Questions 16 Through 20
Q. Understandably, offering premium cases in the markets you do, is there difficulty trying to reach and advertise to the overall masses? Craftsmanship and quality do increase cost, but do you have plans to become more competitive and advertising to those who are looking for high-quality, well-crafted enclosures that might be lost to lesser-quality, cheaper alternatives?
A. It's more expensive than it is difficult. Fortunately we have AMAZING support from our customers and fans which help to spread the word. Also as mentioned earlier, forums and Facebook have helped immensely. More recently we have been experimenting with paid search and retargeting ads. Our store site has been active for just over 3 years and we are very happy with the progress we have made since then. Let the snowball effect continue!
Q. Do you have any favorite case mods/ideas that fans have sent you?
A. That's a little like asking which child you love the most!
We have a lot of really fantastic builds that our customers have done. Many of them are featured in the customer gallery on our website. For me, two that stand out are M8 mods by pOPe and Richard Keirsgieter, mostly because they were among the first and pretty extreme. Since then however, we've seen a number of incredible showcase builds (including two cover shots on CPU magazine - See this month's issue for Strens "Thief" build). I can honestly say that I love them all!
Q. On the back of the MOBo tray area in the MAGNUM STH10 there is room for what feels like 3 SSD's and 2 HD's. Is there a way to fit say 2-3SSD units in that area without breaking out a drill and dremel to get the stuff to mount?
A. You will need a drill to mount the SSDs there. I have seen people use Velcro, but I can't say I would recommend it.
Q. You make the best cases but willfully ignore the best layouts.
A. Why do you not offer a proper full-ATX pizza box case? One that is very short in height and essentially a tower on its side? This would be ideal as a base for monitors, raising height of the monitor, reducing desk space and greatly decreasing the wear of PCIe slots and heavy dual-slot graphics cards. The same question above but for 90-degree rotated motherboard towers.
I wouldn't say that we "willfully" ignore any design. That would be foolish for any manufacturer to do. We go where the market is. Horizontal ATX cases pretty much died out in the 80's and with the exception of the HTPC market, still hasn't staged a solid comeback. As you say, there are benefits to the design, but we haven't experienced any demand for it to date.
The 90 degree MB is another issue. Until recently, Silverstone held a functional use patent on that which is why no case manufacturer offered it. Once again, there hasn't been a lot of pressure to move in that direction, but it's something we can consider with new designs.
Q. Have you thought of doing a desk/case? There are really only 2 options to buy with Red Harbinger and Lian Li. I think that you guys over at Case Labs would do an awesome job with it.
A. Desks are cool (I'd like one myself!) but they are pretty niche, even for us. They tend to be incredibly expensive to ship, mostly because of the large piece of tempered glass that would go with it. Bottom line is that I don't see us ever getting into that market, unless we did it on a large scale to an OEM.
