Bashing miggle boards

Okay...been reading a lot of old and current threads about boards. Do Miggle boards really suck THAT bad or am I detecting a little elitism regarding this? I guess I would compare this with buying a camera....never ask a professional photographer what camera to buy. You'll end up paying several thousand dollars on camera, light filters, tripod, rapid exposure, etc. when you could have gotten a NICE $150 camera to take perfectly good snap shots of your family and your ebay crap! I'm just asking in all seriousness, because I'm wondering how they're still in business if this is the case. I mean, they hold a convention every year using those boards and I'm assuming people have a good time with it. Thoughts?

[Treks1]

The Rose Bowl boards we used at the Miggle Convention ran very well in my opinion... They look good too. My only issue is that they have no sideline...

[Electric Coach]

The arrival of the custom board has revolutionized the board experience. It is not just the size and look of the board that has coaches asking what board is best. It’s the sturdiness and the performance of the board that draws the attention of coaches.

The earlier 600 model boards were made of a thicker gauge sheet metal, which made it sturdy. The playing field didn’t bubble or sag. The transformer combined with the thicker gauge metal also produced a smooth and consistent vibration. The board produced a lower pitch hum. Miggle stopped producing that type of board. They started producing a newer version of the 600 model. That version was made from a thinner gauge sheet metal. That board sagged and bubbled in the middle. After the board was run, the coach had to pop the field back down to take out the bubble. The thinner sheet metal waved up and down when the transformer vibrated. This combination of sheet metal and transformer produced a higher pitch sound, which sounded something like eHHHHHHHH. It sounds horrible.

Over the years, Miggle has skimped on quality. As a result, they have lost ground in the market.

Maurice

The Electric Coach

[Michigan Joe]

I can say from my personal experience in buying a Miggle 620 (with field cover for $200) that the surface was very uneven and 50% of the board was dead area when I plugged it in. I actually returned the first one because of a minor dent and then recieved the next one and it had no dents. Both boards ran identical- bad. It could have easily drove me out of the hobby had I not ventured out to play the game outside of my own home. I hate to bad mouth anything but I have to vent my frustration with this because I hate to think that people would leave the hobby if they have the same experience as I did. At the very least they should understand the risk due to Miggle's quality issues that are very apparent.

The rose bowl boards at Miggle actually ran very inconsistently. There were a couple of boards that ran like a dream (which people were marking just so they could buy it for a tweaking board later) and some (many) were just pure duds. There were some super slow and loud ones (such as the one's the kids got stuck with and one of the boards in my conference was pure like mud- we could have had 10+ second pass rushes). The kids found a secret to press down on the knob to get a little more juice out of it but nothing we could do consistently to fix it. Its this inconsistency that is killer. The other thing, the boards at Miggle ran as best they could in large part to Norbert tweaking them. He's the best person to speak on this, but they all had an issue were the motor bottomed out on the table and they needed shims to raise the corner standoffs so that the motor would be free to vibrate.

I agree that the Miggle boards look great but they fall way short after the initial appearance. That is my opinion, I wish I could be more positive.
Joe

[HOOP]

good example about asking the photagrapher, but that is not the case here.
The miggle boards do suck and are loud. one of the boards Treks1 is talking about is probably the one he scraped me on at miggle , but the other ones i practiced on the night before ALL SUCKED!!!!!

K-Lo i think said it best, where you could find a decent board off ebay for a decent price, should you not want to go custom. OR, you can remember what i told you in another post, about checking out the 308's and actually talking to a few guys face to face who can tell you about the boards. OR come holla at me IF you still want a 600 series board now.

but really, $80 bucks or so for those miggle boards are ridiculous. that is a third away from a used custom board, and about $30-$50 more from a good used 600 board.

Thanks for your honesty, Michigan Joe. It does make you scratch your head, though, doesn't it? And quite honestly...the worst part is that Miggle's poor quality control is affecting this organization to a degree I would imagine. As you said, if a person gets a bad product, it could very well blow them out of the hobby.

My question now is, has anyone from this Association who builds boards attempted to contact Miggle with possible suggestions on design specs, etc? Or maybe even attempted to sell their own designs to them? It seems like the 620 SHOULD be the gateway product for the more serious hobyist. And if Miggle has to jack the price from $149 to say $179 to make it a thicker gauge steel, I don't think you would be losing peope at that price point. I don't know...perhaps it's a labor issue...thicker gauge being harder to deal with or something. Also maybe a transport issue....heavier stuff.

So...it looks like a Vintage 620 or make one myself.

[Coach_J]

I dislike publicly giving negative views on a manufacturer's product but in this case since the post was started I have to say it is what it is. I bought a 70's 620 board from someone seven or eight years ago. Then I bought the newer Miggle 620 a couple of years ago. I prefer the older 620 hands down. Maybe I did not have enough patience trying to get the crowns out. The newer boards look great but my experience is the performance of the older 620 is much better. By the way I also noticed that the newer Miggle TTQB's do not kick FG's as well as the older yellow Miggle TTQB's.

Coach J