AudioSportsUSA.com

I was reading the a local news website this past Sunday and a headline about "Sound-off Competitors" caught my eye. You rarely ever see an article about sound-offs in a local paper, mainly because the demographic that reads the newspaper is quite older than the average sound-off enthusiast.

Aside from the lack of attention to sound and installation quality, the article was actually a pretty good write-up of what the sound-off event was. Strange that the article appeared two weeks after the show, but coverage is good for a hobby that gets very little press in the general media.

Of course, the comments the article has received are not exactly flattering. But this is the same perception issues the car audio industry has been dealing with since the 1980s.

Be sure to checkout the photos and the video with the article! Here's the link: Sound-Off Article On Newspaper Website

This was the best SBN in several years, as far as overall attendance, especially spectators. MECA had 53 vehicles for SQL and SPL contests.

Jessie Johnson (Gorilla Audio) from IL won the Sound Pressure League Best of Show. Craig Butler from GA won the Sound Pressure Best of Show with 179.7 dB in X2. Mikey Pilato won the Park & Pound Best of Show with 135.7 dB in DB5.

Robert Hilton (Audison/Hertz/JL Audio) from GA won the Sound Quality League Best of Show. Steve Cook (Audio X/Incriminator/Zapco) from AL won the Sound Quality Best of Show with 84.3 points in Modex. Chad Romano from FL won the Install Best of Show with 76 points in Modified Install. Rob Rice (Car Toys) from OK had the highest score in SQ2+ with 172 points.

SQL Judges Vinny Taylor (TN), David Hogan (AL), and Justin Polk (FL) received many compliments on their good work in the lanes. Thanks to Jose from Beyma for helping to sponsor the awards.

Thanks to Paul and the SBN crew for including MECA in the event and putting on a great show! Thanks to the Competitors who were great to work with and impressed the Judge Team with outstanding performances in the lanes.

We're just getting started adding events for the 2011 sound-off season, but the good news is we are adding events everyday!

If you are involved with putting on a sound-off event, be sure to add it to our event schedule! Just click "Add Entry" from the event schedule page and fill out the form. It's easy and only takes a minute of your time. Best of all, it's absolutely FREE to list events!

So add your events and be sure to check back regularly to the new events added. Good luck! | TAM

I've been messing around with car stereos since before I could drive. My dad and I installed many radios, speakers and CB radios in vehicles my family owned.

I was in high school in the mid 1980's when the whole car audio industry took off. Cars were begining to get more complicated to 'soup up' so most young guys began tinkering with their car stereo instead of their engines.

A nice car stereo system back then was Pioneer AM/FM cassette deck and couple of 3-way 6x9s in the rear deck. A REALLY nice system had a Clarion or Realistic 40-watt EQ/booster. And yes, we played them LOUD as they'd go.

In '83 or '84, I recall someone at school drove up with 10" clear-cone Becker woofer mounted in the center of the rear deck in a Camaro. It was powered by Sanyo 100-watt amplifier the size of washing machine. That setup was the Holy Grail of car audio for a couple years in our town.

I remember another guy raised the bar by installing six 10" Beckers and three Sanyo amps. We gave him pass on the fact he drove a Toyota station wagon.

By the time I graduated, Sony had introduced some good amplifiers, woofers and of course, compact disc players. Early CD players cost over a grand, didn't have radios and skipped like crazy. But the difference in sound quality was amazing.

We used to look for the few CDs marked DDD (all digitally mastered) because those sounded awesome. Most stuff was marked AAD or ADD since the original masters were analog. Though subtle, there was noticable difference in sound.

We cruised alot, cranking it up against one another at red lights and in shopping center parking lots. In '84 or '85, I remember a local car stereo store (actually an auto accessory shop turned car stereo store) hosting the first 'crank it up' contest. I don't remember anything specific about it other than they had prizes for first, second and third. The guy with the Toyota wagon only got third which we all thought was crazy.

I attended a couple more sound-offs after that and in 1989 entered my first NACA event. I had no clue about what the contest involved, the classes or the rules. I just remembered being pissed that installers from shops in other towns were enter in consumer divisions instead of pro. Seems liars have been competing in sound-offs since day one.

Why did I mention all these memories here? Because lately I've noticed a few people claiming to be experts of all things car audio and sound-off related. Only problem is, there weren't even born when 12volt industry really got 'cranking'. They have no knowledge of CAN, NACA, WAC, CMAA, TOW, or when the top competitors were guys like Wayne Harris, Jimmy Hamm, Mark Fukuda, Eric Holdaway, Manville Smith and Lucio Proni.

Those guys (and many more) built the 12volt industry and used the sound-off hobby to further those goals. Just as auto racing pushes advances in auto part designs, the technical and installation advances directly attributable to the sound-off lanes is incredible. If some of the younger car stereo enthusiast had a little more respect for the history and pioneers of the hobby, maybe some of us old-timers could teach them a thing or two. | TAM