all have a great holiday season, and who knows, by the time we see each other again next year, after the holidays, A9 may be coming out of hibernation with a brand new tan and smile on its face