90: feat. Mark Bruno
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98:05
Company
Alpine
Alpine is a company that makes really good sound systems for cars. They are known for making music sound great when you're driving.
Car
Mercedes-Benz 500 SEC
The Mercedes-Benz 500 SEC is a fancy two-door car that was made in the 1980s and 1990s. It's known for being powerful and stylish, making it a popular choice for those who want a luxury vehicle.
Term
gas tank
The gas tank is where the car stores fuel. It's important because it helps the car run, and its placement can affect how the car drives.
Part
subwoofer
A subwoofer is a type of speaker that makes deep sounds, like bass. It's often used in car audio systems to make music sound better and more powerful.
Term
infinite baffle
An infinite baffle is a way to set up a speaker so it can make better sounds. It helps the speaker produce deep bass without interference, which is great for music in cars.
Car
1994 Thunderbird Super Coupe
The 1994 Thunderbird Super Coupe is a sporty car made by Ford. It has a powerful engine and was designed for both performance and comfort, making it a fun car to drive.
Car
Cadillac Optiq
The Cadillac Optiq is a new electric car that will have cool technology and features. It's part of Cadillac's plan to make more electric vehicles that are both fancy and fun to drive.
Brand
Eclipse
The Eclipse is a car made by Mitsubishi that was popular for its sporty look and performance. Many people liked it for racing and customizing.
Term
ESN
ESN is a security code used in some car audio systems. It helps keep the system safe from being stolen by requiring a special code to use it after it's been unplugged.
Term
third generation
'Third generation' means the third version of a car model, which usually has new features and improvements compared to earlier versions. For the Eclipse, this version was made from 1995 to 1999.
Term
410
The '410' is probably a specific version or type of the Eclipse that has certain features or engine options. It helps people know which version of the car they are talking about.
Term
line array
A line array is a setup of speakers lined up in a row that helps make the sound clearer and more direct. It reduces echoes and makes it easier to hear the music or audio, especially in big areas.
Car
Audi 100S
The Audi 100 is a comfortable and well-made car that was popular for many years. It's known for being a nice car to drive and having good features, which helped Audi become a respected brand.
Term
purpose built
A purpose-built car is made for a specific job, like racing or showing off sound quality, instead of just being a regular car. They have special features to help them do that job better.
Term
NASCAR
NASCAR is a big racing organization in the U.S. that holds races with specially built cars. These cars are made to go really fast on circular tracks.
Company
Zapko
Zapko makes equipment that helps improve the sound system in cars. Their processors are used to make music sound better in vehicles.
Term
stereo system
A stereo system in a car is like a music player that lets you listen to songs and radio. It has speakers and controls to change the music you hear.
Car
Tesla Semi
The Tesla Semi is a big electric truck that helps transport goods without using gas. It's designed to save money on fuel and be better for the environment, making it a new option for businesses that need to move products.
Car
Dodge Challenger
The Dodge Challenger is a big, powerful car that looks like it came from the past but has modern features. People love it for its speed and style, making it a popular choice for those who enjoy fast cars.
Term
side shows
Side shows are events where people gather to show off their cars and do tricks, like drifting. Sometimes, these can get out of hand and cause problems for the neighborhood.
Concept
car week
Car week is a time when many car lovers come together to see and talk about fancy cars. There are events where you can look at these cars and meet other people who like them too.
Term
takeover
A takeover is when a lot of cars come together in one place, sometimes causing traffic jams and doing stunts. It can be fun but also a bit chaotic.
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
The Chevrolet Corvette is a fast and stylish sports car that many people admire. The Z06 version is even more powerful, making it a top choice for those who love speed and driving excitement.
Term
leasing
Leasing means you pay to use a car for a few years instead of buying it. At the end of the lease, you can either give the car back or buy it if you want.
Car
Lamborghini
Lamborghini is a brand that makes very expensive and fast sports cars. If something goes wrong with one, it can cost a lot of money to fix it.
Car
Ferrari
Ferrari is a famous brand that makes very fast and expensive cars. If you need to repair one, it can be very costly.
Term
burnouts
A burnout is when a car's tires spin while the car is not moving, making a lot of smoke. It's usually done to show off how powerful a car is.
Term
donuts
Donuts are when a car spins in circles, making the back tires slide and leave marks on the ground. It's a fun but risky thing to do with a car.
LIVE
Many thanks to Resonix Sound Solutions for making this podcast a reality.
Find out more about Resonix Sound Treatments at ResonixSoundSolutions.com.
SVR has become one of the real checkpoints for the sound quality world. It's the weekend where
competitors bring the work they're most proud of, judges get pushed, and the community shows up
ready to listen. If you care about sound quality and the craft behind a serious build, SVR is the
place to hear what's possible and improve in venue with a feel to competitors who don't coast.
Details and registration info are available through the Still Value Regional Facebook
Group or by contacting Larry Chisner. SVR 15, July 17th through 19th, 2026 at the West Banko Arena.
Plan the trip now. Welcome to the Eskelegy Podcast. I'm joined today by Mike Myers. Hello, Mike.
Hello. And we finally have our special guest, Mark Bruno. Hello, Mark.
Hello, everybody. We started planning this maybe around nine months ago or so, and then
everybody's mostly my procrastination on things happened. And anyway, we finally got Mike's
shuffled around and Mark is finally with us. And then very appreciative of that. A few things
have happened since we first discussed doing this. But anyway, welcome, Mark. I'm glad to have you here.
Hey, thanks, Cliff. Thanks, Mike. It's good to have you on. Yeah, I know it's good to be on.
I know your history in car audio is probably much deeper than most people realize, at least on the
national scene. You're, for most people who are currently involved, a fairly recent addition.
It's not like you were been competing nonstop for 30 years or something, like one or two other people
that have the same kind of breadth and depth of your experience in car audio.
But what got you in car audio in the first place? Like, where did that journey start? When and how?
You know, it's actually kind of a funny story. My stepdad's cousins, a guy named Bob Nichols,
and he owned a stereo shop here in Seaside. And it was called Cartoons with a K.
And they did Alpine, all the cool stuff. But I think I was 13 years old, and we were at the
county fair. And Bob had an older, well, then it was a new Mercedes. I want to say it was a
500 SEC, like the coupe. Very cool car. And it was a demo car. So if I remember right, he had 36
Seas six inch in the back. And that was one of the ones that had the gas tank right behind the rear
seat. And so I remember peeking in the rear window. And he had a cartoons hat that was just
doing tricks on the back deck of that thing was flying around. And then eventually it would
fall off and he would send me in there to get it. And then I'm feeling the air pressure and all that.
So I mean, that was it for me. I was, I was, you know, locked in and had to figure out how to do
that, even though I was 13 years old and, you know, had a bicycle, I could put something on.
That's phenomenal. Yeah. So ultimately ended up going to work for him. Through high school,
I started building enclosures for people started doing my own installs and things like that.
And my stepdad was electrical contractor. So I was crawling under houses at 13 with him. So I
kind of had a little bit of a grip on, you know, how electricity worked and all that stuff. So,
you know, the AC side of things with signal kind of came easy for me because I learned the hard
way by being shocked at 60 Hertz 120 volts a lot. Yeah. So if you ever see, you know, I'm a little
sensitive at 60 Hertz. So I think Mike calls me out for not having enough of that frequency of my
car. I'm scared of it. So I don't know what it is. It just brings back bad memories. I can't
sleep afterwards. Yeah. So ultimately I went to work for him and as a sales guy and a guy named
Tim Haines and I had built a couple of cars that I'd taken to I ask actually before I ask a NACA
way back when and did a bunch of stuff up and down the coast with that car. I had one car that
won every show and entered that year in California. Then of course, like all people that are planning
on going to the finals, I decided to tear a bunch of it down. Always a recipe for success. Oh yeah,
and put in a bunch of new passive crossovers that were really cool looking with big air
conductors and polycaps and all that fun stuff. And we had to take the subwoofer out in the rear
rack out that had two Infinity RSDS 12s, infinite baffle. And it was in a 1994 Thunderbird Super
Super Chickens, what I called it. Yeah, those are fun. Yeah, it was a great car and it had that
giant rear deck. So it was perfect for IB. The problem is that's kind of where we integrated
those crossovers so you could see them and for installation and all that stuff. And apparently
when we put the woofers back in, one of them ended up with a cold solder joint and when they're
sharing airspace and an amplifier, that was not a recipe for success. Very big on balance load
at that point. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, out of phase with each other and yeah, all kinds of good
stuff. So my mid-base disappeared and was not a recipe for success thing. Yeah, no, definitely
not. Definitely. And so that's why I tend to run what I brung these days. I learned that lesson
the hard way, making all these changes and you know, try not to do changes until it's the
off season or whatever. Interation is key. Yeah, exactly. So where'd you end up next?
So what did I do? So I bounced around to a couple different retail places in the area. I met Reese
Haggett, who was a guy who pretty much started Alpine way back in the day. And at that point,
he was at Eclipse. And this was here in California at the time? In California, yeah, yeah. He came
in for a sales training with Ray Windsor and all that stuff. He saw a car that I had done before
and he was coming out the DDL system with all the fiber OPTIQ cable and the first digital
processor for a car, all that fun stuff. So we got one of the first units in the country,
the first round of prototypes. We got one of those and I remember the manual was all in Japanese.
You had to look at pictures to try to figure things out. Ultimately, what you really had to do
was just kind of play with buttons and watch it on an RTA and see what it was doing to figure
out how to use the thing. So I went through that whole process and that actually is the
vehicle that we ended up doing really well with. And so I was down attending a training at Fujitsu
and Ray was kind of struggling through kind of what it does because there was no manual. He
hadn't really had his hands on one in a car like that and Reese kind of bumped me and said,
hey, why don't you go up there and show them what you've learned with it? So I went up there and
I forget how many reps are there. There's probably five or six reps and maybe 20
dealers and just kind of ran through what I knew about the system and all that.
And then he asked me to go to CES that year and at CES he says, hey, I'm going to find a spot for
you and make you our national trainer. And yeah, so I thought that was really cool,
although I failed one class in my life and it was speech.
It was in college, right? And so immediately he goes directly into a speech role,
going into people. No, no cliff would happen is I immediately started sweating when he told me
what I was going to be doing. You're like, oh, training. That sounds like, oh, wait a minute.
Oh, whoa, wait. And he said, it's what you just did. And I'm like, okay. So anyway,
Reese ends up not getting hired back. They let his contract expire. Apparently he spent way too
much money or something like that. There's all sorts of stories about it. And Ray became the
national sales manager and it took about six months for Ray to get the budget to hire me,
but then he brought me in. And by the time I actually made the move down there, we were about
three months out of CES and they had all this new product stuff. And so I never went out and did
any training in the field. My first indoctrination into being the trainer was in front of 120 reps
at the Consumer Electronics Show at our rep meeting. Even better. And oh man, I was like, you
know, and of course, those are the kindest, most gentlest people when it comes to any
technical information being conveyed, I'm sure. Yeah, they did not want to hear the technical
stuff. They wanted to hear how much money they could make. All I'll say is thank God I didn't
eat anything the night before because I'm pretty sure I would have made a mess on stage. Yeah,
one way or the other, it would have came out, right? So that was an interesting experience.
But what I quickly realized is if you know the product better than anybody in the room,
you've got nothing to worry about standing up in front of them and actually training. So
it took me a few times to do that. And I also realized that silence was kind of my friend
when you're doing these trainings, it's okay to rest for five or even 10 seconds and get your
thoughts right. Because everybody just seems to, yeah, because everybody just seems to draw in even
more if you're on track up to that point. So what's he gonna say next? Yeah, something like that,
right? Yeah, yeah, what kind of crap is going to come out of his mouth next? And then, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, or uh, uh, uh, uh, yeah. So, so I did that for, I think about a year and a half,
and then that rolled into being a trainer as well as being the Western Regional Sales Manager
as Eclipse was starting to grow. That's a good, that's a good time to be alive.
Oh, it was, it was actually a super cool ride. I still hang out with some of the reps once in a
while. Like I saw Brad Crawford down in Southern California at the, at the show. And uh, he's,
he's retiring right now, but he's with Western Sales and Marketing back then. It was a great rep
and he was a very technical kind of a trainer guy. And he, when I, he and I were kind of reliving
those days and uh, he was just, you know, big ear to ear grain. He goes, those were just great
times. I mean, we were just, you know, forging a new path. It was like reinventing Alpine for the
specialty realtors, realtors, listening to me, especially realtors, especially uh, retailers.
Yeah. Um, it was, it was, it was a lot of fun. Then Dan McMillan up north and I, you know, I was
just up there a few weeks ago and, you know, we were talking about it all that. And so it's,
they were really good times, really good times.
Yeah. And it seems like, you know, especially when the eclipse was coming out, like there,
from what I remember from the consumer angle, I mean, I had, you know, I had a couple of clips
had units. I had the, um, one of the Eclipse aluminum, you know, 15s that were awesome clubs.
Yeah. And that was kind of, kind of in the later run, you know, of Eclipse, but throughout their,
you know, tenure in the market, they always seem to have a really spotless reputation. Like
it feels like they were one of the brands. I mean, I'm sure it was different working on the
inside. No, no, it's exactly like you're driving. But from a consumer angle and part of it may have
been just, you know, there and it wasn't the same as it is today. But, you know, there was,
there was, from a consumer angle, it felt like it was pretty much like, you know, yeah, there's,
you know, Alpine had its good and it's bad and Sony did, you know, and that was like,
especially when the explode series kind of came out and ES kind of took a dive. You know, there
was, there was a lot of that, a lot of complacency in the market. And it seemed like Eclipse was
the one that was continually, how many volts can we throw out in this output? How, you know,
what we got here? I mean, the, the security, the security discs were super annoying.
But other than that, I mean, I think I have, I still have at least two Eclipse stacks that
are completely brick because I can't do anything with them. But yeah. Because ESN stuff. Yeah.
ESN was, it was super cool. The concept was great, but you actually using a CD was,
I thought a really cool idea was just using the table of contents from a CD player as your code.
Right. The problem is nobody ever remembered or the installer would use their favorite CD and
the next thing you know, they're working for somebody else and nobody remembered what they
used and we would reset a bunch of them. Yeah. But I thought the concept was great. We actually
caught people and had the cops go pick them up with stolen radios with ESNs in them. So that part
of it was really cool. And then you probably remember there was an insurance policy on it
where if it got stolen, we'd give you a new radio. Right. Oh yeah. How'd that work out?
So it was, it was there. I mean, it actually worked out great. Nobody, I don't remember
has ever replaced in a radio from being stolen. Really? Okay. So yeah, yeah. So either people
didn't follow through with it or the work got out fairly quickly. Right. And you know, retailers,
one of the reasons those radios were popular and we kept selling stuff and everything else was
kind of slowing down was, I mean, one, the distribution was pretty skinny on them. So
retailers weighed heavily on them. But it was something different. And that's one of the things
we always tried to do with that brand back then was, you know, to, to create something that other
retailers didn't have to sell. So the reason we had an aluminum cone on a subwoofer wasn't because
it performed better. It performed as good as or, or maybe a little bit better than other
products that were out there, but it's because it looks super cool and it was so different. Right.
And they did perform really well. They sounded great. I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly. Because I went
from solo barracks to those. And I mean, it was in the solo, solo barracks back then that was a
really good sub. Like it was, yeah, absolutely. But, but yeah, I mean, it was one of the subs that
just had a noticeable like sound to it that was, you know, I don't know, sakeable. It was fun.
Yeah, it was one, I think it was one of the first speakers to kind of throw all the old rules out
about subwoofers. And instead of making the cone assembly and voice call assembly and all that
as light as you could, we kind of went the other direction. We were just, yeah, we're trying to
compress air in a car. So it's a totally different thing than compressing air in a big room or in
auditorium or in a concert hall, right? Right. Yeah. So you can throw away some efficiency
to gain a lower resonant frequency. Exactly. Exactly. And we used a guy named Tilo Stampler
who TC sounds you guys probably remember. Yep. So he was the guy who did the engineering on that.
I went to him kind of with the concept, here's what we're thinking. And of course, like everybody
else we talked to, he said, well, we can do that with a bunch of different cone materials,
but papers, the most cost effective and the stiffest that you're going to get for the money.
I'm like, yeah, but everybody has paper cone. We actually want to do this in aluminum, a spun
aluminum cone. And he looked at me like I had two heads, right? And then I explained to him why
and kind of what we're doing with the rest of the brand and all that. He goes, actually,
that's brilliant. He goes, I just have to find a supplier who can make them. So it was interesting,
you're reminding me of things, you're talking about how good the brand seemed on the outside.
Do you remember what happened to the first round of those aluminum speakers? Were you
in the market at that point? I owned one, but I wasn't in the field to know details.
So they were glued together, basically, with super glue. And the super glue that he got,
the first batch of it was older and had started to go bad, which I didn't know anything. Something
was wrong with the way it was kept. And so cones were basically flying off those things.
Actually, the dust, I'm sorry, the surrounds were coming off the cones, and then the cones would
like smash themselves up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that happened right out of the chute. And luckily,
we had just a small batch out there. So we caught it fairly quickly and then replaced them all and
did the right thing for all the dealers and everybody. And the second round of those things
were pretty much bulletproof and sounded great. And then the titanium combs came out, right?
Yeah. So, yeah. So I was working on that project with Teelo and, you know, the Japanese didn't
like to pay you a lot of money back then. Right. And I'd been there for quite a while. And if you
remember the rest of the speaker line, like, you know, I was heavily involved in the coaxials,
the components, the FIFA drivers that we had that were, I thought, pretty, pretty good speakers for
for the money. Right. And we did those point source speakers. I kind of came up with that idea
with one of our suppliers to get around Kef's patent on the drivers so that we had kind of that
same thing, but different and it was designed for car. And so all this stuff had huge margins for
the company and for the retailers. And, you know, we're making money on this brand. And
they're like, yeah, so we thought we'd give you a $2,000 raise this year.
Okay. And I'm like, okay, great. You know, and at that point, Rockford had been trying to get me
to go work for them sort of as a regional that's all timing with those guys and precision power
called me up. I knew Sean Gibbons and he called me and said, Hey, we need a regional and basically
they gave me an employment contract that was more than double what I was making at Eclipse.
And I got to move to Arizona, which allowed me to buy a house. So it was kind of kind of,
yeah, totally different times and stuff. Yeah. Buy a house in Arizona. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. In car in 12 volt. Yeah. See, that's what I'm saying, right? But you couldn't buy anything
in California. I mean, I could barely buy a car with what I was making in California with that.
Right. So it was kind of a no brainer, especially with my mom being in real estate and she's like,
Hey, you need to buy a house as soon as you can. I mean, that was always instilled in me when I was
younger. So that kind of was in the back of my head. And that was really the reason why I made
the move to Arizona, but you know, more money and more opportunity to kind of set your future in
motion. So how long were you with Eclipse altogether? Almost seven years, six and a half,
six and a half years, really kind of majority of the time that they were at the peak of the market.
Yeah. When I first got there, it was just the radios, you know, kind of the third generation,
I think it wasn't the cheap stuff, but it's right when the 410 came out. And that was when it started
to get good at look cool and all that. And the performance was there. You can really hear the
difference in them. And then, yeah, all the way through, gosh, I can't remember. But when we had
the mini disc changer, kind of through all of that stuff. And even when they had the voice
operated navigation system, I can't remember what we called that on the main mini disc. I don't
know if you were involved with anything of that. But I mean, how was that with licensing with Sony
and stuff? Because I know Sony is notorious with their formats. They tried with the main disc to
try to open it up. Obviously, they failed with beta max and they failed with smaller things.
And it seems like they tried to open up main disc a little bit too little too late. And I
asked because I mean, I was very into main disc. I had the first main disc recorder that came out
that Sony released. I had a Sony ES main disc changer in my car at one point. I also had the
main disc in dash because even I mean, even after that time, you know, like the Sony, you know, had
the Mavica cameras and stuff like that, the, you know, recorded shots to floppy disc essentially.
So until they kind of until things went to a memory card, and even in the beginning,
the memory cards weren't obviously very big at all. And so there was, there wasn't a lot of
indication at the time to say, well, all these writable media are just going to be obsolete soon.
So at the time, it felt like main disc was really the future because, you know, it was compact. It
didn't, you didn't destroy it just by opening up the package. You know, it was recordable. You
could make your own mix tapes with fidelity. You could record studio level, you know, stuff with
a recorder that fit the palm of your hand. Like there was a lot of advantages to it. So I mean,
I can see forward looking brands like Eclipse seeing that. But then, you know, how was that
competing with Sony with their own format? Yeah. So it's kind of ironic because Reese used to run
around with a memory card way back when that had, like you said, very little memory on it.
But he was showing people, hey, this is solid state. This is where we're going.
And we're going to be there faster than you think. And, you know, CD is temporary.
He kind of talked about mini disc, not as mini disc, but in general, I think he had already
seen it in Japan. And he was kind of against it saying, hey, we need to just skip that. So to me,
it was ironic when we brought that stuff out. Okay. But you, you sound like the perfect guy to buy
the, oh yeah. The three, the three days changer I have at home is really what I was saying. I've
got one sitting at home. So you sound like the guy. You've got some decks for it too.
I mean, I still have, I probably still have 100, 150 main discs. I mean, yeah, I don't use them,
but yeah, I think I have a two megabyte card. I think I think it was maybe that maybe it was
smaller. I don't remember. Yeah. The whole media format changes over the years that we all went
through. And I mean, because there was a time, you know, they're in the late nineties, early 2000s
with, you know, may just be more, more mainstream a little bit there. You know, where when we were
judging cars, you know, for like Mecca, whatever, you had to be pretty much ready for CD, cassette
tape or mini disc. And then, you know, it could be any of those at any given time. It was, I mean,
because there was the rare aspect of the cassette and there was a rare aspect of the main disc.
And then you had the CD that was the majority, but yeah. Yeah. Well, the mini disc, I mean,
to me, the big advantage back then was when you had even an SQ car that could hit 140 CDs were
skipping in a lot of the dashes. And the mini disc, you didn't have that problem. So there were
guys that, you know, really the opinion makers, right? The guys were competing back in those
days were also the guys creating all the opinions out there for other consumers. And they were
kind of moving to that little changer. And that's, that's kind of where those sales went. Early
adopters and, and, you know, kind of the opinion making crowd that was out there.
Right. Was there anything else in the, in the scene at that time that
you saw that maybe was a unique perspective?
Well, you know, the, everybody asked me why I run those ribbons in my car. And I was,
everybody was doing, well, not everybody, but the big thing was compression horns and all that.
And back then I never really heard a car with compression horns in it that I'd loved.
They did a lot of things well in terms of imaging and staging compared to, you know,
for two seat compared to kick panels and all of that. But the tonality in them just never
really kind of got me going. So I never, I never got into those. And a buddy of mine was telling
me about Bollinger Gravener and how they had some products that might be cool in a car.
And this particular gentleman was a, was an engineer at Harman way back when, and he owned
a company called, oh, I can't think of the name of it now, XTC baffles. Remember the little foam
baffles you used to put in your door, you'd cut them in half, put one on the left speaker,
one on the right speaker and keep the rain out. He owned that company and he's also the guy who
did all my passive crossovers. And so they made like air core inductors and, and he had all the
polycaps and all that stuff in stock. Super smart guy. He's also the guy that helped voice a lot
of those speakers and was sending me different crossovers when we're doing the eclipse stuff.
So he was kind of a behind the scenes guy who was just loved doing this stuff. And
he and I hit it off. So for whatever reason, he was always helping me do these things.
He was way more talented than I was when it comes to all of that stuff. I was good at listening
to stuff. But anyway, he hooked us up with the Bullinger Gramer guys. So Ray Windsor and I went
up to Lake Tahoe and I got to listen to the room they had with the 72 inch planar drivers doing
full surround sound. And I mean, it just blew me away. So we had to figure out how to do that in
a car. So we had this concept of doing an eight inch ribbon on its side. And there was an under
dash housing for it. That would allow it to kind of work sort of like a compression driver does.
You can mount it back underneath the dash and it had like this little lens that would reflect
things upward. And it worked pretty good. I had a car that I built at CES. Although I didn't use
the lens, we actually mounted them in the floors and put grills. And even though they were behind
like on the driver side behind the brake pedal, since it's a line source, it really didn't matter.
So that car actually centered out and was dash high and all that in both seats. And it was
pretty impressive. Long story short, I left the company before they delivered those and the
engineering staff or somebody there made the decision to ship them with the lenses riveted
on the driver as opposed to what we had planned on, which was screwing them on so you could remove
them. So obviously when you go to drill out the rivets, all the metal then collects right in the
ribbon. Yeah. And the magic goes here, bring me. Yeah. So they had, you know, it's a push-pull
magnet setup in there. So all the metal goes in there. Right. So that made them, I wouldn't say
stillborn because I still run into people once in a while. I said, Oh, I had a set of those.
They were amazing. But it just bugged me that they never got released in a way where they could
reach their full potential on the competition circuit and all that. So yeah, yeah. Just my
little pet peeve. So I kind of had that little bug in my bonnet, I guess you would say.
So that's why I'm so stubborn about those speakers and really like them and they're
capable if you do the right things with them. That's cool. And Mike, you got any follow-up
questions that we've blown over? When I first saw the car with those in there,
I was like, I don't know about that. And then you hit play and you're like,
okay, they really do sound great. But I expected it to be more like a wide,
not as focused center because the width of the speaker actually is really wide compared to
like a three inch mid or something like that. So it was really kind of astonishing
how focused of a sound and everything you were able to get. But I thought that was just kind of
neat. Yeah, no, it's they're a challenge mounted that way. Ideally, you'd mount them vertically
in a car and I have a vehicle now that might be the recipient of the last pair that I have
mounted vertically. We'll see. Yeah. Because then all of a sudden you've got a vertical line
source instead of a horizontal one. It'll create other problems. But the cool thing about them is
they don't have a lot of reflections on the long ends of the driver, right? So it's like having
think of it as having three two inch drivers all next to each other. It's just going to focus
everything kind of straight out in front of you. And you don't get reflections off the side windows
or towards the middle of the car like you do with a regular conical speaker.
Yeah, similar to a line array. It's exactly that's what it is. It's a it's a line source, right?
So you just have to think a little bit differently when you're putting them in and and you know,
so horizontally is not a bad solution in a car because it takes a side glass out of play.
But that does limit a little bit of the width that I might be able to get on. Yeah. And I don't
know if it's I guess it would be real. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I still get pretty good ambient
width, but it just depends on the music now. The more I thought about it, I was like, well,
I mean, with the way that it's that that is sitting, you don't move your head like when you're in a
car, you know, space, you don't really move your head so much like left to right. Yeah, exactly.
But you will get, you know, taller and shorter judges quite a lot. So that would make it,
I think, probably a little less susceptible to frequency deviations by moving up and down a bit.
I haven't mounted it that way. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because early on I had a lot of
problems with taller and shorter judges and huge variances on scores. Yeah. And those cars are
not very good at being able to move the seat up and down because if you push it up, it wants to
push forward also. Yeah, forward. Right. So I just kept working on it and working on it and
working on it and Robert kind of the same thing in his car. And it over time it got a little
more stable, but occasionally like I'll get a judge who's taller and I might have an issue with them
because they're getting different reflections and things than somebody who's, you know, kind of in
the pocket or even a little bit lower than the pocket. Yeah. Well, those cars have a really
large kind of a dashboard front rear, you know. So in that, you know, the dash is kind of like a
horn, you know, between the dash and the windshield is kind of like a horn. So if your face is not
like within that horn window, then it will change it quite a bit. Yeah. And then sometimes for technical
stuff like the Emma stuff, you have to have your head just in the right spot. And otherwise it,
you know, the last, what is it, the last high frequency goes flying around the car.
For whatever reason. And I've heard other cars that don't have those speakers do the same thing,
but yeah, it's reflecting off of something and it's hard to control unless you dial it down.
Yeah, cars are just difficult. I mean, there's a lot of glass in the top.
I've seen that what kind of a big movement with people using dash locations because it's easier
to control kind of some of that stuff. You know what you've got, I guess, right?
Yeah, I mean, you get, you know, some free low frequency extension out of your mid range drivers
because they're horn loaded, you know, but at the same time, if the angle,
you know, between the mid to like the glass reflection is pretty extreme, you know, like
smaller than, you know, 45, you know, closer to like,
you know, more like 60 degrees or something like or something like that, then you start to get
nulls like in the response of the mid. And so, you know, you can kind of point the speaker
more towards the inside the cab to help smooth some of that out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot
more people are starting to, starting to embrace what the, what the OEMs have already figured
out long ago is that the dash locations work great. Yeah, you get the biggest bang for your
buck for sure there, right? Yeah. I mean, it's not perfect by any means, but I mean,
as far as all of the trade offs go, it's, it's a pretty good way to go. Yeah. I totally agree.
Like Teresa's truck, when I don't screw the tune up is really good. Well, I mean, there's,
there's so many, there's so many good sounding vehicles that I've heard with that type of setup,
you know, especially at SVR when we listen to so many and, you know, it's like a more
of a search and discuss for a while. Everybody was just, you know, A pillars, A pillars,
pillar pods, dash pods, and people are starting to, you know, embrace this again, you know,
the dash location. And there was a lot of pretty good sounding cars. I agree. I agree. I heard,
I usually don't get around and list a lot of cars because I'm usually just the demo fiend
with people in my car and Teresa's car. So I did get around and hear a few there and I was kind
of blown away by some of the cars that I heard. Yeah. And you can tell there's, there's definitely
a rising tide right now with SQ cars and, and the work that people are putting in, the sound
deadening that people are doing, all the things that, you know, we learned way back when that you
just kind of have to do, I think people were doing in stages, right? They would, well, let's just get
the speakers into a little bit of sound deadening. And the reality is when you really kill that car,
that's when you hear all the difference, at least for me and my old crusty ears, but yeah, you know,
that makes a big difference. So, so looking back on the, you know, competition scene in particular,
you've won quite a few of these money round, you know, top, top 40, top 50 type of type of
contest, you know, so like Aggieland, SVR, you know, back to back. What, what do you attribute
some of that success to? You know, that's a tough question. I kind of tune the car the way I like
it to sound. And I usually, when I'm tuning, I'm looking for things that don't belong. So I'm not
looking for a certain type of signature sound. I'm hearing stuff that just doesn't sound right.
And I'll work on tuning that stuff out. And I think what happens, the biggest thing that I hear
people say is, you know, there's really nothing bad to point at in this car. I mean, you can nitpick
anything, right? And I nitpick it daily. That's, I think, kind of how it got, well, I would like to
listen to it. But so I think that that's really the key. And you figure you've got like, at SVR,
we had what, six different judges? Yeah. And I would say, you know, no two judges were looking
for the same thing when they get into a car. So it's easy for them to get into one car and just
say, Oh my gosh, this is really something's really wrong. And they hear it through all of their tracks.
And you get really hammered. So you just have to make it, I think anyway, where there's really
not much you can, you know, pick on in the system. Right. Right. And it was kind of like I was telling
you at Aggieland this year when I got out and you said, Yeah, that low base note is way too hot.
And I said, I know, but I run in what I brung and I kind of made the decision back here before I
got there to leave it that way, because it did some other things with some of the other orbs
better that way, in my opinion. And the put on tracks or the put on track is always a pain in
my butt. And I made some and I made some adjustments good for SVR. But you know, I had like, Miguel
got in the car at Aggieland, he said, you know, that that that's too hot right there. I said,
Yeah, he goes, you're not going to change it. I'm like, no, he goes, I got my laptop,
we change right now. So no, I'm not going to change it. I mean, it is what it is. And had I
changed it, it might not have been, what was it seven 100s difference? Yeah. Yeah.
You know, it might have, it might have been a little bit bigger spread than that. I don't know.
But I mean, you know, so but I like I said, I mean, I learned a long time ago, just run what
you brung. And the reason Teresa's truck did so bad so poorly at SVR is because I was sitting in it,
trying to make some changes from a show that we had before some good feedback that I heard in it.
So I'm sitting in it trying to make those changes. And then I got distracted by a competitor who
needed the music. And when I came back in, I didn't listen to it, I just saved it and shut it,
shut the computer and got out. Well, apparently I pushed something where some things changed
pretty radically. And I didn't listen to it until I got back home. And I'm like, what the hell was
I thinking? So, you know, yeah, no. So I mean, that's that's why I try not to break that rule,
right? Yeah, because you're there where there's all these different people, there's all these
distractions and all that where if I'm sitting here by myself, I've got, you know, three, four
hours to get it right. Yeah, or I should say not to screw it up. Yeah, yeah, don't break it.
Yeah, and that's and I think I've told you that at a couple of shows, but I'm glad you haven't
listened to me because it's really paid off for you. Well, I think it this at SVR, you said it
wasn't the low note, it was I think you said the fourth note. Yeah, yeah, the second. Yeah. Yeah,
a second last one, right? So I think so that's not not the low. Yeah, yeah, it's a little higher.
And I was struggling with that one because I knew it was a little bit lower, but as I turned it up,
it then started to pull back. So without a front sub, you have to be super careful in that range
because those notes are pretty, they're pretty naked. There's not a whole lot. Yeah, you're
mid-bass really play it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they probably could if I if I actually cut them
out and made them true I be as well, I probably could get a little more out of them. But
I don't know if I want to do that or not at this point, right? I don't think you should mess with
this. Pretty awesome. Yeah, that's what everybody keeps telling me. Don't touch it. See, don't even
breathe on it. Yeah. Well, there's there's some guys coming up and I'm guessing it's just a matter
of time before guys start kicking its butt. But that's okay. I mean, it's I'm amazed that it's on
the run that it's on right now. So yeah, yeah, to have multiple do amazing to have multiples
like that in a row is like, you know, your Mark Eldridge level stuff where yeah,
yeah, super impressive. Yeah, especially, especially considering the car is not, you know,
looking at it, you know, it's a beautiful car. I mean, obviously from the paintwork and
a careful, careful cliff, careful car careful. No, I'm just kidding. No, it's not a radical
build. Yeah, that's all. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's a beautiful car, but it's not it's not a
purpose built sound quality car, you know, it's not a black Betty or a or a NASCAR or,
or, you know, any clips or any clips. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You haven't where the steering wheel is.
Yeah. Yeah. Without without without any adjustments. I know I was going to put you guys in the back
seat and do a certain thing, but but there's no back seat. So I mean, it's and it but at the same
time, it's still a show car. And I think that's kind of the two contrasts are in this room right
now because like, you know, mics are simple, straightforward builds that do phenomenally
well. And yours is still not a purpose built car, but it's on the show car end of, you know,
showing up. But I think, you know, it takes it takes that kind of mixture at these things to
where we don't just look like a Walmart parking lot, you know, it's like, oh, yeah. And so having
that attraction to the car, it doesn't matter if you're a fan of the vehicle itself or not,
there's so much work in that car that, you know, the more you the, unlike most builds,
the closer you get to that car, the more you notice, you know, and I think that's a really cool,
you know what you're doing on the car show side, obviously, but for it to be doing as exceptionally
and consistently well as it is doing on on the competition side with not being a purpose built
vehicle is awesome. I mean, it's really well done. No, thanks. I mean, there's there's a lot of people
that worked on that car. And you know, I know Brian gets a lot of the credit for it. And he did the
back end when we switch the amps and the cosmetic stuff and all that, which is amazing. But what a
lot of people don't realize is the front speakers have been in that car since 2019. And I had some
success with it. Then like I actually beat Brian at one of the shows with the Cadillac and I beat
Scott Welsh and I forget which I want it wasn't his van. It was something before that. But the
problem is I had the Zapko processor in it. And that thing was, you know, some days it'd be great.
And especially if smaller shows and if you had a show that was a money round, you could look at
score sheets and there'd be huge swings on the same tune with the same, you know, money round guys
kind of get going through it. And it would just change. So it's like when it got hot, you know,
the the image would go from being all the way across the dash, it would collapse to the middle
or something like that. So that's really what the next door. Yeah. No, I mean, I had Matt Roberts
play at all. Matt Roberts got out of the car at a big show in LA. And he looks at me, he goes,
he goes, dude, because your image is all screwed up. It starts in the center and goes to the left
pillar. I'm like, I'm like, basically FU Matt, there's no way it does that, right? And I didn't
know him that well at the time, but I get in the car and like five minutes later, I jumped in it
and it went all the way across the dash. And I had, I had Nick Adams was parked right next to me.
I said, Nick, is this going from the center over? And he's like, no, it's across the dash. He goes,
your image is a little bit fuzzy compared to where it was, but it wasn't, you know, like,
like he was saying. So I just chalked it up to, you know, him having a bad day or, you know,
maybe he didn't like me. I don't know, right? Like competitors do. But he seems like a pretty
straightforward guy. And then his wife got in it. And that was after, I forget who went through it.
We had somebody else go through it right before her. And she had it also, not at the middle,
but it was definitely way off the right side. And so I'm just like, whatever, right? So we're
getting ready for finals that year. And we're in, we're sitting in Brian's garage at his shop.
And we just put some finishing touches on it. The things sounded amazing. We're like, hey,
let's go get some sandwiches and come back. So we left the system on with that Zapco,
you could leave it running only we had the volume turned down. And we come back, eat our sandwiches
and Nick goes, Hey, I'm going to get in here and listen to it. And like 30 seconds later,
he gets out, he goes, dude, you've got no right side. And it was from the center to the left.
And the fans were running inside that Zapco, you could hear something in there just buzzing.
And so there, that, that was our deal. So we tried to do the finals that year with fans and
things like that on it. It still didn't, didn't work. So that was when we were in the, that was
when we were in Arkansas, I think at the, the pig farm. Oh yeah.
When you said work for days, I was like, you're being awfully kind and optimistic there. I mean,
hours, minutes, maybe days, that's, that's okay, buddy. Well, I mean,
well, when I say days, you know, you got to remember where I live, like it's sunny and warm
here today and it's 64 degrees. Right, right. You know what I mean? So it doesn't get hot here.
So I wouldn't experience those problems here, even if I was listening to it for long periods of time.
Because it was always cool enough around, but as soon as you went somewhere where there was any
humidity, right, or it was 80 degrees, that, you know, all bets were off. So anyway, so switch
into the arc processor and the arc amplifiers, really stabilize that car and allowed us to,
you know, get the tune where it's, you know, it's doing kind of what it's doing now.
But there were a few shows back then where it sounded really good. I will say this, the arc
processor. So in the amplifiers, when at the car at its best now, compared to the car at its best
then, the biggest difference isn't the tonality, it's the spatial cues and the focus and things like
that, that I think set it apart. And I think you were asking that before kind of, what do you
attribute it to? And I think that, you know, when you get in that car, that's one of the,
one of the first things most people say, they go, wow, that's some stage. I remember Harry the
first time he heard it. And he actually got out of the car and said, man, I go, what, he goes,
the stage in that car is amazing. And then he hammered me on not having enough mid base, but
well, the size of that, you know, just the size of those cars and your, your,
how you're staged in them as far as seating and compared to your speaker position and
everything else, like there's, there's a lot that you can do with that car inherent to the
format itself to give a grandiose sense of space as long as you're able to tune
beyond the boundaries of the car. And like you said, a lot of that I'm sure is
getting the illusion that you're not in a car anymore by, you know, killing those,
killing those resonances and everything else. But yeah, I mean, I've heard the,
I've heard the same thing from several people, you know, in reference to the car is just the,
the sense of stage and space is exceptionally good. And I think that was, that was one of the
things that, you know, like when Eldridge was at his top of the game, you know, that was one of
the things that really put him over because like if you were, you know, if it was, and it was at
the time, you know, the money rounds, it was mostly like him versus Steve head and the tonality on
both might be very good. And both of the vehicles are being able to be disappear and do all the
right things. But even if, even if Eldridge was lacking somewhere in tonality comparatively,
he was making it up in, especially back on the old Iaskis core sheet, like with the distance
to stage and then depth, those additively he was being able to get so far ahead of everybody else
just in that category, he was five or six points ahead just before he even started anywhere else.
So if it was a, this car versus that car, you know, he could lose a couple of points here and
there, but he was making it up in that, you know, in that staging area that nobody else really could
touch just because the way he had the car set up. But yeah, I wish I could have heard his cars
back in the day. They were either, they were really, they're really, really good or
really, really not great. They was, it was dependent on the day.
Homerun Derby's what we call that, right?
So, I mean, and I mean, Eldridge of the guys that competed consistently, you know, from the mid-80s
up until, you know, the past decade, you know, of those people, I would say he was one of the ones
who consistently would come out and put it all in the line and never kind of do the opposite of
what you're saying, where he wouldn't bring what he brought, he wouldn't, you know, iterate.
He would take a swing every time, you know. That's awesome. Good for him, man. Yeah. I don't think
I'm playing, well, it's funny. I don't see it as playing it safe. I think it's just the, if you
know you've got something that is kind of not doing anything bad, why would you go in there? Like,
I've gone in there at local shows and have made those changes and I might make, you know,
two tenths of an adjustment here, three tenths of an adjustment there and you would think you
can't hear that, yet the judges whacked me for it. So, you know, and they're spot on most times
with what I adjusted calling it out. So I think once you get to that point, little tiny adjustments
can have a big impact on, you know, the final results, like the put on stuff. I mean, I wasn't
making big adjustments, but it was making big differences with how the, how the base was presented
in the car. Instead of staying forward and out there, it would come and get in your face with,
you know, did I just say that? That didn't sound right.
Yeah, that's what, that's how you'll introduce it.
Exactly.
No, I get it. I get it. And I didn't mean that, you know, like a negative that you,
no, I totally, yeah, yeah, no, I totally, yeah, I understand. I understand. It's not that I don't,
I haven't tried to make it better. Every time I do, I get smacked, right? The finals, I always try
to make it because, you know, I'm finding the point now where I'm doing a couple of different tunes
for orgs, which I don't really like to do. But I think you have to, based on some of the source
music. Yeah. So like you compare, well, especially, I mean, not to single it up. I mean, the, like
the Emma disc in particular is tuned, I mean, mastered so far differently than the mainstream
music that most everything else is. And then I ask the same thing, right? Playing the 90s,
a lot of the 90s stuff, doesn't have a lot of low bass. And it wants to be, their idea of low bass
back then was 60, 70 Hertz, right? Because that's all that people,
well, because even if you got a, you know, if you had best back then, you know, if you were a
normal everyday person, you had, you know, some Sir Winvega, big 15 inch bookshelf speakers that,
you know, you sat on top of your dresser and, you know, they got loud. But even with those
15 inch drivers in there, they played down to 55 if you got lucky. So exactly. And nobody was using
subwoofers. You've been to a lot of shows over the years. Are there any that stand out as like
your favorite for any reason or most memorable? I would, I mean, I love Aggieland and I love SVR.
I think both of them are super fun. They're totally different style events for sure. I mean,
Larry's great, Pate's great. And just you get kind of the, the cream of the crop for those regions
at those shows, I would say. And a lot of guys that travel too. But I just love the atmosphere
of those shows and the camaraderie that you have there when everybody kind of gets together.
I mean, to me, that's probably the ones that really stick out. I mean, locally Richard's
barbecue is amazing. Same thing. It's really laid back kind of fun event to do. Paul always is a
great host down in Southern California with the shows that he does when we get down there. But
now there's so many shows in California. It's like you don't find yourself going that far for
shows very often. I'm trying to think of what else. I mean, you know, back in the day, you know,
going to the finals way back when I think the last one I was at was in 91 actually competing.
And, you know, I think there were 30, I want to say 32 cars in my class. I mean, it was just
insane the number of people that were there and the tweak and tunes and how, you know, guys would
not help other competitors because they were so competitive back then. And, you know, I was always
one of those guys that would jump in and help tune cars. Like I tell the story about Fishman's
car when he brought it, you know, the first fishmobile and Larry Fredericks and I were sitting
in the front of that car because it hadn't been tuned at all. We're sitting in the front tuning
it while he's in the back like putting fish in the fish tank and all that stuff. And then he's
in my class and he ends up beating me. I'm like, yeah, exactly, right? So, but that's just how
I've always been. It's like, you know, I truly believe a rising tide raises all boats and
I'm the first guy that'll help. And that's one of the things I love about Brian. He's the same way.
Mitchell and I think that's one of the things that kind of got me back into car stereo and
competing. The first show I ever went to, I think I told the story to you, Mike.
But the first show I went to when I got back into it was at Brian's shop when he had the Cadillac
and it was just at kind of, I think just starting to peak. And I brought the first iteration,
it was a Hellcat, not this red eye thinking, this is the best car I've ever heard,
which was a true story because I hadn't been out listening to cars in a long time. And I'm
thinking, there's no way this car is not going to win going to a show just with what I was listening
to. And I go to the show and Richard gets out of the car and I go, well, how to do he goes,
well, and he starts going down this list of things that were wrong with it. And I'm thinking,
I'm like, wait a minute. That can't be right. And he goes, what you need to do is you need to
ask Brian if you can listen to his car. So I go over and ask Brian, I say, Richard said,
I should listen to your car. And he goes, yeah, get in there here. I'll show you how to use it.
It's all factory stuff. And he goes, listen as long as you want. I sat in there for probably a
half hour. And with my, you know, jaw dropped going, I didn't know what I didn't know. Right.
And hearing it, I'm like, there's no way the way the install was done in that car was going to
be able to do that. But it also kind of sparked the bug in me to go in and to do one, right. And
I had a guy who wanted to buy my car at that point. And I wasn't interested in selling it until I
heard Brian's car. And I'm like, you know what, I'm going to sell this car because he, that guy
valued the, the, the stereo system that was in it, how it was done and all that.
And they had just announced the red eye coming out. And I'm like, I'm going to order a red eye.
So that's what I did. And then started really from scratch with the red eye using the same
speakers, but approaching it totally differently. Like the original one had the ribbons in the
dash firing up off the glass and it was causing all kinds of smearing and stuff like that that
was really hard to control because it was a line source. But, but yeah, that was, that was an eye
opening experience. And it kind of created a monster, as my wife will say.
That's, it's cool that she, I mean, with, with you being able to have both vehicles and her
participate. And I will say that, you know, like at the bigger events that I've been, I've
participated in as far as, you know, SVR and Aguiland, everything. She is by far one of the
most gracious, helpful people that I've ever met. So you've got a, a wonderful person there with you.
But it's really cool that you guys are able to, you know, do some of this together and travel
together. And she's able to help do some of the, you know, the, the driving part of things and
is willing to do that. I mean, I think that's amazing. Yeah, no, it's, it's interesting. We
kind of sat down and, and started talking about that. And I said, you know, let's, let's get a
truck and, you know, do these shows and let's put a system in your truck and make it, you know, an
OE one vehicle. So it'll be successful on the West Coast and OE one class. And then we'll see how
it does at these other shows because it's really limited in terms of, you know, what we're allowed
to do to it and stay in OE one for WCA. And so at first she didn't really care about how she did
at the shows, but now like, you know, taking 21st at SVR, I kind of hear about it. So
she was sitting there and they're calling people up and she's not going up and get
drove. She's just looking at me, just looking at me. I'm like, what? She goes, you screwed it up,
didn't you? And of course, Robert's over there, boy, and he's over there kind of egging her on.
Yeah, well, he did make some, he did make some changes. Anyway, but no, she's amazing. She's
just, people sometimes misunderstand her motivation. She just loves to help any way she can. And when
she sees how hard the judges and all that are working at these shows, she wants to do whatever
she can to make it easier for them. That's just how she is. That's how, that's how she's wired
for everything. You can tell. Yeah. Yeah. So it's awesome to have her around and
do all that. Now, if I can only get her to do all that stuff for me.
Just kidding. Just kidding, honey. Just kidding.
Just kidding. Yeah, I'm sorry, judge. One day you'll be cool.
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, man. I've learned that that's not the case. I'm never going to be
cool. You have kids, right? Don't you have kids? Oh, yeah. Yeah, see, all of our kids' college
Tuitions are sitting in the garage. So, you know, inheritance. Yep. Nope. There's no kids. So
unless they're four legged and furry, we're, you know, it's not that we didn't want to. It just
wasn't in the cards. So here we are. Right. She has a horse. I have a car. We're all good.
Yeah. Are you going to make it out to the, so I guess you'll be at WCA finals? Yes.
And then are you going down to Alabama? You know, we're still up in the air on that.
It's just a long, long haul. Oh, I know. And, you know, part of me wants to go because it's
the finals. The other part of me doesn't want to reward organizations for putting it there.
Is this a third year in a row? Yeah. I mean, it just seems like a slap in the face when
you're this far away and the amount of money that we spend to make those trips and then,
you know, hotel rooms aren't cheap there and so on and so forth. So
it's a tough one. You got $2,000 plus an entry fee. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So I mean,
I don't know. I don't know. We're still up in the air. It'll be kind of a game time decision,
I think. I mean, I want to do it. The car's on a run, which makes you want to do it. But
yeah, man, it's hard to hard. Like last year, I had to fly in with stuff that I had going on here
and then Teresa had to be back for the first tee golf tournament because she runs
transportation for that event. So she flew out and then I drove back. So it's just, I don't know.
It's a tough one. Yeah. That was three. That was three full days of driving on that one to get back
and it was, you know, long days and all that. Was it quite a bit better when it was like Missouri
and Arkansas? Yeah, middle of the country. I mean, you know, we can get there in a couple of days
if we have to. And that makes a huge difference. Like, you know, getting out to Alabama, I think
we're three and a half days. And then the reality is we should have been three and a half days to
get back, but Brian and I were just kind of pushing. We were getting up earlier and driving
into the night, which, you know, that's when bad stuff happens pulling a trailer because you can't
see what's on the road and you blow, blow tires or whatever. So we were, I'm knocking on wood. We
were fortunate that that didn't happen. But the more you do it, the more you risk it and eventually
it's going to happen. So yeah, yeah, it's just average. It's just, it's just I-40. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. So I want to do it. I really do. I just, like I said, I'm just kind of
up in the air about it and not real happy that it's in Alabama.
Well, I think, I think it's tough too when, you know, you still have the organizations pretty
much all, when they say it's a unified finals. And of course I've harped on this before, but I'm
going to harp on it again, you know, with it being a unified finals, and then you have each
organization basically a silo in terms of results. So, and in each of those cases, you have one,
maybe two judges determining your outcome after you travel, you know, a week and dumped
four or five grand into it and whatever else to, you know, maybe win a trophy or maybe also lose
it because of one judge's opinion. So. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's tough. No. And the other thing,
you know, for Teresa, it's really tough in the orgs because like I said, we built an OE1 car.
Right. And she's up against cars that are, you know, kind of off the charts in terms of what
they've done to modify it. And so that makes it, for her, the org stuff, I don't think is as fun
when we travel, although the money around stuff is kind of cool. If we can get her, you know,
the goal is always to get her into the top 10. And if we can do that, that's a victory for,
for that car. And that's getting, that's getting harder and harder and harder to do because cars
are getting better and better and better. And, you know, you're not seeing a lot of OE1 style
cars out there that are performing at that level. You're seeing guys that are, you know,
doing a lot of IB and especially with mid-based drivers and all that, that, you know, make a
huge difference. You know, we're still running six and a half center doors. Right. Well, wow.
Yeah. And it does really well with six and a half of the door, but, you know, again, it depends on
the judge and, you know, what volume they listen at. And, you know, that, that can make a breaker.
Right. Because what the car is. So while we're on the critical line, and then I'll bounce back off
that, but, um, you know, being that you've been involved and seen competition in what, you know,
many onlookers would call the heyday in the nineties, especially. And then, you know, you've
obviously been active from coast to coast and every organization and every major event and
everything else with a, you know, successful platform. Um, I mean, what would you like,
other than finals being relocated more conveniently, obviously, but I mean, what would
you like to see happen going forward with, you know, the events and the scene in general?
Well, I mean, it's kind of tough. I mean, we don't, we don't do Mecca anymore. Um, so we've kind of
cut one of the orgs out, which helps a little bit for us and what we're spending and all of that.
And they seem like they're kind of maybe coming back to reality. I mean, when I was seeing guys
get down to my car, it's at the finals two years ago, I think where they were, uh, you know, 107
DB is what they were listening at. One guy wrote down on a meter and other guy was 105 and I think
the other guy was, you know, 108 or something. I mean, if you're listening to cars at that level
and they'll tell you, oh, it's only for a short peak, dude, I stand outside the car when they're
playing it and they're playing at super high volumes. So how can you judge 25 cars with any
sort of accuracy? And the other thing is really interesting is all of them, all three of the
judges had my car left of center. And if anything, my car's a little bit right of center, right?
That's kind of where it kind of hangs out. Yeah. So, uh, I mean, it is what it is, but for me,
it's like, okay, until you start getting a grip on that part of things and you're not listening at
that level, it doesn't make sense for me to compete. Uh, the other thing is I love Travis and Harry
and the I ask a guys and all that and Harry and I go way, way, way back. Yep. And I love the
organization's history. However, it was designed the way it's designed with some of those rules
because it was there to support retailers. Right. And supporting retailers selling more
car stereo gear, getting people to step up to the next class and all of that. And, you know,
so you kind of run into the same thing where they're not really looking at the installation of the car
as a way to put it into a class. And I think that that kind of, uh, makes them a little bit
obsolete compared to maybe what some of the other Orbs are doing and how they categorize cars and
and, you know, I could see if you win your class, they make you move up. But if you're an amateur,
you should only be moving up in competing against other amateurs, right? And then they put me in
I ask a, I didn't know anything about tuning or any of that stuff yet. I was already bumped up into
a pro class because 20 years ago, I had at that point, maybe 18 years ago, I had worked for a
manufacturer. So, but I'd never used a processor and didn't know how to use a processor. But I mean,
so I'm not sour about that, but those are kind of rules that I think if you're in the industry
today, there should be classes for those guys. And if you're an amateur, I think it's unfair for
amateurs to then be bumped up into a pro class. Um, you know, like Robert Boyd, as an example,
not that he can't compete at that level, but he's got a car then that he's competing with, you know,
some of the best cars in the country. And I think they've kind of hit the limit on what his car is
capable of. And he needs to make some changes. And I think that'll happen. But the scene as far as
the industry goes has changed so dramatically from even when, like, when the, when the
mega rules were first established, you know, the whole idea of master and extreme being differentiated
was to put the, you know, the manufacturers into, you know, master. But at the time, manufacturer
met Mark and Gary Biggs working for Kicker or JBL. They had, you know, enormous funds. Their
job was competition. Like they had a semi truck rolling in with, you know, everything. And that was,
you know, pretty much across the board. If you worked for a manufacturer, you had
bankroll, you had tools that nobody else had access to. You had a lot going on. And, you know,
the general, there wasn't, there wasn't the access to information like what we have today.
There wasn't the access to, you know, DSPs in general and, and the technology and everything
has come to a point where a, again, Mike with a straightforward build can compete with these
same guys with unlimited funds and, and access and everything else. And the manufacturers aren't
doing that anymore. And a manufacturer, you know, can mean Adam Sloppelhorst versus, you know, whatever,
like, you know, the industry is a passion project now, not a, you know, not a bankroll.
And the manufacturers that are involved, you know, even like ARC, ARC is probably the most
involved manufacturer today and consistently over the past 15, 20 years. And even for them,
like they're not making their money because of competition. It's, it's a passion project, you
know, broken up like that. Most of, you know, and I would say, especially in the late 2017 to
20, somewhere in there in that realm, the things, things really shifted. And I would say Mike was
a big contributor to that, you know, here as well as far as like sound team six and everything else,
like things went from being team or team hybrids, team, this team, that too, sound team six and a
lot of the, you know, other kind of grassroots teams that kind of sprouted up. And so many of
these passionate amateurs, if you want to call them that, have way more knowledge than most shops
now. Their, their ability, their knowledge, their resources, their access to the equipment,
everything else is brand level. So I think a lot now, the idea isn't as much about moving up in
complexity. It's like what Mike has done. And even what you've done with the, the challenger
is how much can I do within this, you know, these constraints? So I mean, that's part of the, part
of the fun is how much this isn't, you know, this isn't like racing in terms of physical ability or
something where you just move up to the next group and you go against people who are now better than
you that you've, you've conquered that thing. It's kind of the, this is the complexity of the
vehicle. And this is what I got out of it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, and, you know, part of the
satisfaction way back when was if you were at the top of your game, it was seeing the same guys that
you were competing against who were rivals, but were also friends and how they were then coming
after you. And once in a while, they would sneak up and get you. And, you know, so you had that
rivalry that was built, if they then take you when you're at the top of your game and push you into
a higher class, it makes it, it's, uh, I don't know what the right word is for it, but it, it, it's
kind of counterproductive. It's no more fun anymore because it changes the whole game and you're up
against all these different guys and, you know, your system no longer is going to perform at that
level. There's a reason why they're in that class, right? It rocks, it rocks the social dynamics of,
of the competition as well. And yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that's, that's kind of why I think
a lot of us do it. It's fun. It's fun to hang out and see people and, and all of that. I mean,
to me, that's more fun than winning. I mean, the winning part is great. I don't, I mean, I'm one
of those guys, if I win great, if I don't win, it's like, okay, whatever, you know, not, not a huge
deal. You know, it's not life changing, I guess, but some of the friends that I've made, you know,
you stay in touch with them all year long and you look forward to seeing them at finals or at SBR
or at Aggie land or whatever. And that's what it's all about to me. For sure. Well, yeah,
because there's very few places where we can nerd out about this thing and not, not have weird
looks, you know, we still get weird looks, but at least at least there are weird looks that are
understanding, you know, yeah, there'll be, there'll be weird looks, people listening to this
whenever it's released. So, you know, lots of, I think on that, on the, on the competitive note,
you know, as far as that goes, I think most people who have that desire that are there
solely for the competition side of things will voluntarily move up when they're not being
challenged. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, and I think, you know, one of the things that really,
that broadened my thought process as far as competition goes was when I did, the first
time I did go over to MA Eurofinals and saw the diversity there, because you just have, you have
so many different countries and people and, and SPL and sound quality and all the, you know,
everything. And then they had the big party, you know, Saturday night and all, you know,
they had the big trophies on Sunday and seeing all that, you really saw the diversity of why
people compete and not everybody is driven by the same thing. People are there purely to hang
out. They don't even have a car, but they're groupies that are there just really part of the
scene. You got the people who are there to completely nerd out. You got the people who are
really interested in the music and, and the demoing and having the best system. You have the
people who are there for no other reason to win a trophy. You have the people who are there for
no other reason than the alcohol. Like, I remember a guy that that happened one year or two.
That was a fun trophy ceremony. Hashtag me too. Well, no, I don't remember it.
But there's all different kinds of reasons for people to participate in this. And so I think,
you know, the more, and that's where I think, you know, the multiple organizations do kind of
have their place because they do kind of give the opportunity for people to, to join in a different
direction. Yeah, yeah. Different facets. Yeah. So I mean, and I'll take some responsibility in the
fact that I, you know, especially when it was just Mecca and I ask it, I kind of really push for
everybody to participate, whether you're a fan or not. It was like, to me, most people were doing
it not because they preferred one thing over another. They were doing it to boycott the thing
they didn't like in order to affect change in it. So that, that was the part that I was trying to
push against was, you know, Hey, if you're going to be at the event, everybody's going to participate
together as one. So that way we're all level playing field. And then, you know, basically kind
of get over it. And that for the most part at the time that worked. Now, you know, the organization's
a double or more. So it's kind of impossible to tell, you know, even at the event level to
offer everything consistently, the way you would hope. And now it's like, there's enough diversity
where, Hey, do what you want. Like, yeah. My, my, my biggest issue, Clifton, if I'm going to one of
these shows, I'm going to enter everything for the most part, right? Cause you're the expenses.
Yeah. That's right. That's right. That's right. You're already there. You might as well do it
and you're getting feedback and all that, which is always important to me. And I pretty much enter
everything unless there's, you know, a reason why I don't enter a particular thing. But I mean,
I like certain things about all the orgs that we participate in. You know, I ask and Emma and
MASQ, I mean, I think they all have their thing. You know, part of me likes the fact that in
MASQ, there's only four classes. Right. So you're up against different cars and, and, you know,
that, that, that part's pretty cool. It kind of waxed Teresa a little bit. Cause she's up against
cars that have a lot more, but it puts me up against cars that I normally wouldn't be up against.
And I ask it's just, you know, they've been around for so long and, and I have a lot of respect for
the guys that are running it. And, and, you know, it's also fun to hang out and see those guys. And,
and I actually competed with most of the music that they use for it. So I think they know it
pretty well. Right. So there's that familiarity. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Right. I don't remember
a lot of it, but you know, and then same thing with, you know, Mecca, the technical side of it,
Mecca, the feedback we get in California with, with Linda judging, did I say Mecca? I mean, Emma,
with Linda judging Emma is her, the feedback she gives is phenomenal. Yeah. And she's part of the
reason why my car has gotten to where it is. Cause she'll notice little things on the technical
tracks. And then it's easy to go into those tracks and hear what she's talking about. It's not always
easy to fix them, but you know, I can identify it. And that to me is huge. A lot of times I get
feedback from, from other stuff and I can't really hear it or identify what they're talking about.
And it's harder for me to, to figure those out and make those improvements. So she's, she's done
a lot for, for helping me get my car to improve. And then also Teresa's truck, she's done a lot
for that too, just with her feedback. I was actually trying to fix some stuff that that's
what cost me on Teresa's truck at SVR. I was trying to fix some stuff that she had found on it. And
I thought I, I thought I had done it, but obviously, you know, sometimes when you close a lid on your
deal and you had kind of hit some buttons. Yeah. I was talking to Robert about it. He goes, yeah,
I did that once and it like lit up like four different bands and then they all just jumped.
So it's like, where were they before? I don't know. Well, I always have it saved ahead of time.
Almost, almost always. Every once while I don't, it was easy to go back and reset it at the end of
it. That's all I did is put it back to where it was before. And it's like, oh, okay. Didn't know
a lot of people talk about how there's too many oars. It costs too much money and all of that.
And I think that sort of stuff sorts itself out over time. Yeah. You know, whether somebody
buys somebody or what. And, you know, it seems like the WCA format is a pretty cool format overall.
And I think most people are comfortable with where they fit in terms of their car and all of that.
And I think their music selection is fantastic. You know, there's some really good stuff in there
and it's a wide breadth of music that, you know, all of it's pretty good. And a lot of it's,
you're like, I'll keep going back to put on, but it's a purpose track. And, you know, it's aggravating
for me, but that's what makes it cool, right? Because it does what it does and there's no way
around that. Yeah. I mean, it gives you a really easy to hear metric that anybody can understand.
You can convey what you've heard to someone real quick and easy. They can go back and re-listen to
it and say, yes, I can pretty easily fix that or decide not to and just go on to win the money
around anyway. You were funny at Aggie Land because you and I think Tim Gowdy gave me the
same exact feedback. I don't know if he uses that track. I think it was Gowdy. And he said the same
thing when he got out and I told him the same thing I told you and he goes, well, good luck with that
and just walked away, right? I'm like, love you too, Tim. He was smiling when he said it, right?
And then I was like, oh, I screwed it up.
So what do you guys think about all the different orgs? And I mean, I know you've talked about it
before on here, but you hear a lot more than I do. You're out there doing this, talking to people
that are in the industry and all that. I mean, what's the general consensus on having, what is it,
five of them? Yeah, I think a lot of competitors think that's probably too many.
But at the same time, how many fast food joints is too many and so on and so forth. You vote with
your dollars. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'd say fast food joints have a lot more potential clientele than
car audio does. Oh, I get it. Yeah, but well, I mean, I don't know about that. Everybody has a car,
has a car stereo, whether they choose to improve upon it or not, but I don't know anybody that
rides around in silence. You know what I did today on purpose or is it broken? Actually,
it wasn't in silence. I was on the phone the whole time. So that doesn't count, I guess.
Yes, mono. I was going to say, the hard part is that we are going after the exact same demographic
pretty much consistently. So what becomes, how do I put this choice versus coercion?
Because it's there, but then at the same time, it's like, what do you take away? Because
everybody has their favorites as well. So it's just become a dynamic that's
there until it's not. I mean, I would say that obviously all three of us have a lot of experience
with the StarCA formats, WCA, ECA, MCA, that. And I think the hard part is that I think from a
logistical standpoint with having an understanding of today's cars, with offering
music formats that have a breadth of options for judges to pick what works best for them
directly because they have direct control over the music that goes on to it. With the liner notes
that come with the music, with the vast amount of input that has gone into the score sheet,
and getting that as objective as possible across the board. I mean, I think there's,
in terms of being up to date with today's competitors and judges in today, every day
format, the StarCA is probably the most objective current and connected format that's available.
The problem is that it looks like another order coming in to take. And in my opinion,
if the StarCA format had come directly, and the problem is that all the people that are
involved with StarCA were also involved with MCA. But if it had been able to come in as a direct
flip at the time when things kind of changed in dynamic with MCA and been able to come directly
in at that point, or even a little bit before, that would have taken hold. And obviously,
I was directly involved with bringing Emma in and everything else. So, I mean, I hold some
responsibility there as well. But I think the StarCA format from a logistical and objective
objectivity standpoint could have easily come in and just been a flip-flop for mecca. And it would
be mecca, and it would be StarCA and ISCA, and Emma and MASQ were probably not how the ground
they have today, in my opinion, because it was a two format game. I mean, up until,
yeah, 2021 or so, it was mecca and ISCA. And nobody was going, we don't need ISCA,
nobody was going, we don't need mecca. It was more regional based on who was doing what.
And it worked for the most part. I don't think there was anything that has been groundbreaking
in terms of things being better as a result of the multiple orgs. But now everybody is kind of
emotionally attached to their favorite parts. And some of it has to do with the organization,
some of it has to do with the classifications, some of it has to do with alliances with people
that are involved with said organizations. And so there's lots of different reasons to
have your own favorites. And I can tell you with a surety from the event promoter side
that if you make any changes on any of that, you will get feedback from everybody, no matter what
you do. It sounds like you're speaking from experience. I could promise you there is a no
win game in making everybody happy in that. So ultimately it becomes a financial thing.
Eventually the pain is not going to be worth the game for some of these guys, right?
It's going to have to be, yeah. Or we're going to grow SQ and they're all going to be happy
somehow. And I hope that's what happens. I mean, I don't have anything against any of the guys.
I mean, I like all the people that are doing it. It's just a logistical nightmare.
Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. As we saw at Aggie Land, right? Trying to get all the scores done
at the end there. Right. And that's where I think if the orgs could do better at unifying
themselves together in some way, again, making finals cohesive and bringing these things together.
But as long as they're silos, it's going to just kind of be the way it is. And
it's just going to have to either be the way it is. And everybody just leaves it at that and
they're happy with that or else, you know, because part of the problem is like you said,
you know, people vote with their dollars. But everybody, like you, by the time they get there,
they're like, well, I have no reason not to just do everything at this point. You know,
it's another. And I'm a sucker. I want to support them all anyway, right? So that's part of the
problem. I think a lot of people are that way. We want to see them all succeed. I don't want to
see anybody fail. And I don't think anybody, I don't think any of them are doing harm. You know
what I mean? Yeah, I agree. Totally agree. There's no reason for any of them to fail. It's just a
matter of it's a more complex world. Yeah, so I was going to start my own org. So what I'm
hearing you say is that's not a good idea. You can't. Yeah, I have time. I have time for that.
I don't know how Richard, I don't know how Richard does it now.
That man, I'm convinced he's just an alien. And he's, he's hacked the code with NASA. And,
and yeah, I, I don't know because I had, I had one too many things hit my plate around the time
of Aggie land and I just had disappeared and take care of, you know, life for a while. And it's
like, you know, I told him that like repeatedly, like even, you know, because I got involved with
MCA and everything else. And then April hit and some personal stuff hit. And I was like, I just
can't, I got nothing left. I was like, I, but I don't know how you do it because I know he's
going through a whole lot with, you know, his, his normal job and life and everything else too.
And like somehow you're able to keep juggling. I just can't. I don't have the ability. I can't do it.
Yeah. No, I'm sorry. I don't know how he does it either. I don't know how you do it.
And Mike, you travel a lot and do a lot of judging too. I mean,
on top of owning a business and having a family and everything else.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. That's crazy.
Well, the secret is I don't do any of them very well. So
I was, I was going to bring that up, but I figured it wasn't appropriate.
You can do, you can do a lot of stuff kind of poorly.
Yeah. Oh, that's funny. I think, I think Cassie Hall was telling me that you could,
you could judge a car with like two songs, the whole car. I think that's what she said.
You could not that you do, but I mean, that's, that's actually pretty impressive.
I mean, you just pick a couple of songs that you know pretty well and has
a lot of the attributes that you're looking for on the score sheet. And that's kind of how I like
to pick my track lists anyway. But yeah, I mean, like if I had, I would probably pick three songs.
So it'd be, it'd be Billie Jean. Billie Jean for sure. Yeah. I want you back and then put on.
And then that's it. That's awesome. I'm like, I got to listen to 100 songs before I make a change.
It's crazy. Yeah. Part of that is that you also then get to enjoy the music, right? So.
Well, yeah, sort of, except, you know, once I've heard the part I want to hear, I jump to the next
one. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so I'm not really enjoying the music. I'm really, you know,
listening for problems. Yes. Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes. It's usually new music that I sit and
listen to all of it. Stuff I don't know. That's the fun part for me. I'll sit and listen. My wife
thinks I'm nuts, but I'll be up here listening to the car for three or four hours or something.
She thinks I died, had a heart attack in there because there's, because there's no cell service
there and I'm late for dinner or something. He's never late for dinner. Have you seen him? He eats
all the meals. Yeah. Mike, you got any follow up questions? No, I don't think so. There was something
I wanted to ask you guys. I can't remember what it is. So obviously it doesn't matter.
We've probably made up the answer anyway. So it's fine. Well, that would have been okay too.
We can always do that later. No, I'm just happy you guys invited me on. It's really cool.
It's been a great to hear your perspective. Like I said, it's, I know it's a, it's a very unique one
and I know, you know, like I said, a lot of people don't realize how much, uh, how much experience
and how much you were involved in shaping the, the cardio world we have today. So thank you.
No, I appreciate that. Thank you. I mean, it's funny. You look back on stuff. You don't think
about that. Although my dad used to always say the older I get, the better I was. So
Yeah, right. It's like, it's like I always used to tell my dad like, man, when I was,
when I was little, you were like the smartest person I knew. Exactly. I got to be like a
teenager in early twenties and you're the stupidest person I knew. Exactly. And then,
and then as you got older, you got a lot smarter again. So I mean, congratulations.
Yeah, that's right. That's so funny, but so true. Right. That kind of describes all of us, I think,
with our parents. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. No, I appreciate it guys. Thanks a lot. And
look forward to seeing you. Yeah. You guys, are you guys going to the finals? Yeah.
I'm not totally positive on my attendance yet. I'm sure Mike will be there, but we'll see.
Yeah. Yes. To all of them. So yes. Every show you'll be at all of them. Yeah. So I'm just
You're judging at Birmingham? Are you competing? Little or both?
I don't know yet. I mean, right now, you know, I just have, so like last year, I just really just
had booth space. I didn't compete in anything. And Travis, you know, he hit me up, see if I want to
do the booth space again. I'm like, sure. Yeah. Why not? It was pretty inexpensive. So that's cool.
Why not? So at least I can be in the building with my friends, you know. Yeah. That's the
important part. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, exactly. It's cause of ruckus. Could you describe
the ruckus? Well, speaking of, oh, that's what I wanted to talk to you guys about just real quick
at the end. So, you know, we just had Monterey car week, right? Yeah. You guys know about that?
Oh my God. So talk about an interesting event like the Concordia elegans is kind of what started
the whole thing here. And that thing is still amazing, but they, they had this thing, I think,
what do they call it? Exotics on Broadway, which used to be on Canary Row. And it was all these,
it was kind of a free show. All these exotics would show up and there would be 20, 30,000 people
that would show up and just clog the whole city. And this year, and I think it started last year,
but we had guys doing, you know, side shows and all that kind of stuff, cops trying to break them
up. It's just become kind of a, a shit show, I guess is what you call it, right? So it's,
and I always tell people, come here for car week. It's amazing and it still is. But man,
you got this weird sort of element that is kind of trying to take it over and it's all kind of
over social media stuff. So you'll see videos online if you check it out. But anyway, takeover
stuff or yeah, like total takeovers, like as an example, they took over the In-N-Out burger
and there's a four lane road in front of that that they then had all clogged up in both sides.
And then there's a Home Depot parking lot and with the staples and some other stuff,
and they had that where as a hundred percent, you couldn't get a car in there and the cops came
and finally broke that deal up. And then they went to San City, which is about a mile away
and took over like a huge parking lot and all that stuff. And you know, they're revving their
motors and blowing things up. And, you know, it's like, my kid is, you know, heavy in the car
culture world and, you know, he's one of the top, you know, one of the top people in that,
the influencer side on Instagram and all that. And so he's, he's super in tune with, you know,
all those people and everything. But I'm like, the, you know, they do stupid stuff on the road
sometimes, but it's one or two cars. And, you know, it's, and it's other than that, it's at,
you know, festivals and tracks, you know, not as it should be. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't,
even he, you know, he, like I said, he's, he's 20 years old. He's super into the culture. He has a
zero six Corvette. Like he's, he's involved. He's fast. He does all those things. But
like even for him, he, and he's more ruckusy than I ever would be. But, you know, I just don't
understand that culture. Like it, it's just, I don't get how it's fun. Like all you're doing is
tearing up money or somebody else's money. Like it's just, I don't know, it does.
And the part I don't understand is how a lot of these kids are affording 100, 200, 300,
$1,000 cars or a million dollar cars. They don't own them. They're leasing them,
yet they're blowing them up. Right. Like you blow a motor on a Lamborghini
Air Ferrari or something like that. You know, it's, it's a 60, 70, $80,000 deal to get it fixed.
And if you don't own the car and you're doing that, it, it's kind of criminal, but I don't know.
I mean, and, you know, here in Pebble Beach, which is a beautiful place and, you know,
there's videos of a guy in a pink Ferrari doing donuts at a turnout where, you know,
they have harbor seals and all kinds of stuff down on the other side of that that have pups. And,
you know, I sound like a really old man right now. So this, when I hear myself doing it, right?
But it's like, come on guys. I mean, why, why are you doing that here? What's, what's the purpose?
Yeah. So you can do burnouts and, you know, donuts in a car. I mean, I got a car sitting
in the garage here that can do way better burnouts and way better donuts than yours.
Right. And you don't see me doing it. It's like, you know, I mean, I just don't, I don't know.
I don't, so I think I'm officially at that age where I'm disconnected with today's youth.
But like I said, I think, I think today's youth are also disconnected with today's youth. Like it's
that could be, that could be. Yeah. All right. So that, that's why it's going to bring it up.
Your guys perspective. It's a, it's a totally, I think it's a very selfish, central, small circle
of people that are causing a lot of issue trying to, or thinking that they're influencers, I guess,
in that remark, you know, as far as just getting that the popularity, popularity on social media
that is very short lived because I don't think it's, you know, like I said, even within that
community, I don't see it being respected by anybody. So yeah, no, I 100% agree. There's a
handful of guys that did it in the past and made a bunch of money doing it, I guess. And now, you
know, you get a hundred thousand people down here driving shit boxes and thinking that
that's going to get the same kind of coverage that somebody with a legit car does or something.
I don't know. I just don't understand it. Right. So I do, I sound, I'm hearing myself sound like
an old crusty. Get off my lawn. Exactly. Well, if they didn't burn out some of my lawn, that'd be
great because there's no lawn. Right. But yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's, yeah, again, it's,
it's a difference between, I think, I think the old man is, is somebody who gets mad at somebody
for, you know, racing a red light to red light or whatever. Like I think, you know, that stuff
has always been there and it's always going to be there. And that, that's street, street muscle car,
street racing, whatever. Like, I mean, that culture is always going to be there, but it's,
it's always been relatively underground. Like you don't, you know, you don't, you don't really
know it's there because on purpose, you know, people do it. Hopefully when there's fewer cars
around, they do it smart or not, you know, wrecking, like the whole takeover thing, they're,
they're tearing stuff up on purpose. And, you know, it's not. And like you said,
where's that money even coming from? Who knows? Like, you know, and it's funny because like my,
my kid gets constant comments on, you know, especially Facebook, just, you know,
Oh, daddy's money. Oh, this, that whole that. And it's like, bro, he, he paid cash for all
that out of his own money. Like he, he earned that, you know, and so he respects it. You know,
it's like, he knows that if he tears up it up, there's, there's no, no, no saving it.
He's got to fix it. Yeah. Well, it's good hearing you say that because,
you know, we were posting a bunch of like high-end homes on Facebook and different social media
platforms. And there's this element out there that just says, you know, kind of just poo-poo's it,
like it's overpriced. Nobody can afford to buy that. And then I was like, oh, you know,
we're going to sell it. There's people that want to buy it and pay those kinds of prices for stuff.
But why are you putting that opinion out here? It's just to be negative or.
Oh, and Facebook and Matiko, like it's funny because he gets, you know,
you know, he has literally billions of views. So it's, you know, he's, he's, he gets everything.
But, you know, it's, you can see it like going through his comments. If you go Instagram versus
YouTube versus TikTok versus Facebook and, you know, the Facebook, Facebook is definitely the
most out there where they will just call him every name in the book, you know, and, and, and go after,
you know, personally, and you should die. And I mean, just like vile stuff over a kid posting a
video in his car. Like he's not, didn't even do anything illegal. I mean, one video he posted
recently was like a guy in a pickup, an older guy in a pickup truck, gives him a thumbs up.
He gives it a blip and does a quick pull just to, you know, whatever. And then the guys again,
like, you know, cool, whatever, taking a picture of his car or whatever. It was a genuinely good,
like interaction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and people were just tearing him up. And then,
but then like in, on YouTube, they're like, cool, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.
Good connection with somebody who's a little bit older in a truck or whatever. Right. Right.
That appreciates that. Yeah. But yeah. So like, you're not alone when it comes to the Facebook
comments, like people will, you know, people will just be vile for no other reason than to be vile.
I'm convinced. It's like, it's, it's, it's terrible. Yeah. Well, it sounds like I need to talk to
your son about doing some real estate posting stuff for us. But that was like, I want billions.
I want billions of views. Right. I've got content. Look at me. I can do this too.
He actually, it's funny because he was actually looking at, when he was 16 or 17 or so, he was
really getting a photography at the beginning and, and he was actually considering real estate
photography for a while. And then he just kind of lost interest, but oh, it's, it's interesting.
It's been interesting to watch for sure. No, that's really cool though, that he's
successful at it. That's awesome. It doesn't surprise me. Right. Chip off the old man.
If you remember, I mean, he was the one going around SVR on his hoverboard and stuff
back in the day, like taking video, you know, taking videos of cars and doing this,
like all the shows when he was like 10, 11, 12 years old. And then, you know,
it's just, he's, he's made a full blown career out of it. So it's pretty cool for him, man.
That's awesome. Cool. Cool. All right. I didn't mean to go down. I know.
That's, that's, I was going to bring it up just because it's car week and it's an amazing event.
And even that kind of seems like it's trying to go to crap. But yeah, so anyway, right on.
About this episode
Mark Bruno shares his extensive journey in the car audio world, from early experiences at a stereo shop to becoming a national trainer for Eclipse. He discusses the evolution of sound quality competitions, the challenges of tuning cars, and the camaraderie among competitors. The episode dives into the technical aspects of car audio, the impact of different organizations, and the importance of community in the car audio scene. Mark also reflects on the changing landscape of car culture, including the rise of social media influencers and the challenges they face.
Original notes
In this episode of the SQOLOGY Podcast, Klifton Keplinger and Michael Myers are joined by special guest Mark Bruno. Mark shares his origin story in car audio, his time at Eclipse during its peak years, and the real-world lessons that shaped how he builds and tunes today. The conversation covers competition mindset, “run what you brung” versus last-minute changes, what separates top money-round cars, and why consistency is harder than people think when conditions, judges, and formats vary.
This episode is sponsored by ResoNix Sound Solutions, providing engineered sound treatment designed to reduce noise and resonance and create a stable foundation for serious sound quality systems. Learn more at resonixsoundsolutions.com.
This episode is also supported by SVR XV (Steel Valley Regional 15), taking place July 17-19, 2026 at the WesBanco Arena in Wheeling, West Virginia. Registration for the Top 48 competitor field is currently full. For more information, contact Larry Chijner or Richard Papasin, and follow the Steel Valley Regional Facebook group for updates on organization registration, announcements, and availability.
SQOLOGY exists to document the pursuit of better sound, preserve the culture of sound quality competition, and keep meaningful conversations alive across seasons, regions, and generations.
SQOLOGY Car Audio Podcast
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