April 2008 - Posts

• Richard Inferrera - Judge

  Name: Richard Inferrera  Bio: Born (1952) and raised in Watertown, MA Opened Rich’s Cartunes in 1968 installing speakers and stereos into cars (before there were aftermarket components), as well as painting cars, building motors, transmissions, doing wheels and tires.  Ended up designing speakers and amps for manufacturers such as JL Audio and a/d/s/.  Have traveled to many places in the world to consult and work on cars. In 1985 I opened The Ritop School for Mobile Electronics.  The school trains and certifies students to become mobile electronics installers.  I have some extremely talented technicians in the install bays which has allowed me to concentrate on sales and final tuning of outgoing vehicles.  Life is good and both businesses are keeping it real. How long have you been involved with Audio? Since I was a kid, I was always working on something Did you ever compete? If so, in what organization and What / When was your first completion? Car Audio Nationals, IASCA Finals.  1 st places in both What CD's are in your CD players right now? The Beach Boys, The Mavericks, The Doors, Belle & Sebastian, Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, Moby, Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, Buju Banton, Victor Manuel,  (the last 2 are my girlfriends) If you were on a island with one Artist's music, who would that artist be? The Doors What is your favorite genre of music? I hate to limit myself, but I would have to say the 60s What is the ONE car you wish you could listen to? My yellow CRX What is one of the best live music shows you have seen? Why? Best Sounding was Bruce Springsteen in the LA Coliseum-.  All other concerts have sounded so bad I couldn’t really enjoy it. Posted Apr 30 2008, 06:48 AM by BenVollmer with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Judges, Richard Inferrera

• Rebirth of a Legend - Part One

  Growing up as a kid, I used to read every single issue of Car Stereo Review, Car Audio and Electronics and AutoSound and Security magazines cover-to-cover, as if it were printed on gold leaf paper. I'd read every product review like it was the gospel, and LOVED it when a reviewer would call out a manufacture when they screwed up. But my main fascination was the cars. It always comes down to the cars, and there were tons to drool over month-after-month. Some of the cars were too over the top to drive, but these trailer queens were the stuff dreams were made of. Dave Riveria’s 1989 "Fishtank Toyota" Corolla and Earl Z’s insane audiophile B&W BMW spring to mind. Some simply seemed too loud to drive (Is this possible? –Ed). The old Rockford Fosgate Demo van falls into that category (Elaborate?). However, no matter how ridiculously above the limits of sanity these cars were, they all served as inspiration to my aspirations. Jason at Mitek’s Ford Mustang, John Beebe’s (of Drop ‘em Wear) Mazda Pickup, Tim West’s Honda Prelude, Richard Clark’s Grand National and Harry Kimura’s Acura Legend are some cars that stick out in my mine as time passes. (And I knew the first three personally.) To me, Kimura's Legend has always the perfect car. It had great looks, was built by one of the preeminent shops of the day, and was vastly understated. As a matter of fact when I started to design the install for my Audi, we based it very heavily on the trunk of Kimura's Acura. In the spirit of "Where Are They Now", I would wonder what happened to these industry-changing cars. Where are they now? Through the years I was able to track down what had happened to some of the cars, but some seemed to just disappear. The Legend for me was in the latter category. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled on this post on the CarSound forum! http://www.audiogroupforum.com/csforum/showthread.php?t=66320 "As bad as I hate to do it, I have decided to place the Acura Legend that was built by Speakerworks for Harry Kimura for sale. I purchased the car 5 years ago from Speakerworks and have put less than 5, 000 additional miles on it. The car has been parked for some time in a large shop where it was protected from the elements. It is in need of two new batteries, all new tires, and probably a tune up. I have not started the car in some time, but the last time I did everything worked beautifully. It features two USD audio horns, 10" midbass, and 15" subs in a aperiodic enclosure powered by 4 Crossfire amps. The signal comes from a highly modified Alpine 7909 then to two Rane 30 band eqs. Pictures of the car are here http://usdaudio.com/sw/cars/acura/. Physically the car does not differ any from these photos other than that it really needs a good detailing interior and exterior, and that the stickers on the rocker panels have been removed. I have no doubt that this car could kick some serious *** in competitions. It really sickens me to have to sell it but I've had a relapse of some medical problems and have a bunch of other projects going on too. So send me some offers." These were the first three pictures I saw of the Legend. And then the former owner pull the car out of the garage it has been stored for the past 6 or so years.     I had to have it. I went to bed that night with the long-lost Legend on my mind, but told my wife that the owner would probably be asking way too much money. Well the next day I gave the owner a call, and surprisingly enough, a deal was struck. The Legend would be mine. Three weeks later it was trailered back down to Atlanta to Audio Designs of Atlanta for a  full restore and refresh. Stay tuned for more pictures and progress on the build! Posted Apr 28 2008, 09:57 PM by BenVollmer with no comments

• CAN II Judge's Primer

  Buying stuff on eBay is like buying a pig at a poke. Sometimes you get the short end of the stick and sometimes you get more than you expect. I won an auction on eBay for an original CAN CD before Spring Break Nationals. I personally would have been happy just getting the CD, but it came complete with the original case, front liner and the Judge's Primer stuck in the inside. This is actually a pretty cool little read. What do you think?         Posted Apr 20 2008, 01:37 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: CAN, Car Audio

• New SpeakSpeak Illuminator Speakers Coming Soon!

  Tons of high end home and car audio manufactures use ScanSpeak Speakers as the basis for their speakers. The Alpine F#1 Speakers and Genesis Absolute Series are both based on the very successful and long running ScanSpeak Relevator. After several years of research and development, Scan Speak is launching a completely new series of speakers - the Illuminator. This new product line will initially feature mid-woofers in two sizes, 5 ¼” and 6½”, and tweeters in ¾” and 1” sizes. (And I hope they end up with a 4” and 7” so I can do a 3 way setup with out rebuilding my kicks...)   The new ScanSpeak Illuminator drivers, first shown at CES in January, are nearing sample stage. Heralded as the finest drivers available today, ScanSpeak has scheduled the first production run for late April, and many of Tymphany’s (The parent company of ScanSpeak, Vifa and Peerless Speakers) high-end customers are anxiously awaiting samples. The Illuminator woofers are based on compact under-hung motor systems with large neodymium ring magnets. They will be also offering multiple cone choices including, paper , aluminum, wood fiber, fiber glass, woven Kevlar, and carbon fiber paper. The Illuminator tweeters build on the heritage of the renowned D29 Revelator tweeter that has for years been regarded as one of the very best in the world. (They are the favorite part of my F#1 Setup.) You can read more about the new speaker series and read their specifications here. (PDF Link) I can’t wait to see how some of the Car Audio Companies use these new speakers for a basis for their speakers. Posted Apr 19 2008, 10:13 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Car Audio, Tymphany

• Long Term Review: Sync by Microsoft

  I travel for my day job. A lot. Too much. And with that being the case, I often rent cars. As a matter of fact Avis told me I rented 48 cars in 52 weeks from them. So I get to ride in a bunch of cars. Some of them are way cool and some of them are WAY lame. I have heard a TON about Sync powered by Microsoft in Ford vehicles. For a “long” term rental, Avis rented me a new Ford Edge, which came equipped with the Sync system in it. As a long time Windows Mobile user, I used Voice Command for quite some period of time and LOVE it. Imagine my surprise when loading up Sync that it uses the same commands as Voice Command. Slick! It took me about 2 minutes to connect my Blackjack II. It now reminds me when I have appointments, reads my emails to me and connects my address book to Sync to allow me to update my Contacts on my PC and then have them pushed to my phone and then picked up by Sync. And the hands free phone keeps me away from interference from the police. I can now say call Sean C at work and it will automatically call him. It has a little more of a hard time when my kids are screaming in the back seat, but for the most part, I give the hands free section of Sync a 9.5 out of 10 for usability. The other thing that is neat with Sync is that with a USB cord you can connect your favorite MP3 Players. So I have a couple of generations old iPod, a brand new 8 GB Zune and a 2 GB iRiver Clix. By connecting them via USB vs. Aux Headphones in, you get full control of the device. So I was able to connect my iPod and say Play Artist Linkin Park. And all of their music plays. You can then connect the Zune and say play genre Rock. And your rock music plays. There are a ton of commands so you can pick artist, album, genre or song title. But it had NO problems jumping from device to device so both my wife and I could keep our devices in the car. Plus it kept them charged. And if you are a ZunePass or a Napster music subscriber, you can download all the music you want and keep your musical selection fresh. For ability to control and use a popular MP3 player, I would give Sync a 10/10. Overall the system was AWESOME. The one downfall I had was when the sunroof was open or the kids where making noise. The system had a hard time handling those situations and tended to play or call the wrong person. The only long term thing that may be a problem is that stock sucks. And as such upgrading the head unit may be an issue. Everything else looked replaceable, but if you wanted to upgrade, I would looking to the JL , AudioControl or Rockford Fosgate pieces to upgrade everything but the head unit. With it only adding about $350.00 or so to the bottom line of a car, the Sync system is the best thing I have seen from an OEM yet. (And better than most other systems out there….) Posted Apr 17 2008, 02:54 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Car Audio, Review, Sync

• Car Audio Nationals CD Reviewed by Car Audio & Electronics

  Ben Oh from CA&E asked us to pass him an advanced copy of the CD. So we did. And man are we happy we did. Here is the review from CA&E. We got 4.5 Stars on Sonics, which is the highest score I have ever seen them give. (And that was with a pre-production copy with some highs and lows issues....) You can find more out about the CD here. You can buy your copy here. You can read the liner notes here. It should be up on www.caraudiomag.com later this month. Thanks Ben and Team @ CA&E!!! Posted Apr 16 2008, 06:47 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: CAN

• DRAFT RULES: Misc.

  Window coverings other than tint will not be allowed on the windshield or the front side windows. Car Audio Nationals is not responsible for equipment or vehicle malfunctions; this is the competitor's responsibility. If there is a problem, 5 minutes will be allowed to make repairs.  After 5 minutes, the vehicle must be judged or given a score of zero by that judge.  Repeated repairs will not be allowed. Absolutely no refunds will be given.   Posted Apr 16 2008, 02:43 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Rules

• DRAFT RULES: Noise

  NOISE: 25 Points A well-executed installation, with a properly adjusted gain structure, should be free from noise at all listening levels. Noise is defined as any sound not present in the original program material that has been added by either the vehicle electronics/charging system or by the audio system. The judges will listen for noise under two conditions. 1) Engine running and high beams on to test for alternator noise (noise induced by the vehicle’s charging system.) 2) Engine off with the key in the “Accessory” or “Off” position (ignition off) to test for on/off pops and gain hiss. No Turn on Noise – 0 or 3 No Turn off Noise – 0 or 3 No Floor Noise – 0 or 3 No Mechanical Noise – 0 or 3 No Premature Gating Noise – 0 or 3 No Alternator Whine – 0 or 3 No Ignition Noise – 0 or 3 No Heterodyne Noise – 0 or 2 No Switching Noise – 0 or 2 Posted Apr 16 2008, 02:38 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Rules

• DRAFT RULES: Sound Linearity

  SOUND LINEARITY – 30 points Sound linearity refers to a system’s ability to reproduce a recording with accurate spectral balance and accurate dynamics at different volume levels. The judges will score the system as to how well it reproduces the recording spectrally and dynamically at each volume level. In this section, judges will evaluate the system at three listening levels, scoring each individually on a ten-point scale: * Soft – 10 points * Moderate – 10 points * Loud – 10 points Judges will evaluate each category according to the following scale: 10 pts. – Perfect 8-9 pts. – Exceptional 6-7 pts. – Very Good 4-5 pts. – Good 2-3 pts. – Marginal 1 pt. – Needs Improvement Posted Apr 16 2008, 02:37 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Rules

• DRAFT RULES: Imaging

  IMAGING – 50 Points Imaging is a sound system’s ability to places sounds in a three-dimensional sound field allowing listeners to pick out individual instruments, voices, etc. and their location in the space through sound only. The sound stage is defined by the boundaries established during sound stage judging. Therefore, the center information should appear exactly in between those boundaries, regardless of their position in the vehicle. Left and right instruments should appear at or near the left and right boundaries of the sound stage, not necessarily the vehicle’s boundaries. Left-of-center and right-of-center images should appear between the outside boundary and the center of the stage. Systems are judged based on their ability to place instruments and vocals accurately across the sound stage. Five image locations across the sound stage are considered: 1. Center Vocal or Instrument 2. Far-Right Instrument 3. Far-Left Instrument 4. Right-of-Center Instrument 5. Left-of-Center Instrument What to Listen For: The judges should listen for properly placed, coherent, and defined images. Particular attention should be paid to whether the entire sound of the instrument or vocal is focused correctly relative to the soundstage and its position on the stage (i.e. a piano may be very large relative to a saxophone). If an image seems unnaturally wide, if an image wanders as pitch changes, or if it seems to split into two or more images, points should be deducted. Height should also be consistent (the lower part of the voice should not come from the foot well, while the rest of it is up high). Image scoring is broken down into 2 portions, 1-5 points for location and 1-5 points for definition for each image. Location is where an image is placed within the sound stage. Definition is how precisely the image is defined within it’s location. Scoring for each image is as follows: Image is correctly located and defined: 5 points Image is correctly located but somewhat diffused: 3-4 points Image is shifted in location and/or very diffused: 1-2 points Posted Apr 16 2008, 02:36 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Rules

• Draft Rules: Staging

  Staging- 50 Points The perceived width, depth and height of recorded sound played back over a car audio system; the setting is similar to a sound stage from which sounds seem to emanate when reproduced through a car audio system. Judges will evaluate this category according to the following scale: 10 pts. – Perfect 8-9 pts. – Exceptional 6-7 pts. – Very Good 4-5 pts. – Good 2-3 pts. – Marginal 1 pt. – Needs Improvement STAGE POSITION (front/rear) 1- 10 Points The system is judged on the direction of the sound stage relative to the listener and the perceptible distance of the sound stage from the listener. STAGE WIDTH (left/right) 1-10 Points Stage Width refers to the distance between the left and right boundaries of the sound stage. Good systems will create a wide sound stage. Excellent sound systems will have sound stages that appear to surpass the physical boundaries of the vehicle interior. STAGE HEIGHT (up/down): - 1 to 10 points Stage Height is the apparent height of the "floor" of the sound stage and the vertical spread above that level. The car audio system should create a sound stage where the majority of the music emanates from an imaginary stage that is at approximately horizon level. STAGE DEPTH - 1 to 10 points Refers to the degree to which reproduced sound has a sense of spaciousness extending in front of and behind the listener. The better depth the system has, the more life like it seems. The best systems will make it seam as thought instruments are arrayed at varying distances from the listener. Example: In a live concert, the drummer may sit behind the bass guitarist who may be behind the lead singer. An audio system with good depth would accurately reproduce this the listening environment making the drummer sound like he is indeed behind the bass guitarist who is behind the singer AMBIENCE – 1 to 10 Points Ambience is the characteristic sounds of a location that tells the listener where he/she is. Ambience is associated with all the aspects of the sound, how it interacts with and reacts to the space, There is a certain ambience associated with a large church versus a small den versus a stadium – each venue has its own character such as the size and shape of the space, and more. Posted Apr 16 2008, 02:34 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Rules

• DRAFT Rules: Tonal Accuracy

  Tonal Accuracy: 100 Points In this section, judges will evaluate the tonal characteristics of the system based on how well it reproduces the four frequency ranges described below and from an overall perception. All five tonal accuracy categories are judged on the following scale: 20 pts. - Perfect 16 - 19 pts. - Exceptional 12 - 15 pts. - Very Good 8 - 11 pts. - Good 4 - 7 pts. - Marginal 1 - 3 pts. - Needs Improvement TONAL ACCURACY: SUB-BASS (1Hz-60Hz) The judge(s) should concentrate on the lowest notes of the large string instruments (bass guitar and stand-up bass, in particular), large drums (kick drums, timpani), low synthesizer sounds, low pipe organ notes, etc. The sounds reproduced by the system in this range should be immediately recognizable, articulate, free of distortion, and have proper attack and decay. TONAL ACCURACY: MID-BASS (60Hz-200Hz) The judge(s) should focus on the sounds produced by the mid-size drums (tom-toms, large congas, etc.), the middle range of the bass guitar and stand-up bass, lower notes of the piano and synthesizer. These should be reproduced smoothly with good detail and proper attack and decay. Particular attention should be paid to the attack and decay of drums and the bass guitars. TONAL ACCURACY: MID-RANGE (200Hz-3KHz) This range contains the vast majority of musical information in most recordings. The judge(s) should focus on: the human voice, brass instruments, woodwinds, strings, the upper range of the bass guitar, electric and acoustic guitar, synthesizer, piano, smaller drums and other percussion instruments. Voices should sound full and natural. All instruments should sound realistic without sounding thin, dull or contain uncharacteristic ringing or distortion. TONAL ACCURACY: HIGH-FREQUENCIES (3khz-inaudibility) The judge(s) should concentrate on cymbals, triangles, bells, the upper frequencies of the snare drum, rim shots, hand clapping, synthesizers, the upper stretches of string and woodwind instruments, and the tendency to exaggerate "s" or "f", or "t" sounds in the voice recordings. These should sound accurate, smooth, neither too dull nor too bright and should not exhibit any harsh, thin, metallic sounds or distortion. Posted Apr 16 2008, 02:32 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Rules

• How Loud Was the Ocean Center?

  I LOVE Spring Break Nationals. It is by far one of my favorite shows. SVR is another favorite, but for completely different reasons. SBN is one of those shows that I go to for the crowds as much as the competitors.  Having thousands of people milling around a car audio show is always fun. The ocean center is where we retreat to when it gets too hot outside. The only issue is that it is loud inside. How loud?  According to this handy chart, here are some average sounds as expressed in DB. Sounds dB SPL Rocket Launching 180 Jet Engine 140 Thunderclap, Air Raid Siren 1 Meter 130 Jet takeoff (200 ft) 120 Rock Concert, Discotheque 110 Firecrackers, Subway Train 100 Heavy Truck (15 Meter), City Traffic 90 Alarm Clock (1 Meter), Hair Dryer 80 Noisy Restaurant, Business Office 70 Air Conditioning Unit, Conversational Speech 60 Light Traffic (50 Meter), Average Home 50 Living Room, Quiet Office 40 Library, Soft Whisper (5 Meter) 30 Broadcasting Studio, Rustling Leaves 20 Hearing Threshold 0 The AudioControl Booth did something pretty cool. The put up one of their 3055 units with a mic on it and measured the SPL in the Ocean Center. The quietest I saw it all weekend was around 106-107 DB, with some spikes in the 126-127 Range. (Now mind you that was in the few minutes we were inside each day...) Here it is snapshot from the RTA while we walked by it one day.  I actually felt sorry for the folks who were manning booths inside all day long. I think that they may want to start providing hearing protection to vendors at the ocean center. Did you see the RTA Hit Higher? Did you grab a shot of it?   Posted Apr 16 2008, 12:54 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Spring Break Nationals, RTA, AudioControl

• Building Your Own Laptop RTA

  I really love my AudioControl 3055/3056. The unit is ultra dependable and VERY easy to use and learn. But even used ones are pretty pricey for me to get by my CFO. (wife) However, I can trickle purchases in and she doesn’t seem to mind. Also when tweaking, I want more granularity than 1/3 octave. And I often only carry my laptop with me. So while not a replacement to my AudioControl piece, I use this as an augmentation to it. (And the cost is about right too!) The word of warning that I would have is make sure you have enough computing power. Irun this on a now ancient Dell D600 with 2 GB of RAM and NO Other Applications running and when it is locked into Fast Mode, the processor is working full time on processing the audio signal. I have yet to try it on my new Dual core machine, but expect some better performance. If you have a Pentium 3 with 256 of RAM, than this setup is NOT for you. I used 8thStreet.com for all of my purchases. Their free shipping and killer customer service when I ordered where a big influence on my decision to purchase from them, but there are a ton of other places you can get this equipment. The first thing you need is a decent sound card. And the one baked into your laptop is not decent. Period. I chose the Indigo IO because it was powered by my Cardbus slot in the laptop. (I find USB to be a little less solid on power delivery than Cardbus.)   The next most important thing is a decent microphone. For this task we utilized the Behringer ECM8000. While there are better measurement mikes out there, this is the best bang for the buck. (Plus TrueRTA has a sample calibration file for an ECM8000 with it.)   Software is the next step. There are a ton of different folks out there offering RTA Software. Based upon my budget, I selected TrueRTA. The One Octave version is free, but even if you splurge for the 1/24 Octave, you are only out 100.00 or so. If you want to go all out, there is a calibration service that will match your exact mike up to system with a custom calibration file. You can find out more about it here.   Last but not least, you will need a phantom power source for the microphone. This allows the mike to operate. I took the 110v end off mine and put a cigarette lighter end on it so I can use it in the car. Now comes the hard part, getting all of the parts to talk to each other. And you will now need a series of cords to do this. XLR Male to XLR Female is the first one you need. It will take you from the phantom power unit to the microphone. XLR Female to ¼” Balanced Male This will go from the phantom power unit to the soundcard. (almost!!) ¼” Adapter to 1/8” Adapter. This is the last step between the ¼” cable above and the sound card. There you go! For a very modest investment you can get a RTA that does all that your AudioControl piece does and some more with more portability. Special thanks go to Eric D and Chris P for helping assemble all of the pieces and test it. Enjoy! Posted Apr 16 2008, 12:28 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: Car Audio, RTA, DIY

• First Judge for CAN Finals Named!!!

  With Cam's intro, Dave MacKinnon has agreed to be a a SQ Judge for the Final Event. You can read more about Dave's Bio and stats here. http://caraudionationals.com/blogs/can/archive/2008/04/07/dave-mackinnon.aspx  Dave is a Technical Editor over at Performance Auto Sound Magazine. You can read some of his recent reviews here: http://www.pasmag.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=15&Itemid=104 There will be a few more surprises for Judges soon. Posted Apr 07 2008, 10:31 PM by BenVollmer with no comments Filed under: CAN, Judges, Dave MacKinnon