Do you whipper snappers even know good car audio anymore?

I have come to a bit of an epiphany today.

Years ago young men and women listened to their rock & roll and hip hop and it was loud, and it was good. The ground shook, and in California earthquake sensors at traffic lights would literally trip if you drove by with enough bass in the back of your mini truck or car.

At the house you had the component audio system. Components hand built in the USA by companies started by guys like Avery Fisher, before Fisher sold out and became part of Sanyo’s lineup of Japanese junk. These systems had woofers, mid-range speakers, and tweeters. The amps weighed 15 pounds, and these were solid state amps. They were accompanied by a pre-amp, tuner, cassette deck, CD player, turntable and maybe an equalizer, but then again if your system was good, you didn’t really need an ‘EQ’.

Some people had too much bass, the cars that go boom so to speak, others too much treble or crappy speakers paired with awesome components, but every now and then someone balanced it all in a symphony of electronics, speakers, wiring and sweat that made everything from Bach to Madonna sound exceptional, loud, and bathed you in sound like a crashing wave at the ocean bathes you in salt water.

I worked for companies like Al & Ed’s Auto Sound, Leo’s Stereo, Circuit City and my own company, Sound Advice (Not the outfit in Florida back in the 1980’s, but the outfit I started in California in the 1980’s) for the most part switching jobs often and working for the highest bidder. I was 20 years old making $36,000 or more per year. Think about that, adjusted for inflation that’s $68,967.57 today. Don’t believe me? Check this calculator from the US Bureau of labor Statistics:

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

No wonder I was literally in Las Vegas 30 weekends out of the year, traveling to ‘Sound Off’ competitions, constantly at the gym or the beach and dating like only Hugh Hefner had done before.

On top of my salary I got a percentage of my labor, and commissions on sales. That was some of the best cash ever, because the customer at the audio store always trusted the installer more than the salesperson, and they should have. I was worried about how the final product would sound and how the components worked together, and about bragging rights because I’d built that system.

Besides, my commissions on the Monster Cables, fabrication of your woofer boxes, dash kits, interior work and accessories were almost as much as the commissions on the equipment.

I got a reputation. I did the home audio system for Ken Norton Jr. when he was with the Dallas Cowboys and living in Orange County in the off season, I installed audio for fleets of limousines, in high end boats for the rich, got my name in magazines, and totally tore apart cars that belonged to guys like Riki Ellison, who was a linebacker for the Los Angeles Raiders at the time. Riki was awesome, and even indirectly got me a job on the Raider sideline. It didn’t pay a dime, but how many guys hang on NFL sidelines for fun on Sundays? I have photos of Ronnie Lott, Emmitt Smith, Marcus Allen and just a few Raiderettes. That job also led to a few referrals and more work. I was “that guy that did Riki’s car”.

Our parents complained, laws were passed, and the license plate frame on my 1987 Jeep Comanche read, ‘If it’s too loud, you’re too old’.

Today I realized I might need a new license plate frame.

“If it’s too loud, you’re too young”.

You kids with your iPods, factory car stereos (which I freely admit are light years ahead of factory systems back in my day, but still inferior to anything I installed 20 plus years ago) and your computers...

Have you ever even felt music? Annoyed a grown up? Danced in the street on a sheet of cardboard? Do you all flock to clubs so much because of the novelty of vibration in the air and because you’ve never felt anything like it anywhere else?

Shame on you.

When I bought my first house in 1998 I also had one of my first brand new vehicles in the garage, a 1995 Jeep Wrangler that needed sound. I’d been accumulating components for over 3 years, it was expensive for the good stuff, and I was ready to install the 3 amplifiers, CD player, 14 speakers, miles of wiring, keyless entry remote control alarm and ignition kill system.

By the time I was finished I knew it would work and sound awesome, especially with the top down (Who drives a Wrangler with the top up anyway?). I fired it up, and the first CD was World Power from SNAP!.

Within seconds I was bathed in sound, and adjusting and tweaking the gains on the amplifiers to get the perfect balance. I needed it loud to do that, because I was going to be playing it loud. Within seconds the rafters of my garage were moving and someone was tapping me on the shoulder, mainly because I didn’t hear them yelling from the driveway. I spun around to see a man in his late 50’s and I turned down the music.

“You DEAF?” he asked.

“You think it’s ok to come in my garage while I’m working? Get out of here, I’m busy.” I barked. I admittedly could have handled that one better, but as a homeowner I felt a bit entitled, and at the time I was a wee bit cocky. Besides, it’s was only the middle of the day.

That Jeep got me through the rest of my 20’s, my 30’s, and into my 40’s. It provided the music for beach parties, dance parties on the roofs of parking garages, bass thumping trips down the Las Vegas strip, sound off-roading in the desert and something for the whole campsite to hear on hunting trips.

One month ago I sold that Wrangler after 15 faithful years. The day I sold it the Jeep was still running like new and even carried the new owner and his son from Orange County, California to Connecticut without a hitch.

The new owners called me after he bought the Jeep online and asked, “One question…How in the hell does this have keyless entry?”. My skill, my tools, my hands, that’s how. The actuators I’d installed within the doors 15 years ago still worked perfectly.

He’ll never hear the sound system though. I left the CD player and speakers, but took the amplifiers out and re-wired the speakers straight to the CD unit. Those amplifiers go with the new system I’m putting together for my Chevrolet Silverado, and they’re still better than the amps you’ll buy at Pep Boys these days.

I need another loud system. It’s high time I started reminding you kids that the puny white Bose radio on your nightstand, or your headphones, or your iPod, or those salt shaker size speakers on your desk don’t really sound like a big system, no matter what the commercials tell you.

Have you even heard ‘Empire State of Mind’ by Jay-Z loud enough to make your heart skip or do you pansies need to go see ‘Sex In The City 2’ at the multiplex in surround sound to hear it that way?

My wife and I are buying a house and it’s big. I’ve decided it needs a system worthy of annoying the neighbors. Thankfully there are still some stores you can get some decent components at, so I won’t have to scour eBay or Craigslist for vintage stuff, but when I wonder is this:

Do any of you whipper-snappers even know where those stores are? You kids today….You’ll never understand my generation. Your music just isn’t loud enough for us old people.