Hey all...some of this is a copy from my post on elite, but I think it's as relevant here, as there's a few people lurking around with SQ installs that haven't competed before. Maybe my experience will help you decide to give it a shot! As a whole it was a great experience. If you're thinking of giving it a shot and have questions, please ask....I'm long winded, so...sorry....

I am uhhh, not the cleanest installer in the world and procrastinate at times, so I became the guy taking his car apart and fixing stuff Friday evening while all the other competitors were polishing/detailing their cars for the third time. I was also intimidated that although I'm in Novice, some of the installs I'm going up against are done by "big dog" installers. With that understanding I went into this for experience, to meet cool people who are into what I'm into, to put faces to some names here on elite, to learn and get my car sounding better (was hoping this would include a tune from Eric Stevens). I definately accomplished all of these. Not one person laughed because my install wasn't the prettiest thing in the world compared to most of the cars there.

OK so in Novice I think there were 9 competitors. I knew off hand one dude was going to kick my butt and had some feeling some of the others would as well. I showed up with a rattle in my passenger door panel and some polyfill to stuff in it to cure it. IT WORKED!!! It worked so well I thought I'd open up my drivers door and shove some in there too. Welllll, once reclosed, that door got a rattle of it's own, NOT GOOD.

SQ judging is first. I really feel like the judge Harry K gave a lot of negative feedback about the system, some positives. People who heard his comments said that as a whole, that's not bad....

Next comes that part i'm dreading....install judging....as I'm not the cleanest installer. The judge mentions that all safety stuff is OK, as a whole not bad, and gave some tips on cleaning up stuff for the future. Holy crap, i think, he didn't grill me!

Only thing left is SPL...what do I have to fear? Nothing of course as I'm running two ID max's with 400-500 watts to them. (by the way, they wouldn't let us do this with test tones,....had to be one of the pipe organ tracks from IASCA disk.) Surely I won't "lose" points here, right? So we make a setting with the gains down on everything but the subs, which are all the way up, along with the sub volume on my head unit all the way up. We get everthing so ready that I CAN'T mess up..all i have to do is unpause it....WELLLLL I start the track and as soon as the bass kicks in my amps clip and go into protect( I've never really tried to bass out this hard before, so I just wasn't thinking this would happen). I think i hit like a 118 or so, coulnd't get it to fire back up so that really screwed me. (you get one point per db over 100 db, maxing and 135 db/35 points) I then knew that any shot I had of placing was gone. I pout for a half hour then figure wtf...oh well get on with life.

Wait wait wait wait wait for the judges to finish. I think it was almost 10PM before they announced winners.

Didn't place, get my score card ...as a whole not too bad (considering the flop in SPL) for my first comp (according to others). I placed 6 out of 9 in my division even flopping the SPL and with the rattle, total of 306.1 points. If I hadn't flopped SPL i would've been just a few points behind the third place finisher. Got all my install safety points (five out of 5's) mostly 6's out of 10 for install integrity (one 5), about half credit on all the presentation points (out of 5), 14/14/16/15 on sub, midbass, midrange, highs (20 possible), 11/12/12 (15 possible) on soundstage width/ height/depth 8's (out of 10) accross the board on imaging(a pretty darn good score ), 7/7/6 out of 10 on linearity, and all points for having no noise. I think i would have done pretty well on depth if rookies were judged on it. I wish they were


I'm leaving the comp with definate things I can do to improve and a better understanding of whats out there...had a good time, met some great people. Just not sure of whether or not to make finals a goal(would depend on how far of a drive it is) . If there's a slap finals in Hagerstown I'd go. I could definately score better, just not sure if I could place well at a big event. We'll see what happens.

OH...one more cool thing for me about going to a comp...it FORCES me to get off my azz and install, whether it means taking a few days off work or staying up half the night Friday....if I didn't go to this comp my system wouldn't be as done, wouldn't sound as good, and my car wouldn't actually be clean (for me) now.

A great experience!

The SPL burping cars were annoying....by the way..If i hear one more 45 hz tone I'll puke.

Guys...everyone was real real friendly and supportive. Not one big dog looked down on my or treated my like shait because my install isn't glamourous looking. Don't be scared of being shunned because you don't have the prettiest install. Safety and sound go a long way in street,and especially in novice. Lots of people gave real good practical advice as to how to do stuff, how to get my ride sounding better, how to score more points, etc.....Everyone was happy to show me their extensive install logs...Got to hear a lot of incredible cars.

Should have already mentioned that I was blessed to have Eric Stevens tune my car, with help from Mic Wallace and Jason Winslow of Team ID. One reason to go to a big comp is the tuners, and they generally are happy to tune your car even if you're not a customer or running their stuff. Eric Stevens, Jeff Smith (a BIG DOG...real nice guy) and Steve Head were helping others tune. That in itself would be worth it for a lot of people. My system sounds...ummm much better now. Once I get rid of that rattle, I'll be pretty happy with the sound. After the comp, I got to go to dinner with team Image Dynamics, including President Eric Stevens, Jeff Smith, a few of the judges (also world champs). Dang Eric Stevens not only took a few hours to tune my car, he picked up a big tab for all of us (nice resteraunt in the casino ).

 

AAHHHH one more thing I gotta mention. There WAS another Maxima there! Very different install and sound from mine...sounded very good, and he did tuning himself. I know the next morning he was going to have Jeff Smith tune it, and that'll only make matters better. You wouldn't believe his speaker locations, and even if you did, you wouldn't believe it actually sounded good! It was a 95, competing in Amateur street if I remember right. Real nice guy, came to dinner with us (I can't believe I don't remember his name...sorry). Anyway, I told him he needs to get his azz on this forum and talk trash about his system Maybe he'll chime in. he came from Florida and prolly just left, so it may be a day or two, but he better come say hey!!!

Here's a few pics of his ride.... trunk shot

Alright here's the door panel...two tweets, two midranges, and two midbasses (lol, there's also a pair of tweets in the a pillars...don't ask me, I'm just telling you what this guy had )



More pics to follow. I'll spare you more pics of my system as I've posted most of them already....

 

I felt like a geek here. Found myself in the middle of a conversation with some elite guys in the audio world. Had to step back and say "can I take a picture of this". I'm sure they thought I was a loser, but hadda take it. Fun to listen to Eric Stevens and Jeff Smith talking.

Another "I'm a geek" picture. Hadda take one of Mic and Eric Stevens tuning my car together. THIS is prolly the main reason I drove 5 or 6 hours each way.

 

My buddy Mic wins first AGAIN. He took two first places..his division (pro street) and a sound quality only competition judging of "two seat" cars. In the words of Mic Wallace "real cars do it in both seats " I'm lucky to live near this guy. Split a room with him too, making this more affordable.


Steve Head aka audionutz's car/trucks. Steve took second in his class and in the overall SQC judging. Took 5th in the comp for everyone on Sunday. Mic took seventh (won a Zapco amp).

 

Nice clean Zapco trunk


IDW's and Arc SE's ...Lee B of Team Image Dynamics

 

random shot

NOT a SQ competition vehicle

 

 

Lee's doors, with ID 8's (not IDQ 8's...ID 8's) playing midbass. He did some remarkable stuff to do this with out rattling of the doors. Car sounded real good.

 

thats all folks! Had a great time. How you guys give it a shot sometime.

 

sounds like you had fun...kinda like me when I went to my 1st (and last) SPL competition.you gotta work on not blowing those amps newb. good job on the overall score. I would have paid $100 to have 2 da max bring up his max with his install and see how low they score him in the safety category.

 

I'm not the one that made those settings. I would've just turned it up slowly personally, but whatever.....Definately had a great time though.

 

what mic did they use for spl testing, TL?

 

sounds like a good time and experience. you would have beat me im sure! next tiem you'll do better

 

Donno exactly. Most people didn't hit their 135 because they ween't allowing test tones. In addition tot eh one they were using for the SQ guys who hadda hit 135, it also included some spl events, like the one where two cars line up and go at it together and get metered and "race" each other. They had "race" lights that went higher as SPL went highter in each car that looked like the starting lights of a race track. Those werethe Audio Control 190 like Don has. so there were at least three there owned by leagues (IASCA and the bass race league. Eric brought his from ID to play with and some other people there had RTA's. They were everywhere....

 

Great read. Where was the meet btw?

 

Damn Steve, looks like you had a great time. Congrats on surviving your first meet. If one comes local to around here, I am definitely going to try to attend.

Can't wait to hear your finished product

 

Congrats Steve. I got back in town last week and I'd love to hear your setup. Just lemme know when!
--Chris

 

Thanks for sharing your experience Steve. I remember when I was younger and followed the competition circuit closely, I always dreamed of meting some of the top guys and picking their brains. Plus to have the Pres of ID tune your system, wow. Good luck in the future!

 

Nilesh,
Thanks for the encouragement. Unfortunately, there's not many comps around here. I drove a little over 5 hours each way for this one cause it was a biggie. It was at a Casino in the middle of nowhere in that little tip of West Virginia that is actually north of Pittsburgh.

http://www.iasca.com/events/ Here's the IASCA event listing for IASCA. finals still aren't announced yet. You'll see comps in Oswego NY which is far, but afew more in NY (don't know where those towns are in NY), looks like the "Jersey Blast" is more SPL.

Also SLAP has some local events, but make sure there's a real sound quality competition at these. heres' the slap events. http://www.slapshow.com/events/index.htm Slpas finals are usually in Hagerstown Maryland in October, though doesn't seem announced yet. I've heard rumors of slap folding because it's not as big as it once was. Make sure these events have SQ before you go.

Unfortunately, Sound quality is a dying sport. Thre used to apparently be 4 times the people entering at some of these events. To me, goes back to "our" focus on the bling bling and not on the sound.

Chris: You're really welcome whenever. This weekend I'll prolly get rid of that rattle, may even bring her back to Mic for a little adjustment or two after that (it never ends), but you're welcome before or after that. I'm essentially in Parkville. Work "teacher" hours. Just OM me when you wanna come out and take a listen and welll work something out....

 

Is it common to raise all the gains all the way up on the sub amp and turn the HU all the way up when getting spl metering? I don't see how that combo wouldn't lead to clipping/protection mode on the amps

Sounds like a great experience, glad you had fun

 

I don't know whats customary. The actual gains on the amp weren't touched, just imput level to the processor, but same thing, then the sub control pumped up all the way... It certainly didn't do well for me. Never again...next time I'll start low and slowly but surely go higher. Oh well...great time nonetheless. Live and learn.

 

Honestly didn't you expect it to clip when you had it all boosted up like that? lol

 

people disengage the protect mode on amps when SPL competing. but no in general it is not common practice to just turn everything up to 100% and hope for the best. I kept my settings 100% stock to see what what system does as a DD setup when I metered.

 

Clip maybe...clip to the point of shutdown...no. Liek I said...i didn't make this setting...somebody else did (w/ more experience than i) and i listened...live and learn, but he's not the guy I generally question about audio....PS gains in the trunk as set pretty far down....didn't think it would clip close to that hard in the little bit of time before i went and did this.

 

So... did ya get help emptying out the coolers?

 

That wasn't a problem Winslow and some others were happy to help. And he really is a chill, nice guy.... though there is an east vs west coast thing brewing that I find kinda funny...

 

drama huh...oh hell, it stems from the competive spirit

 

Hey Steve. That's a pretty nice looking Max in your second post. It looks a little bit like mine.......oh, wait, it is. Thanks for posting it.

Even thought we were dead tired from driving the 14 hours from FL through the night Friday and then staying up all day Sat. cleaning, tweaking...... both me and my girlfriend had a great time. Its always fun to meet new people, see their setups and hear them too of course. It was awesome to see another Max there. Steve's setup is very nice and at the same time very different from mine. I have over 22 drivers in my Max which is a bit overkill but that makes it VERY dynamic.

After the first judge listened to my car she told me that the subbass was lacking a little. My car usually is awesome in this area. I use ED subs with an Fs of 16 Hz in a dual chambered, heavily braced 2.5ft2 sealed enclosure. When everything is set right subsonics are were it really shines. I later realized a few setting had been moved so it was lacking a little on the low end.

Heres a quick rundown of my score from Am. Street.

Tonal - 17,18,17,17,18
Stage - 13,13,14,13,8
Imaging - 9,9,9,8,9,9
Linearity - 8,8,8
Noise - 4,5,5,5 (the first 4 was for turn on/pop that was coming from a relay behind the radio. In the rulebook it cleanly states the mechanical noise from the source unit is NOT to be scored off for. The head judge agreed but the score was left as a 4 because I was told the one point would not have change the overall standings)
SPL - 30.9 (my system is capable of well over 140 but I just run out of time to set everything for it and was SO tired I just let it ride through the SPL lanes with my normal SQ settings)
Safety - All 5s
Integrity - 6,8,8,8,6 (here I have issues with the way it was judges. The judge counted off for my pullout HD player being a little loose. It cleanly states in the rule book that a pullout is to be pulled out and the can only checked for integrity, NOT the unit itself. I again talked to the head judge but the score was never changed. I later talk to the judge about my install and he again told me I was wrong. Also, in this section of the judging, they are including things that in the past have not been judge. Thing like special wire looms, metal amp rakes over wood, wiring that cannot be seen but are in your picture book are all being judged which about according to the rulebook cleanly state should not be. I try my very best to do everything to the letter of the rule but there are people are there that like to bend the rules their own way)
Craftsmanship - 3,3,4,2
Presentation - 6,3,4,4,3

I finished 4th in class only a few points behind 3rd in Am Street SQ. In SQC, which is SQ only, no install points, I think I place 5th. I did not think that was too bad considering the way my system is setup. I think I am one of the only person in my class that does not have kick panels.

First thing Sunday morning Jeff Smith retuned my car. At first listen it sounded a little bit better but I was still so tired and the first Top 30 judge was ready to listen to my car. Throughout the day I was listen to it and the judges comments. The judges kept letting my the bass pulled to the rear and the image was not focused. I think even Steve can tell you that the imaging in my car is usually very precise. My car usually has pretty good upfront bass with the four 6.5" drivers in the doors playing from about 150 Hz all the way down to 50 Hz. I finally had the time to really listen and compare my settings to Jeff's. I listen over and over, the differences were so small but they were there. His settings did pull the subbass to the rear and smeared the imaging a little. It did help the overall tonality of the car. So I basically took the good from his setting and the good from mine and made one. Then I have people listen to my car while switching between Jeff's setting and my new one. Most said thing like my new one. Maybe I can tune better then I thought, LOL..

Overall we had a great time and as always learned a ton. My girlfriend is on Team Zapco (he car did not get done in time for this show) so we hung out with them most of the time. The owner of Zapco was there so we got to meet him and his wife. Wow, what a super nice guy and very willing to help anyone out that is using his products. I talked to him for hours. It was great to meet you Steve and listen to your car. Nice setup and I am sure you will be in the running very soon.

You can see more pictures of both my car and my girlfriends car on my website; www.turboegt.com She actually does about 95% of her own install and has actually beat me at an IASCA show......but only once, LOL.

 

Orlando huh? You should definitely bring your ride out to some CFMA (Central FL Maxima Assn) meets. Check the Southeast US forum periodically.

 

you found a girl that likes car audio...or did you force it upon her? nice setup btw.

 

Yup. Granted I was into it before I met her but once she started seeing and hearing my cars she wanted to do hers. She works hard on her stuff and learns as much as she can. She was in tears when we finally decided at 3:30am Friday morning that there was just no way we were getting her car down in time of SVR at working on it for the pst two months.

She can fiberglass, wire her own stuff and paints her own stuff. Her doors even have molded plexi window smoothed into them. Allow is a pic. of her door. She did all the work on the door exept for the plexi molding which we did together. She even painted then to match on outside of the car with Dupont base/clear.



She got tried of sending the money and waiting for pro painters to paint her panels and trim so one day her just decided to try painting her own stuff. We hand some cheap guns around and we already had the paint so she was off to paint her stuff. Well, I have to say, that girl can paint like a pro. She has painted a few more things now the hardest being the fiberglass tub that goes in my trunk. With all the different angles this piece was very hard to get an even coat with getting overspray everywhere. It came out really good on the base coat but we ran out of time to clear it yet. Her is the proof pic, LOL


Bellow is her adding more resin to one of her enclosures in the new setup in her car.


Can you tell I am proud

PS; sorry about the big pics

Rick

 

Yo Rick:
To me, thats a lady! Lemme know if she's got sisters in Maryland that wanna hang out and install. Zapco should get her some of their new speakers!

Suprised that Jeff Smith tune didn't fully work out for you, but I guess not really. A lot of the big whigs have multiple tuners tune their car and compromise between the different people's settings. Supposedly Jeff Smith tunes for a more exciting tonality and Eric Stevens more of a technical tuner. I would have loved to get them both in my car.

Was the Zapco pres name Bob, or Robert, of Bobby or something like that? If so I was talking to him for a while not knowing it was the Zap President??? Cool.

How much fun was food fighting at a nice resteraunt? And ID picking up the tab...good times. Lots of people had problems with the install judging.

I don't like that they don't judge us on depth.

You gotta go optical with the 701, though that one judge said I have noise too, the other judge said I didn't, and I have to agree with the one that said I didn't. The alt whine sounding noise tha tmy max makes sometimes doesn't stop when the system is off....

Great meeting you and your g/f and I may see you at finals. If it's not too too far away, I think I may just give it a go....

 

She does have a sister but she is younger and lives in TX. She is not into sound like Rebecca is, but we are working on that one.

Zapco has been super helpful but at SBN Polk Audio fell in love with her car. Then when they found out a female did it all they really wanted to help her get their new SR speakers in there. There SR stuff looks really nice and hopely well sound better then her old Polk Momo setup.

I do think his name was Robert. He was a super nice guy and his main goal for his team was just to have fun. He really does not base things on weather you win or lose as long as you are having fun and love your zapco product. That kind of thinking is rare in this industery.

The food fight, LOL, I thought I was with a bunch of little kids,LOL. We had no idea ID would pick up the tap. That was very nice of them. Sundays dinner was picked up by Zapco for the team. It nice to know people still support their the people using their products.....and a few that dont, LOL.

Ya, I had a little noise using the 701 in anolag and I knew it was there. I will probably go with the Apline double din and using the fiber optic out. We just put that in my GFs car. I only played with it for a few minute friday morning but it seens to have no noise and have a nice graphic interface for controling the 701. I had a base setting up and going in just a few minutes.

Boy I sure wish they did not judge us on depth,LOL. I have good height and width but the depth is right at the windshield but nothing past it.

I hope we can make it to finals this year. Two years ago we both got invites but we regrat badly not going. We took last year off and are now trying to get back up to speed. I am sure we will run into eachother again.

Rick

 

Oh I just noticed that it's just the novices that dont' get judged on depth. I thought it was "street" cars. I think a depth judging would have helped my car a little, and think they should too. NO idea wtf is up with ambience though.

 

I think IASCA is just trying to get a good starting piont in rookie and not overwelming people. Once you move up them you get judged on that. If you think you can hang I am sure no one would mind you competing in street. I can tell you that in my rookie year I got first place in all but my ever first event which was SBN and then the one my GF beat me but I still got second. Once I went to street its a totally difference ball game. The judging is much stricter and the cars are at the top of there game.

 

looks like a fun time!

wish i can meet a girl that was into audio like i am. all the ones i know just nags and nags.

 

Yeah I know. I'm not sure if I'm **** enough to keep going with it. But I think rookies should be judged on depth. To me it's one of the components of a soundstage that I look/aim for.

All the cars were immacualte. So many of them new clean cars and built by big dog installers (in novice also...2nd' place was a Jeff Smith install, the Beemer one a Ron Buffington install. I think your neighbor Tony P did the red Beemer that didn't do well. And last yers rookie champ built by Steve Head was IMMACULATE. Hard for me to mess with, and of course it just gets more hard core when you step up to amateur street.

 

Yes. I have my thought on the whole "big Dog installs" competing in the lower classes. I am not sure how IASCA thinks us little people can posably keep up with some of those guys. The Jeff Smith installed Tacoma took 1st place in rookie at SBN. Quit a feet for your first show. Joe, the owner, is a nice kid but really does not know much about car audio....compritively anyways.

Funny thing. I was talking to the owner of Zapco about amps. He asked what amps I was running. I use old Fultron comp amps from years ago. For those who dont know Fultron is now Memphis Audio. These amps have a nice design and build but are still over seas amps. He was telling me that Zapcos cheap line of I-Force amps would probably do everything my old Fultron amps were doing and then some. He thought it was pretty cool I was used cheaper stuff then you usually find in SQ cars. Anyways, for the Top 30 they had all sorts of nice prizes including two Zapco I-Force amps. These are Zapco designed but made over seas to their specs. The big guy from Zapco was hoping one would be left so I could get it for my car. I did not get it but I get a nice audio/video switcher that will be going in the GFs car. At dinner with all of Team Zapco we were all talking about it and Joe spouts off "no SQ person would put those amps in there car". My responce was would you be able to actually tell the difference between you amps and the I-Force amps. After some studdering and looking around, knowing he just bit off way more them he could chew he finally stated probably not.

I have used some of the "best" SQ amps out there. My system my rookie year used McIntosh amps. My GFs car runs 4 Zapco C2K amps. The differences in amps is so slight compaired to speakers. The thing people tend to forget is you can have the best equipment in the world but if not installed and setup correctly its totally piontless. On the other hand I think my car it a great example of what you can do with cheaper stuff, a solid install and lots of tuning. Even Steve uses old amps and his car sounded great.

 

I totally agree with everything you said there. You may have noticed the I use old school ESX amps...just don't care to spend more money on amps, which like you said, would make a very marginal difference if any compared to much larger possible differences like speakers, tuning, and getting rid of that f ing rattle in my door. Also think I'll build new kicks and try to get my midranges more on axis, allowing me to move my horns further out, as well as build some "covers" for the side of the center console, as recommended by Eric Stevens..

I WISH that there was a division of IASCA called "non-sponsored DIY", for people don't work in car audio and do the stuff themselves. I know theres a few of those people that can do truely "elite" installs, but not many. Of course, you'd have people that would lie to win trophies. I just don't see myself ever competing with a Steve Head or Jeff Smith install made to win comps. .

Joe..that was his name. Uhhh I shouldn't get started on that kid. Like you said, nice kid...system was nice and clean, but by the end of the day I got the idea that he was...well, may I say "unstable". When he lost his scoresheet and was disqualified (before they gave him a break and rejudged him) it was literally like the end of his life. I mean, I was pissed when I botched the SPL portion of judging, (the one part I thought I didn't have to worry about, haha) but goodness, take a few minutes, remember it's a car audio contest, and move on. lol... k that's all I'll say I wont go into details.

So often when people want to compare amps or head units I feel like bringing up the importance of install, speakers, and of course tuning but it gets redundant. Did you get to hear Mic's car by the way? He won the smaller of the Zapco I force amps, taking I think it was 7th overall on Sunday in overall sound. He does have expensive (custom made for him) Genesis amps, but at the same time he's using the same POS Alpine 9860 HU that I use. (optical out of course).