Firestarter, you are a strange individual -- but then, everybody I have ever met who competes in the SPL division of audio competitions is pretty weird, in my book at least.

I want you to know that I am currently the Alaska State SPL champion in my category, which is vehicles with less than 160 square inches of subwoofer cone area. I accomplished this amazing feat by putting out (are you ready for this?) an incredible 118 decibels. That's right -- 118. Many people actually listen to their music at settings louder than that, and the only way I could get even that loud was to play the cannon sequence from Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture!

I have only a single 10" sub, and I enter the SPL portion of the competitions just as a joke (it doesn't cost anything extra as long as I am entered in the sound quality portion) and people make fun of my car in SPL -- they gather round and pretend to hold the doors and windshield in place to prevent the incredible sound pressure from breaking the window glass. :-) I won my division because I was the only car entered in that class. (However, to make up for my lack of SPL, I generally kick butt in the sound quality portion of the competition)

The loudest car that competes locally topped out in testing at 169 decibels, but only managed 166 decibels in official competition. It's a big Chevrolet Dualie truck with 18 kilowatts (perhaps I should say kill-o-watts?) feeding twelve 15" subwoofers, if I remember correctly. He uses a 100 watt amplifier as a pre-amplifier to feed six 3000 watt amplifiers that run the speakers. There are no other speakers in the vehicle, so he doesn't do too well in the sound quality portion of the competition. The system can only be run for about five seconds at a time, then has to cool down for several minutes. It is not at all uncommon for some part of the system to quit working when all of the smoke leaks out of it. Crazy.

If you are getting over 150 decibels with an in-dash mounted player, that is better than most of our local competitors do. For whatever reason, it seems like most of the CD players mounted in-dash start skipping at about 141 decibels. The serious competitors have a podium that they mount outside the vehicle containing the audio source unit. The really serious ones use a signal tone generator instead of a CD player -- they find the resonant harmonic frequency of the inside of the vehicle, and send a pure tone at that frequency to maximize their SPL. They're all crazy.

For those of you who have never watched an SPL competition, it's an amazing sight. When the big rigs light off, they set off car alarms in parking lots across the street. Because it is necessary to completely seal off the passenger compartment to maximize SPL, they are not that loud on the outside -- the whole car vibrates and blurs slightly, and the noise of all the rattling body panels is actually louder (outside the car, remember) than the stereo. After a summer of SPL competition, even a new car is literally falling apart as all the bolts and nuts have been rattled loose. I'm telling you, they're all CRAZY!

So, Firestarter, o Crazy One, good luck in your competitions. I wouldn't mind seeing you light that rig of yours off a few times. Guess I must be a little bit crazy myself.

tanstaafl.









"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"