RE: [alfa] RE: CAR Stereo Solutions

["Gregory Youngblood" <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lots of snipping, comments in line. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Benjamin Kaupp
> I am 19 years old. I had a 10 speaker custom system in my 
> little street racer Audi. Does that make me (as you so 
> eloquently put it) a diaper boy? The only person who ever 
> commented on my stereo was a police officer who asked which 
> CD I was listening to because he'd never heard of the band.
...
> But, having been a diaper 
> boy for nearly 20 years, I also know when I'm pissing people 
> around me off, and when I'm showing my pride and joy to 
> friends and rivals.

If you really are concerned about the people around you, and you don't just
blast your stereo for the sake of being loud, then you fortunately fall into
that small percentage of people that enjoy their powerful sound systems
responsibly. And because of the more public larger percentage that doesn't,
you will forever be improperly villified. Similar in the way that the
original "hacker" in computers is now completely villified by the
destructive shenanigans of "crackers" and vandals that have been improperly
given name "hacker" by the media. Recognize it and don't let it bother you
when people get the wrong idea. If they make a quick/rash conclusion without
knowing you then that is their problem and not yours.

The most annoying thing is to be in my suburban that usually blocks out most
of the sound from the outside, have the stereo on at a mild level so we can
converse with everyone in the car, and then have a diaper boy in a rick
rocket wannabe (or rusting out old mini-pickup) with his sound system so
loud that it not only drowns out the stereo in the suburban, but also makes
it where we are not able to talk without yelling.

To make matters worse, I've yet to hear a decent sound coming out of these
cars. The only they get is a 'thump thumpa thump' with the base line -- they
don't appear to have any range of tone. The really pathetic ones are the
systems that are no longer brand new but a few months to a year+ old. The
metal in the car has been so fatigued by the constant base vibrations that
the car itself rattles. So now, instead of 'thumpa thump' you hear
'thumpa-bzz thump-bzzz-rattle-squeak-rattle'. 

I think it was late 80s or early 90s that some of the installation mags (I
used to do aftermarket installation and customization work and got a few
trade mags) actually started documenting metal fatigued in "long term"
situations.

> Nobody ever screams about free flow 
> exhausts on harleys (or spiders, for that matter) but people 
> take one look at the sub box in my trunk and immediately hate 
> my car.

Not entirely true -- I know lots of people that complain about the loud
pipes off harleys and other motorcycles and hot rods. And a lot more people
that laugh hysterically at the fart noises from a lot of the rice rockets.
Fart tips does not make a car sound "cool". 
It's all relative. Some people will complain just for the sake of
complaining.

Greg
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