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Car Audio Nationals

July 2008 - Posts

  • Worse Imaging Vehicle Ever!

    I have listened to some absolute terrible vehicles in my time.  After spending 15 hours in a Penske Rental truck, I can now officially say that this is the worst imaging vehicle ever. While it does have 194 square feet of floor space and 1,400 cubic feet of storage space with the ability to hold 8,370 lb. worth of stuff.

    But they mounted the speakers BEHIND the bench seat. Yup. Not one piece of sound originated from in front of you. Ohh yeah, and they put a governor on it at 67 Miles an hour.

    What is the worst sounding car you have ever heard?

  • Car Audio Nationals - July Update

    Car Audio Nationals Trophies for Deep South Nationals

    Car Audio Nationals trophies are unique in competition. There are no plastic trophies here with nasty fake statuettes on them. We had a local Art and Framing shop work up some awesome designs for the preliminary event winners. Come see the trophies that the Winners of Deep South Nationals took home! (That and a purse of $500.00 to the two winners!!!)

    Free High Def Music Tracks

    clip_image001Last week, I was introduced to HDTracks.com, which is founded by David and Norman Chesky of the audiophile record label Chesky Records, featuring thousands of artists, including Smokey Robinson, Joe Jackson, Bob James, Buddy Guy, Nina Simone, Earl Wild, Zubin Mehta, The Kinks, Of Montreal, Yo La Tengo and Jerry Garcia, from 60 independent labels around the world.

    They are offering the The HDtracks Ultimate Download Experience for the month of June for FREE. After listening to these in my iPod connected to the car, there truly is a difference that is HUGE. I could actually make out the bass lines and the highs sounded just like the CD copies I used as a reference.

    Music can be downloaded in high definition uncompressed AIFF or lossless FLAC format files for playback on home audio systems, including PCs, Macs or music servers, or as 320kbps mp3 files that far exceed the quality of standard mp3 files for playback on iPods and other portables.

    D.A.R.E. to Be Different

    It has been fairly common for as long as I can remember to remove the back seats from some small coupes to get more room to install Audio gear. I have lost track of the number of Mustangs, etc. that they backseats are sitting in the garage somewhere.

    In part two of the DTS Dare car, we take a peek at the inside of the car. As you can see in this shot, one of the more unique parts of the car is it's amp rack. While many people try to shove five amplifiers into their trunk, Daryl and his installers took the back seat of the Crown Vic and put his amplifier and signal processors where the back seat used to reside.

    More Judges Added

    We are pleased to announce that Micah Sheveloff from WRC Media, a PR firm for Consumer Electronics Companies and Bob Johann, who is better known as SoundQ SVT with his Ford Contour, have agreed to be Judges at this year's CAN Finals!!!  You can their bios here. We have two more judges coming online and will be announcing them soon!

    We have additional judges profiles being added on a regular basis! Check back often!

    Car Audio Nationals Results from Deep South Nationals

    clip_image003I spent all of my time at Deep South Nationals either sleeping or listening to cars. Rick Sellers put on a killer show. You can see from the show results for the Car Audio Nationals Portion that competition was fierce and the quality of the cars was high.  Sean from SoundDomain was there and took a AWESOME gallery of all of the cars that attended.  Click here for the SoundDomain gallery.

    Pictures of Alpine Gear in an AWESOME 37 Coupe

    Moe from IASCA sent me some pictures of a 1937 Ford Coupe that he and the crew over at SoundCrafters just finished.  I thought some people picked difficult vehicles, but the space available in this coupe with a full roll cage would make me cringe...

    Installation Hacks

    As you know, I am a HUGE VW/Audi fan. Several of the cars I have owned include the Audi 4000 and Coupe GT. In both cars, right behind the rear seat was the gas tank. And it wasn't uncommon to hear complaints from owners of the cars telling horror stories of installed drilling into their gas tanks on a fairly regular basis. How about this? Right through an Air Bag Sensor!!!

    Josh Tech's Maserati For Sale

    I have seen the For Sale Sign on this car for the past couple of shows. Josh has done some interesting upgrades and if you have a spare 60k laying around, check out his eBay auction. He ran this in NOPI, Hot Import Nights, IASCA, USACi and others.

  • Reasons to Hate Photoshop - Part 2

    The Drive and Play 2 is an interface for in-car connectivity of portable music players and digital devices, including Apple's iPod, USB flash drives and many other portable music players. It includes a 3-1/2" full color display screen, wireless 2.4GHz controller and a media hub. I have played with them and enjoy using them quite a bit, but it looks like their marketing and advertising department didn't actually want to do an install.

    While flipping though the latest Performance Auto and Sound Magazine, this add didn't quite feel right and I couldn't figure out why. After looking for a few minutes, the display looked ok, but a little odd mounting place.

    DriveandPlay

    Then I looked at the controller. I wonder when the said it was Wireless, if they really meant it also has the ability to levitate. :-)

    DriveandPlayCloseUp

  • Where not to mount a portable GPS Unit

    Portable GPS Units have been HOT for a couple of years now. It seems like almost every car I pass on road trips now has one mounted to their car somewhere now. And my wife and I have spotted them mounted in all sorts of stupid locations. Most people mount them normally under the rear view mirror.

    I have seen however, some more unique variations. There was a Mercedes Convertible where the owner had mounted the GPS unit in the bottom side of the windshield. (Which makes making changes while driving difficult.)

    This past weekend in Reading, PA, I saw a Toyota Camry Solara drive by that I just had to take a shot of. The driver had mounted the GPS unit on the driver's side window. It was about 8 inches back from the steering wheel and right where the driver has to look in his side mirror. Sorry for the lousy picture, it was snapped by my phone and the car was moving, which leads to lousy pictures. :)

    What stupid location have you seen a portable GPS unit mounted?

    StupidGPS

  • Reasons to Hate Photoshop - Part 1

    Using Photoshop is like installing car stereos. There are some truly gifted people who install stereos, but you also see some real hacks. And it looks like Best Buy hired a hack in their Advertising department. Here is one of their advertisements from a couple of years ago.  Can you spot the Photoshop Errors? Here are the ones I found below the picture.

    BestBuyScan

    The errors I found include:

    1. They left the factory radio in the Suburban and just dropped an Alpine CD Player right into it. 
    2. The iPod? What is it mounted to?
    3. How did they mount the Sony Drop down monitor in the sunroof area?
    4. Why do you go from fall in front of the truck to summer on the driver's side? Why are there mountains in front, but only in front? There appear to be nice hills to the left and behind...

    BestBuyScan - Edit

    Did you spot anymore? If so, leave a comment in the forum!

  • Iraq's Version of Pimp my Ride

    And Just like the real thing, all they do is slap stickers on things. Check out the Video on CNN by clicking here.

    image

  • Josh Tech's Maserati For Sale

    I have seen the For Sale Sign on this car for the past couple of shows. Josh has done some interesting upgrades and if you have a spare 60k laying around, check out his eBay auction. He ran this in NOPI, Hot Import Nights, IASCA, USACi and others.

    eBay Motors: Maserati (item 180257464917 end time Jul-14-08 16:37:31 PDT)

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