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Nope, no burrs up my ass. Sean makes great race/carving boards, no question about it. I do know, have checked them out many times, and am quite familiar with Donek's approach/philiosophy. There is no question about it, when it comes to making carved turns on a groomed surface, Sean knows all about it and I have great respect for Donek in that area.
But, my personal interest lies in boards for the backcountry, where the snow is not groomed, and the needed qualities in a board are entirely different from what works on a hard snow surface. I applaud Donek for making customs, but, to be fair, their boards are not entirely custom. They will make a custom shape, and custom flex pattern. But they do not make custom rocker/camber profiles, one must choose from the mold shapes which they have available. Of course, this is still more customisation than one can get almost anywhere else (except Wagner).
If you want to know what kind of profiles, shapes, and sidecuts I am interested in exploring, take a close look at a furberg (my 173 has a 20 meter sidecut), in person. I have not seen any evidence that Donek has any experience making this kind of board, there is nothing wrong with that, it is just not what they do.

Cadderly, as to the SL, I hope to never, ever purchase another board with a sidecut radius under 10 meters, and would prefer it at 17-20 meters, so I have no interest whatsover in riding a Never Summer SL. Deep sidecuts are not for me, and I do not care if they are variable, elliptical, quadratic, rotated, progressive, regressive or some combination of those, a too deep sidecut is a too deep sidecut for me... For me, deep sidecuts just make the board twitchy, chattery, unstable, and with way too much pressure distributed towards the tip and tail, and not enough pressure underfoot. Deep sidecuts also make a board dive in pow when put on edge, hence the reverse/reverse boards...

Barrows, I agree and thanks for your insight. If I knew how to post an image, I would show a side by side comparison looking down the sidecut of a furberg and a comparable sized 7-10m board. The difference from that angle is pretty amazing.

I think a photo on here would really not be adequate. What I really think is responsible for the furberg's ride is the way the sidecut, tapered tip and tail, rocker profile, and flex pattern all integrate together. The very gentle rise of the tip and tail allow the entire surface area of the board to provide for float, and the taper of the tip and tail make the entry points of the board very, very gentle-reducing the tendency of these entry points to knfe into the snow when the board is put on edge. Daniel Furberg describes some of this at their website, but does not really go into it in as much detail as could be done. I could see how someone with a conventional view of snowboard design could see this as marketing hype, but once you ride the board in three dimensional snow conditions, it instantly makes sense-it really takes only a couple of good runs to get it... I know that Chimera has been experimenting with similar shapes starting last season. I am interested to see how far they have gotten with their protos...

Yep, 2 laps, and I was ! Two turns might be all it takes to realize you are in for a great ride. Furbergs are the most well-thought out boards I have ridden. I am glad there are people like Daniel and Chimera developing these shapes. I am excited to see what's new next week in Denver.

Having been born with snowboarding burden of a linebacker's 6'4", 220 lb build, I am Donek's #1 fan. Donek's high quality custom offerings allow me to have boards that fit me and my riding when no such boards otherwise exist among production decks. Literally. The splitboard that Sean and I designed is far and away the most natural and best-fitting board I've ever ridden. I absolutely love it and can't say enough good things about Donek.

But Barrows is right, those custom offerings are not unlimited. Shovel shapes are fixed as are camber and rocker profiles. So, while their custom options provide a very wide array of options, they are not becoming of deep rendering of new off-piste designs--as would be needed to align shapes, thickness and rocker profiles in a Furburg-esque or a reverse camber design. Actually, Sean would and could probably do it (and do it well), but I imagine that it would cost a lot more than their standard customization charge of zero.

I hope Donek continues to push their designs into the off-piste, soft snow backcountry realm. For anyone needing boards with specs outside the production bell curve, it would be great to have customizable Furburg-esque (we should call this family of shapes "peanut") and reverse-sidecut shapes.

Nice one. Maybe you aren't a complete tool after all.

Barrows, you should write a book. It could be a compilation of all your posts on this site. Might have to edit down to fewer than a thousand pages though.

I thought laying trenches was for groomers?

Point well taken

I cant believe a Google search trying to dig up info on the new Never Summer Prospector lead me to this trainwreck. I dont know were to start. Maybe with the fact that you rule out a huge portion of boards cause you didnt like some buddies custom that most likely wasnt set up for you. Thats like hoping into my Camry not changing the seat and mirrors then coming back and saying that all cars suck and you must have a monster truck. Problem is you live in the Bronx man you dont live out in Kentucky were a monster truck comes in handy.

You live in the east coast as do I and some others that have chimed in. You want a splitboard that doesn't have a specific design because the one in the shop looked goofy??? You don't like the feel the of it at high speed? Hey Xavier de le Retard were are you gonna rip these high speed lines??? We have tight trees windbuff alpine and powder once a decade and you think your gonna be pulling high octane Travis Rice super natural lines? Whats really gonna happen is your never gonna end up buying anything. Your gonna talk about it with all your friends waiting in line for a half day lift ticket to Killington so you can ride there rad park with " natural features"
East coast splitting is about having a board that can handle it all and adapting to changing snow quality every few hundred feet of vert. I have a Solution 163w and I am sad to say it has let me down. It is the second 3 world made Jones that has not stood up to New Englands "pristine snow". My Never Sumer Legacy that you shunned for its training wheel side cut has taken huge beatings and taken every rock stump and log hit like a champ and it rails icy hardpack.
Also this is the rudest thing I have ever posted here. Most of these dudes have wasted way to much time trying to educate someone that has no clue.

Testify FT48.

You were one of the ones that gave steller advice. You ever try the NS summit split?? I am pretty sure that I am gonna ditch the Jones for a an SL 163w but was wondering how the summit rode.

Nope, never held a NS Summit. And I only have a few days on my SL so I don't have any real opinion on that yet either. But hopefully by later this spring...

A NS Prospector may be a board that would interest me in a year or so. The specs on that sound divine.