The SQOLOGY crew dives into how car-audio events and industry dynamics are changing, from sponsor-heavy shows like SVR to trade-show style sales events. They compare competition-driven brands (with Hybrid as a key case study) versus mainstream scaling, explaining why niche enthusiast markets struggle with margins and constant product demands. The conversation also covers what makes judging and competitor-style events work—people, feedback, and community—plus how demos can be turned into real customer follow-up. They end by looking at the future of SQ-focused gatherings and why friendships keep people in it.
In this episode of the SQOLOGY Podcast, Klifton and Michael Myers dig into one of the biggest underlying tensions in today’s sound quality world: the difference between events built to sell and events built to serve competitors.
Using Steel Valley Regional as a starting point, the conversation expands into sponsorship, industry support, retailer involvement, grassroots event culture, and what actually sustains car audio over time. Klifton reflects on lessons from Hybrid Audio Technologies, Soundz, and years of event promotion, while Mike brings the installer, tuner, judge, and competitor perspective to the discussion.
This is a deeper conversation about what grows the hobby, what preserves it, and why those are not always the same thing. They also explore how brands, retailers, event directors, judges, and competitors each play different roles in keeping the community alive, and why people, not products, remain the center of it all.
Sponsored by Resonix Sound Solutions. Learn more about Resonix at resonixsoundsolutions.com.
This episode also highlights Steel Valley Regional, one of the premier sound quality events in the country, made possible through strong industry support and the continued effort of Larry Chijner and the SVR team.
"Many thanks to Resonix Sound Solutions for making this podcast a reality. Find out more about Resonix Sound Treatments at ResonixSoundSolutions.com."
This is the company sponsoring the show. They make products meant to improve sound quality, often by reducing echoes and unwanted vibrations in a space.
Resonix Sound Solutions is the sponsor for the podcast. They’re specifically tied to “sound treatments,” which usually means products designed to improve audio performance by controlling reflections and resonance.
"A few of those people are probably at Knowledge Fest right now in Las Vegas. So they have other words back... I went to Knowledge Fest Vegas and I thought it was a really great show."
Knowledge Fest is an industry event where companies and installers show up to meet and talk. The host is using it as an example of how brand participation changes over time.
Knowledge Fest is described as an event where industry people gather, and the host compares how major brands show up year to year. The discussion uses it to talk about industry dynamics and competition, especially around who is present and what that means for the market.
"...it's 100% a sales event... Whereas y'all are making sales in real time and doing the installation right now."
They’re saying this type of event is different from a normal trade show. Instead of just talking and hoping to sell later, they’re selling and installing right there.
The host contrasts typical trade shows with events where sales happen immediately. They describe a format where attendees talk to customers and then install systems on the spot, making it a real-time sales environment rather than a “maybe later” lead-generation model.
"Hybrid in particular is based as an enthusiast brand. It was always geared in that direction. So company like Alpine or JL or whomever..."
Alpine is a car-audio brand. When they mention it, they’re pointing to the companies that cater to enthusiasts and show up in that part of the market.
Alpine is named as one of the major audio brands that fits the enthusiast-focused direction the host describes. For car-audio listeners, Alpine is a well-known manufacturer of head units, speakers, and audio electronics, so its mention signals the kind of brands competing for attention at these events.
"CES was the big show. And when they pulled out and did their own thing, it was kind of a big to do at the time. And now CES has virtually dropped off."
CES is a huge tech show where companies show off new gadgets and electronics. The hosts are saying that, for car audio, attention has moved away from CES and toward car-focused shows.
CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is a major consumer tech trade show in Las Vegas. In the audio world, it’s often where new electronics and tech trends get attention, but the conversation here suggests car-audio focus has shifted toward auto-specific events.
"And now CES has virtually dropped off. It seems like actually now SEMA is getting a lot of that car audio attention. There's a lot more different levels of people at SEMA."
SEMA is a big car show for aftermarket parts—things like custom upgrades and specialty equipment. The hosts are saying more people in car audio are paying attention to SEMA now.
SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) is a major trade show centered on automotive aftermarket products—customization, performance parts, and related electronics. The segment frames SEMA as the current hub for car-audio attention, with more “levels” of attendees and a more mainstream audience.
"...for a shop that's no longer in business, it was called Audio Specialties. It was over in West Knoxville, and I worked for that shop from 2003..."
They’re talking about a local car-audio shop they worked at. It helps explain where their experience came from before they got into other roles.
Audio Specialties is mentioned as the car-audio shop the speaker worked for in West Knoxville. It’s relevant because it anchors the speaker’s early career in the car audio industry before they moved to retail.
"...I worked for that shop from 2003 all the way up until I started working at Best Buy in 2008. So during that time..."
They mention moving to Best Buy in 2008. That matters because it’s a different kind of place than a specialty car-audio shop.
Best Buy is referenced as the employer the speaker joined in 2008. In car audio, big-box retailers often influence what brands and technologies become mainstream.
"around 2003-ish, probably I kind of dropped off of car audio all together. Yeah. And then it wasn't till around 2010, 2009."
They’re talking about the hobby of putting sound equipment in a car—like speakers and amps. Cars don’t sound great naturally, so people build systems to make music sound better.
The speaker is describing a hobby/industry they stepped away from and later returned to. In car audio, the goal is usually to build a system that sounds good in a vehicle’s acoustically challenging cabin.
"[809.1s] It was a Honda Accord coupe. Okay. I never competed with it. It never had DSP or anything
[815.2s] in it. It was just straight up."
DSP is a computer inside the audio system that can fine-tune the sound. If there’s no DSP, you usually can’t adjust the sound as precisely.
DSP (digital signal processing) is used in car audio to adjust timing, equalization, and crossover behavior digitally. When a system has no DSP, the sound tuning is more limited and often relies on passive crossover components instead.
"...when Scott switched amplifiers, like when he went from, you know, Zapgo to DLS, then all of a sudden, you know, people are starting to use DLS."
DLS is a car-audio brand that makes equipment like amps and speakers. If a respected competitor starts using DLS, it can make other people want to try it too.
DLS is an aftermarket car-audio brand known for speakers and amplifiers. The discussion frames DLS as the amplifier brand Scott switched to, which then helped drive adoption in the enthusiast community.
"...because one, you know, you're catering very much to, again, the enthusiast base. And so if you look at the enthusiast base in other fields like cell phones or wearables..."
That just means the hardcore fans—people who really care about the details. They’re usually more interested in advanced features than the average buyer.
An “enthusiast base” is the smaller group of people who care deeply about a product category and are willing to pay for higher-end features or customization. In audio and tech, this often means supporting niche formats, advanced tuning, and deeper community knowledge than mainstream brands provide.
"...I would say even Apple itself is a good example where Apple was that enthusiast brand in the beginning. And then when things went mainstream, essentially with the iPhone..."
Apple is used here as an example of a company that started out appealing to tech fans, then became a mainstream brand. The iPhone is the turning point mentioned.
Apple is cited as an example of a company that started with an enthusiast reputation and then shifted toward mass-market adoption. The episode uses Apple to explain how product focus changes when a platform becomes widely popular (like the iPhone).
"[1191.3s] Yeah. So, you know, at some point, the problem is, is to be in business, right? You need scale
[1198.5s] and margin, you know, obviously, to make a profit."
They’re talking about how businesses need enough sales volume (scale) and enough profit per sale (margin) to keep going. If a product is expensive to develop and sales are small, it’s harder to make money.
"Scale" refers to producing and selling enough units to spread development and manufacturing costs. "Margin" is the profit per unit after costs, and both are crucial for sustaining R&D-heavy products in a niche market.
"[1260.8s] So, and then, you know, with the enthusiasts too, there's a very low scale. There's the smallest
[1265.4s] portion of the market necessarily, like we know them all, right?"
They’re saying car-audio enthusiasts are a smaller group of buyers compared to the general public. Because fewer people buy, it’s harder for companies to make big profits and still hit low prices.
A "niche market" is a smaller customer segment with specialized interests—here, car-audio enthusiasts. Smaller demand typically means lower production volumes, which can reduce profitability and make pricing pressure more intense.
"There was a lot of R&D pulled from, you know, the people involved there that pushed the products into the next thing. There was a lot of feedback of, hey, we need this, we need that,"
R&D means “research and development.” It’s how companies test ideas and improve products based on what they learn. In car audio, competition results and customer feedback can directly shape what gets built next.
R&D (research and development) is the process of testing ideas, gathering data, and turning feedback into new products. In audio brands, competition and event participation often feeds R&D because real-world results reveal what features actually work.
"[1451.7s] say, Hey, where, where do I get Arc audio? I'm in Southern Indiana. I honestly, I don't know."
Arc Audio is a company that makes car audio gear like speakers. The hosts are talking about how hard it can be to find a local installer who sells that brand.
Arc Audio is an aftermarket car-audio brand known for high-end speakers and audio components. In the episode, it’s used as an example of a brand that listeners may not know where to buy locally.
"[1572.4s] Well, this guy over here said this, this is the way to go. This tweeter sounds way [1575.8s] better..."
A tweeter is the part of your speaker system that plays the high-pitched sounds. The speaker is talking about people arguing which tweeter sounds better.
A tweeter is a high-frequency speaker driver responsible for treble sounds. The transcript uses it as an example of how enthusiasts compare specific parts of a system (tweeter, midrange, mid-bass) to judge “better” sound.
"[1575.8s] better or this, this mid range doesn't do this. Well, this mid bass, you know, blah, blah, blah."
Midrange is the part of sound that includes a lot of vocals and instruments. The hosts are saying people compare midrange drivers to decide what sounds more accurate.
Midrange refers to the frequency band handled by midrange drivers, typically covering vocals and much of the “body” of music. The speaker’s point is that enthusiasts evaluate and debate midrange performance as part of building an overall system.
"And especially, I think with speakers because it's so subjective... At the end of the day, this 99% of it is how you put it all together and tune it"
Speakers are the parts that actually make the music you hear. In car audio, picking good speakers helps, but the way they’re installed and adjusted matters just as much.
Speakers are the transducers that convert electrical audio signals into sound. In car audio, speaker choice matters, but the final result is heavily influenced by how the system is tuned and installed.
"[1814.5s] ...giving the competitor... [1821.3s] ...enthusiast space and the dealer base and everything else..."
A dealer base is the network of shops that sell and install the products. If those shops are well supported, customers get better installs and more reliable help.
The “dealer base” is the network of retailers and installers that sell and support a brand’s products. For car audio, strong dealer relationships matter because installation quality and system tuning often depend on trained shops and ongoing support.
Term
char coil
"It's like, no, no, no, no, no, I didn't even listen to it loud. I know there's, I know there's bits of char coil, you know, char barbecue popping off of the coil into the box."
This sounds like they’re talking about the speaker’s coil getting damaged. If a speaker is pushed too hard or wired wrong, the coil can overheat and fail.
The phrase appears to refer to a coil-related failure or damage (likely a mis-transcription of “voice coil”). In speakers, the voice coil can overheat or burn if driven improperly, leading to distortion or permanent damage.
"Right. And I mean, and you want judges that are passionate about this, you want judges that are, [2280.4s] and I don't mean this in brand bias way, but you know, bias that know what they, they like and"
It’s when someone likes a brand more than the actual results. In car audio judging, that can make the “best sounding” system lose to a system that just has a favorite label.
“Brand bias” means judging or preferring audio setups because of the brand name rather than the actual sound quality. In car audio competitions, that can skew results away from objective performance and tuning quality.
"This is, this is the threat of competition. And this is what we can do to bring it all back together because I'm very much a data driven person. Like, you know, if I get enough data and it was like, okay, I have all the data now."
“Data driven” just means you make choices based on measurements, not vibes. In car audio, that could mean using test results to figure out what actually sounds better.
“Data driven” means decisions are guided by measurements and evidence rather than gut feeling. In car-audio events, that can translate to using repeatable test results (like frequency response or distortion) to improve sound quality.
"And that doesn't need to turn into a sales pitch. But I think if we can kind of get that into a, okay, what's, what's our next step here to see how we can get this in your car, you know? Yeah. How do you close it?"
After someone hears the system and likes it, “closing” means getting them to actually say yes and move forward. The hosts are saying that’s usually the tricky part.
“Closing” refers to the final step of converting interest from a demo into an actual purchase or commitment. The discussion highlights that demos create momentum, but turning that into a next step is often the hardest part.
"So, yeah, I mean, it's basically attached to a trade show. So they have, they're going to have to, they got plenty of time, they're going to be there"
A trade show is like a big industry expo where companies show off what they sell. In this case, it sounds like the event is connected to an expo, not just a competition.
A trade show is an industry event where businesses and vendors gather to showcase products and services. In this segment, the speaker frames certain audio finals as being attached to a trade show, which changes the event’s purpose—more exposure and selling alongside competition.
"SVR is much higher production level... And it takes all those guys, it takes all of those, those sponsors to make that happen."
Sponsors are companies that help pay for or support the event. The speaker is saying they’re a big reason the bigger events can happen.
Sponsors are described as necessary to fund a larger, higher-production event like SVR. The speaker frames sponsor involvement as enabling the event to exist at that scale, rather than being primarily aimed at the audience.
"...there wasn't YouTube. Exactly. You didn't have Dima."
They’re referencing YouTube as why it’s easier now to learn how to install car audio. Instead of only learning from a shop, people can watch videos and figure it out themselves.
The transcript mentions “YouTube” as a key difference from earlier decades. It implies that modern installers and hobbyists can learn installation techniques from video tutorials rather than relying solely on local shops.
"And there's just not the, the event promoters. And in that case, you know, what, like the case you're talking about, Steve was the event promoter in that, you know, he, he was, he was the person that was on the ground boots running."
An event promoter is basically the organizer who makes sure an event happens and runs well. They handle planning and a lot of the day-to-day coordination so attendees and performers can focus on the show.
An event promoter is the person or organization responsible for organizing and marketing an event, and often coordinating logistics on-site. In car-audio circles, they can strongly influence the lineup, venue flow, and how smoothly competitions or meetups run.
"he's so involved on the SPL side plus the SQ side. When I went out there last year in the Reno or Vegas, one of the events out there..."
SPL means “how loud” the sound system can get. In car audio, people measure it in decibels to see who’s loudest.
SPL stands for Sound Pressure Level. In car audio, it refers to how loud a system can get, usually measured in decibels (dB) during competitions.
Concept
SQ
"he's so involved on the SPL side plus the SQ side. When I went out there last year in the Reno or Vegas..."
SQ means “sound quality.” Instead of chasing maximum loudness, it’s about making the music sound accurate and enjoyable.
SQ stands for Sound Quality. It’s the “how good it sounds” side of car audio—imaging, tonal balance, clarity, and overall presentation—typically judged differently than SPL contests.
"she's spearheaded, you know, making that Florida Audio Expo thing happen. Yep. And she's done a really good job with."
They mention the Florida Audio Expo, which is an event for car audio fans. It’s where people show their systems, compete, and help each other improve.
Florida Audio Expo is referenced as an event that was organized or spearheaded by Angie Landis. For listeners, it signals a real-world community hub where car audio enthusiasts gather to compete and learn.
"to go into these contests and stuff. So that's why I do it... when I'm at those, it becomes my mission to kind of meet everybody, listen to every car there."
They’re talking about competitions where people bring their car audio systems and try to win based on how good the sound is. There are usually rules so everyone is judged in a similar way.
The speaker is describing organized competitions focused on audio performance in vehicles. These events typically involve standardized listening or measurement criteria so competitors can compare setups fairly.
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Many thanks to Resonix Sound Solutions for making this podcast a reality.
Find out more about Resonix Sound Treatments at ResonixSoundSolutions.com.
Welcome to the Eskeology Podcast. I am here tonight with Michael Myers. Hello, Mike.
Hey, Clifton.
Some how quickly I'm going to spin off at the opening reads and I wanted to just kind of help
as far as with Steel Valley to kind of keep some information flowing there. So
I got a sponsor list, the current sponsor list from Larry since, I mean, I would say
Steel Valley and Larry's efforts with getting brand support too tied to the show is better than
I think most.
Yeah, it's been pretty impressive over the years how much traction he gets with sponsors and stuff
like that. He must put a lot of work into it.
He does. He does. He deserves a lot of credit for that, especially an event like SVR where
he has beyond finals level support as far as people there having booze, doing things, whatever. But
Arc Audio is the title sponsor again. I think they have been from at least since we rebooted
things in 2018 or so. So that's pretty impressive. Zapgo and ESP, which are kind of one of the
same company, but they're a gold sponsor. Now, I don't know what the difference is between
the precious metals here, but I'm just going to say what he's got. The platinum trophy sponsor
is Brax Helix Match Blam, which of course is MSC. Gold level is Carmo Mobile Audio.
And then the silver trophy sponsor is US Acoustics. Great dude. And then Bronze level is Creative
Products Design. I'm not, do you know who that is? I do not.
And then Davis Distribution and Audio Intensity, which Scott Welch had prizes. And then Stereo
Installs is doing the trophies. I believe they've done the trophies last year or two.
Yeah, they do a good job. And then Gold Level Support Sponsor. And I think this might be a first
that I've seen is an individual, Harry Camira. Oh, wow. That's awesome.
Yeah. So I thought that was pretty cool. So I'll just reach out now. If anybody knows
any of those people or any of those people are listening for whatever reason, if any of those
kind of as part of the service we're doing with SVR, if you know, any of those people want to
come on and talk about what's going on. A few of those people are probably at Knowledge Fest
right now in Las Vegas. So they have other words back. I don't know. Some of the, it seems like
some of the major key brands have kind of dropped off on Knowledge Fest.
I went to Knowledge Fest Vegas and I thought it was a really great show. But I guess it's
a little less this year, but I haven't really talked to anybody that's there. So I don't know
if that's true or not. Right. It's interesting. In a lot of this episode, I kind of want to dive
into some of the interesting dynamics between within the industry and competition too.
It's so hard now with the shift as far as sounds where I work. I haven't really changed
fundamentally, but when hybrid shifted over to sounds and I went with it, then
obviously the market is completely different. The people are completely different, all that.
The push is so much more, when you go to an event like a rally or whatever,
you're there with techs to work and put systems on bikes there and then. And it's 100% a sales
event. Yeah. It's a sales event kind of like no other because most of the sales types of events
that you would think, like Knowledge Fest or MasterTech or something like that,
maybe you take some orders or not. I don't really know how that works on the manufacturing
end, but you talk to a lot of people in hopes and promise that you'll make sales later or
something like that. Whereas y'all are making sales in real time and doing the installation
right now. Right. It's pretty much, we'll talk for an extra 45 seconds here. If you're ready
to spend money, then we'll keep talking. Otherwise, I got these 10 other people over here I need to
talk to. Right. Yeah. So it's a completely different data. And it really is that I'm sure
it's different for different levels of brands. Hybrid in particular is based as an enthusiast
brand. It was always geared in that direction. So company like Alpine or JL or whomever, but I mean
like to put the trade shows, I mean JL pulled out CES quite a long time ago because back then
CES was the big show. And when they pulled out and did their own thing, it was kind of a big
to do at the time. And now CES has virtually dropped off. It seems like actually now SEMA is
getting a lot of that car audio attention. There's a lot more different levels of people at SEMA.
It's a lot more mainstream. So you have more opportunity for people to find you if they're
a general shop. On that flip side, there's just so many. SEMA is so big. I don't know how anybody
focuses. Yeah. I've never been, but I've heard it's so massive. You kind of have to plan ahead,
you know, where you want to, what booths you want to try to see and all that kind of stuff
because there's just no way to see it all. And again, your mileage may vary depending on where
you are in the industry. But in the last episode we had with Jeffrey, he really got me thinking,
and honestly, like, you know, we, I actually had a couple people ask afterwards, like,
did you guys plan that out with Jeffrey? Like did he know the questions ahead of time and
everything? And I was like, no, we just let it flow, you know, we just, we just rolled into it.
But you know, he got me thinking more on how, you know, because you get your mindset of after
a period of time and you have your, your own biases and thought processes and everything.
And I think that just gets baked in. And you don't necessarily pull yourself away from that to see
why you think that it's just the, well, that's the way it is. So that's the way it is.
And I wouldn't say he changed my mind or anything, but he definitely made me, I think,
helped me get down to the path of, of, you know, seeing it more clearly. And I think
my own experience over the past 15, 20 years with, you know, hybrid is a unique case of
that and being able to kind of separate some of the sales versus competitor events or, you know,
and I would also say like the enthusiast versus mainstream targets, I think overlap a lot in
people's thought processes, but maybe they don't realize like, I haven't, how much that affects
everything when you change that market. So I mean, I'll ask you like with hybrid back
when it was a growing brand from, you know, being founded like mid 2000s, you weren't
who you are now in the industry as far as, you know, you weren't tuning cars at a, you know,
national level, you weren't judging at a national level. No, you weren't work, you didn't own your
own shop. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Now, but you had been an enthusiast, you know, and around car
audio scene for decades, even by that point. And we'll ask a very pointy question here, but
when and why do you think that you first became, you first knew what hybrid audio was?
Yeah. So at that time, I was kind of, I was still working in car audio, but for a shop
that's no longer in business, it was called Audio Specialties. It was over in West Knoxville,
and I worked for that shop from 2003 all the way up until I started working at Best Buy in 2008.
So during that time, you know, I would still go through, you know, forums and cause magazines
were kind of on their way out. There were still some, you know, like Pass Mag and stuff like that,
but I didn't really go to a lot of events. We went to, I think the finals they had in Charlotte.
I can't remember what year that was. I'm not sure either, because the last time I was at Charlotte
finals, I think was 2001 or 2002 somewhere in there. Yeah. I remember Scott's car was there,
but it wasn't hybrid audio yet, you know, but yeah, I became aware of hybrid audio through
following competition stuff. Now I followed it mostly online because there wasn't a great deal
of events to my knowledge in our area. It wasn't until later that I became aware of Mecca and
how many events they had in the Tennessee area, but during that time, I didn't really,
I didn't really know. I was kind of out of the loop as far as competition goes. I was doing more
just day-to-day installs and stuff like that. Yeah. But through the forums and stuff.
It's like Dyma and that. Yeah. Yeah. What was the other one? Was it like car stereo or something
like that? Anyway, there was. Car sound forums back in the day. Yeah, car sound. Yeah. And so
forums like that would see what people's use in and through some of the magazine type stuff,
seeing who's still doing it and still winning and stuff like that. And hybrid had a massive
impact in the competition scene because it seemed like, you know, I didn't really understand it
because I'm kind of an outsider, but essentially the brand was kind of built around that.
Yeah, for sure. And I had a feeling that was probably because that was kind of how everybody
knew about it. I mean, myself, you know, I was real good friends with Scott back late 90s,
early 2000s. We were both on, you know, Teams app go together back in the day. And so, you know,
I knew him, but then like around 2003, I got engaged 2004, then 2005, we had, you know,
our twins. And so, you know, around 2003-ish, probably I kind of dropped off of car audio
all together. Yeah. And then it wasn't till around 2010, 2009. And I was in structural
engineering at the time and the company I worked for went bankrupt. And so then I went to a different
company, but I was working sales on the road. And I was like, well, if I'm going to be on the road
however many hours a day, I really, I just want, you know, put a system back in the car.
And I already had everything except for like speakers, just because they kind of get tossed
around the house, whatever. And, you know, their amplifiers kind of get put in storage and you
pull out 20 years later and whatever the speakers are like, yeah, I probably don't want to use those.
Yeah, yeah. It's been laying on its cone for a while. Exactly. So like it's been the attic
and extreme temperatures for, you know, however many years, like it's pretty brittle. It's probably
not that great. It's like, you know, pulling out 20 year old tires and expecting them to work.
So I was, you know, looking around whatever and, you know, did the searching on Amazon
and the typical Google searches and I didn't really know like most, you know, team image
dynamics in the court back in the day, but neither one of them were what they were, you know, before.
Right. And you could tell that pretty quickly. I mean, even in the court, you know, before I left
had already gone away the Dodo bird. So just started doing, I had a three way set of, I think,
Dine audios in my like cart ready to buy. Yeah. And then I just kind of like, for whatever reason,
I was cruising around one more thing and then I saw Scoppa Walda attached to hybrid audio
technologies. And I was like, what the heck is that? Yeah. I know Scott. I don't know what that is.
You know, I'm like, Oh, they're speakers. And then, you know, it's like, I go to the website,
it's like this basically a text file with what looks, you know, pictures taken with a power
shot on a, on a dining room table or something. Right. I was like, well, okay, I don't know.
But, you know, I know Scott, I know he's not going to do anything half fast. Right. So
I was like, whatever. So I reached out to him and I was like, Hey, you know, here's my case.
And he's like, Oh, yeah. Hey, great to hear from you. You know, here, I'll hook you up. Here you
go. And I paid for, I mean, I paid for the speakers and everything. It wasn't like he sent
them to me for free, but got them installed for whatever reason. So like two miles away from me
was a shop that was a hybrid audio dealer with a competitor who kind of ran the shop and did,
you know, did the installing and stuff. Corey. So and he's actually, he's been a
mecha judge up until very recently, in fact. Oh, Corey Bradley. Yeah, Corey Bradley. Yeah.
So he, he installed my first, first hybrids in my car. And along with like a 15 year old, a dire
audio tumult and the Zapko 4.0 and 9.0 X from way back. But anyway, what car was it?
It was a Honda Accord coupe. Okay. I never competed with it. It never had DSP or anything
in it. It was just straight up. Yeah. Yeah. Like two way kind of a thing. Yeah. Yeah. Just two way
passive crossovers. But man, you know, I got, it was, it was funny because back in the day,
I always remember fighting mid base. Like I, you know, I had the, the jail IV eights, you know,
from back in the day and everything trying to chase that mid base. And then, you know, got
these in the car and they were just a two way seven inch, you know, mid range driver in the
doors. And it was like, holy crap, this thing has a lot, you know, like this really performs.
I, and I didn't, I didn't know much about, I understood a lot about speakers and all that
from back in the day, but it wasn't like I was sitting there evaluating that. It was more like,
Oh, here's some speakers. Let's put them in. And, and then I was just, this is pretty awesome.
And then, you know, went on the road, starred, you know, kind of doing some
rep sales, stuff like that. And apparently in the, you know, local dealer, then of course,
you know, end up, you know, working for hybrid full time. But, um, all that to say, like,
I personally picked the brand because of I knew the person behind it. Right. Yeah. You, it wasn't
like I was, I kind of saw the names attached and I was like, okay, cool. There's no reason for me
not to give it a chance. And I'd rather spend money with somebody I know versus, you know,
Amazon. So much of that build up in the beginning because, you know, Scott, Scott was obviously
a hardcore competitor and never satisfied with the products that were being made, especially,
you know, back then you didn't have the catering of products to this market like you do now.
Yeah. And so, you know, and it was developed during competition around other competitors
going, Hey, why don't we do our own thing and do it better? And so the whole premise was based
on enthusiasts wanting a better product for their own cars. Yeah, you could tell. So, you know,
then it was obviously built up on the competition scene with other competitors, you know, building
the team, all that. So like you said, a lot of that notoriety within the community was that
enthusiast base. Yeah. And that's, that's kind of where I lived, you know, it was enthusiastic.
You know, I was still really looking through all the forums and all that kind of stuff, you know,
I would see, you know, Big Red Truck and all that kind of stuff, you know, and it was like,
that looks really cool. I don't know what it sounded like because I didn't go to any events,
but it looked awesome and they won a lot of contests. So obviously it's pretty good, you know.
Right. Right. And that's where a lot of the build up, especially back then you had,
so I mean, as far as the brand goes, much of the endorsement was from Scott himself.
Yeah. Because, you know, back then, especially when Scott switched amplifiers,
like when he went from, you know, Zapgo to DLS, then all of a sudden, you know,
people are starting to use DLS. So a lot of that, you know, even though it was basically
his own product, a lot of that was just, again, kind of like what I did is like, well, Scott's
not going to half-ass it, so I'll give it a shot. And I'm glad I did, but you know, I'm just saying
like, you know, if I hadn't had that personal connection, I don't know if I would have made the
same decision at the same time. Right. And then, you know, you had the endorsement of the competition
scene on top of that. So you had people kind of piling on, especially since, again, back then,
you didn't really have much in the way of brands being involved in competition.
Right. A lot of your big brands had pulled away from that support. And in their defense,
probably in a lot of ways for good reason. Yeah, I'm sure it did make a lot of financial sense
at the moment, you know. Right. But that gave room for a brand like Hybrid to grow.
Now, it hits its brick wall to a certain extent at some point, you know, because
one, you know, you're catering very much to, again, the enthusiast base. And so if you look
at the enthusiast base in other fields like cell phones or wearables or something like that,
and there's some really good YouTube videos on this subject in particular that kind of dive
into this better than I'm going to attempt to. But you have these different products that come
out that try to cater very highly to a demographic of, you know, like tech nerds who want to be
able to jailbreak their phone or want to be able to put this OS on it or whatever. And then they,
you know, they want this really nice camera on their phone or this wearable that is really
nerdy and does all these different things and does a big dive and, you know, deep dive into
all these places that, you know, the mainstream products don't. I would say even Apple itself
is a good example where Apple was that enthusiast brand in the beginning. And then when things
went mainstream, essentially with the iPhone, and then even over the past years, that focus has
really shifted more and more into the 80% of the market. Because why wouldn't you?
Right. Yeah. That's where the dollars are. At that point, then though, you know, and Apple's
done probably a little bit better job than most, but, you know, many of the smaller companies that
don't have decades of history and millions and billions of dollars to float on, plus an incredible
product that everybody wants, those brands have a hard time in that shift. And like Oppo is a good
example, if you remember. Oh yeah, Blu-ray players and stuff. Yeah. So they had the amazing Blu-ray
and DVD players, right? And they had this big enthusiast base, and then they went into cell
phones. And then they kind of built up that same base there to a certain degree, but then
they couldn't get beyond that point to get into the mainstream. And at one point,
they were like in the top five for cell phone producers in the world, which you wouldn't think,
right? Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, but they have such like a huge base in certain countries,
you know, like in a couple Asian countries and stuff. And they kept hitting these like
different walls of, and they're still like a very successful company in their way, but
they're so far removed from that enthusiast base that they built up the brand name with,
with the DVD players and the Blu-ray players. Yeah, exactly. It's a totally different company now.
Yeah. So, you know, at some point, the problem is, is to be in business, right? You need scale
and margin, you know, obviously, to make a profit. And then you need costs to be, you know,
your constant for cost of business, just in terms of developing research and all those kinds of
things to be as low as possible, because of those are obviously, you don't have a one for one in
getting that back unless you have a really successful product. Of course, most enthusiasts.
And I think this has gotten more and more over time, especially within those communities like
Daima, like your Facebook groups and everything else, where the demands for a cutting edge,
amazing product are so high. And so the costs that have to go into your development are so high,
because in this scale of business within this niche, like you're not going to go through the
product that you have to make in the timeframe to be able to make the next product they want
in time, you know, if you look at jail audio, even how that's not a small company, right?
And how long has some of these products been on the market? Oh, yeah, decades. Yeah. All right.
So, and then, you know, with the enthusiasts too, there's a very low scale. There's the smallest
portion of the market necessarily, like we know them all, right? Like,
Yeah, exactly. And then your margin ends up being almost the lowest with those because they also
want it at the lowest price because it's one of those things where, hey, we're pushing this and
we're special. And there's three of us and we want it for free. So how do you make a successful
business off that? And that's the problem. You kind of don't. Yeah, it's not really possible,
honestly. In the beginning, the major developing years, I would say we're more like 2008 to 2014,
2015, where, you know, hybrid really saw a lot of growth worldwide. There was a lot going on.
Like team hybrids, for example, you know, was a big portion of that because I mean, you had,
it wasn't just going out and competing. There was a lot of R&D pulled from, you know, the people
involved there that pushed the products into the next thing. There was a lot of feedback of, hey,
we need this, we need that, which is slippery slope because you make that thing that, you know,
these people demanded that you really need to make and then you sell five.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how you would, there's got to be a way to kind of try to figure
out how many of these things are we going to sell even if we make it.
Well, it's tough, right? Because you, the L2SE and the U2, for example, that was,
which I mean, both of those have ended up being very successful products,
the U2 and the L2SE. I'll tell you, the only reason those exist is Marsha Bealer.
That's hilarious.
Because she would harp on my phone at least once a week going, when am I going to get a two for
my car? I'm like, well, you can probably fit a three in there and be fine. I want a two.
That's where the U2 was like my pet project to start to finish to get going and to make Marsha
happy. And then Scott was like, oh, let's make an L2SE and then that popped out nowhere. I don't
know where that came from. But, you know, and now like, you know, there are a lot of people's
favorite driver. But, you know, that was purely how that came about, you know, like the Rose Tended
Copper was because a fairly major player, you know, historically in audio was involved in some of
that. And he pretty much was like, Hey, you know, I'll kind of getting it going, but I want this color.
So a lot of those things that ended up being a major part of the brand were just, you know,
again, all those relationships and from those enthusiasts and everything else. So,
and like when it comes to the competition scene, like it's such a ebb and flow and a circle that
it's difficult for you to unwind from that in any way, shape or form, unless there's a board
director's handling it. Because if there was a board director's handling some of these decisions
that it doesn't make sense if you're a big enough brand to be going after major market share in
whatever the thing is that we do. But at the same time, even you take some of those biggest brands
and obviously you have a shop, you, you, you know where to find these things. But if I was just
say, Hey, where, where do I get Arc audio? I'm in Southern Indiana. I honestly, I don't know.
I call Arc audio. Right. I know a guy. Where to send somebody, you know, where do I send,
you know, Helix, I would probably send someone to audio specialist and, you know, in Tennessee,
which isn't too terribly far away from me. Yeah, Arc audio, I would send to you guys,
essentially, or maybe mobile audio plus in Bloomington, Illinois, you know, where we've done
a lot of shows. That's four hours either direction though, from where I'm at, before you run into
that karma would have been probably be y'all, you know, and then you get into some of these other
things like, you know, your gold horns and your, this and your that and, you know, the stuff that
is really the, the products that are like purify, you know, speaker drivers, I would say purify
probably, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but, you know, I think right now probably has one of
the highest, is one of the highest regarded brands among, you know, people as far as, you know,
yeah, it's just raw drivers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, they're not catering to car audio
necessarily. They're, they're making stuff to do for home audio where they, you know, can get
a sale of 200, 250 at a time. Yeah. Yeah. They're selling it to people that, that manufacturers
like speakers, you know, like Aaron Aaron tests, you know, like, yeah, exactly. Our entire market
ends up being spillover at that point. What ends up happening is you end up in a position with all
these brands, I mean, name the brand. It's a cycle that happens because of business and capitalism.
Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. They all you always end up at this point where the people who are the
enthusiasts, the early adopters, the people who are on the cutting edge of all this stuff,
they're also, for the most part, the least loyal. They're the ones who want to go on to the next
product to. They're always looking for the best thing or the next best thing or whatever it is,
you know. Well, this guy over here said this, this is the way to go. This tweeter sounds way
better or this, this mid range doesn't do this. Well, this mid bass, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And especially, I think with speakers because it's so subjective. Yeah.
Amplifiers and DSPs are a little more user, a little more, you know, that's the Rolex I want
versus that Rolex. You know, it's like, there's a little less magic involved with, I think,
a lot of that stuff. But, you know, with the speakers, especially, there seems to be this,
this, you know, magic potion. At the end of the day, this 99% of it is how you put it all together
and tune it, you know. Oh yeah. Well, I sent you those graphs that one time where I changed
mid-bass drivers from one brand to another. You can hardly tell the difference.
It looked the same. Did you change the speakers? Yeah. No tuning. I just swapped one for another
and just re-RT8 it and it looked almost identical. It was like, I think you probably could have moved
your mic placement and made more of a difference than changing speakers did. Yeah. Yeah. So it's,
you know, you get to, obviously there's garbage out there and obviously there's overhyped stuff
out there. But I mean, I think there's a certain point when put in the right hands and you put
the right thing together as a cohesive package and then it's tuned and set up properly. Most of
this stuff is going to be able to be an any given Sunday championship level thing if you approach
it right. Yeah. If you do, you know, the installation work that makes it to where the product can
shine, I think any good product would do well. And the car platform itself in our case is a big
part of that in terms of how complex your install is going to have to be to make it work. Oh, yeah.
A Camry platform or a 4Runner platform or, I mean, it's you have found the Subaru platform,
which is probably very closely shared with the Camry and stuff. So I mean, it's the same thing,
you know, 6x9 dash speakers, you know, dodges, you know, with the dash speakers and, you know,
the dash 6x9 combo just seems to, okay, it works. It's easy. I mean, almost every truck has that.
The Ford, you have to kind of get the higher level to get the dash speaker, but some of them do have
dash speakers, but they do have 6x9's and so is a Toyota and Nissan and, you know, Dodge and Chevy
and it's crazy. Yeah, it's surprising if you just let manufacturer of the vehicle do their work and
do it well, then it makes it a lot easier for us to do our part. But yeah, as long as they did a
decent job, your work's easy. So I think to relate this back to our last conversation with Jeffrey
in competition with Hybrid, for example, and I'll kind of go to the in case there, like, you know,
when things shifted to sounds and of course, the whole market shifted, everything else at the same
time, you know, I ask a sales, mecha sales, me personally, I mean, I felt like 20 years of my
life got erased because it was like, you know, I didn't have any of that stability there with what
Hybrid had always been and how things worked and, you know, my relationships there and everything
else. So I mean, in that process, you know, with this shift to happen, almost has to happen,
because it's either your choices kind of are continue to cater to the enthusiast base,
but when the lottery to do it, right, because, yeah, because they're not going to that isn't
going to pay the bills at a certain degree, you can't sustain off of that, or you have to shift
into a mainstream market to be able to pay the bills or then you can go back and work with do
the enthusiast thing. And that's what most of the brands have done, or they've just moved on.
Yeah. And I would say, I would say I'll give Arc and Hybrid advice, obviously been, you know,
had had their moments of competing against each other, but I would consider Brian a friend,
I would consider Fred Lynch a friend, I would say, you know, I would consider Brad Otto a friend.
All those people that are involved with Arc, I would call friends, but I will also say that I
think Arc has been one of the best at being able to separate out where they make their money and
where their passion is with Arc and stay at the top of giving the competitor, you know,
giving that enthusiast space and the dealer base and everything else, a lot of their desires,
especially in the DSP products and that. Yeah, they've been a really good company and work worth
for us. Yeah, they've done, they've done superb there over time. And they're not the only ones,
but I think, you know, they're, they're ones that were grassroots at one point too,
that were able to find their path at in the bigger market, but also keep catering to that,
that other. So I think they're one of the, one of the few that have, have been able to find that
line and keep it. I know it's still tough at times for sure. I mean, on both sides and they're not
all things have shifted with them as well in big ways over time, but at least externally for,
you know, the consumer and the competitors and everything else, they've continued that.
But, you know, with, you know, with like the hybrid sound shift hybrid moving into a space
where it was going to be able to cater to that mainstream market was, you know, a very difficult
proposition. Yeah. And you would immediately have to pretty much just turn your back on
everything that you did before, which, you know, is a very difficult proposition for any of us to
go, oh, this is the thing we built up from passion and what we wanted and what we wanted
our own cars and everything else and then to shift that to something else. Yeah. But on the
backside, during that entire time as well, through a couple different, you know, scenarios
beyond just sounds like motorcycle speaker sales were a huge part of hybrid's existence for a very
long time, much longer than anybody would care to admit. So, I mean, a major portion of the revenue
that was sustained hybrid was off of motorcycle speakers and international sales and those
kinds of things that, you know, it certainly wasn't from, you know, yes, the competitor base
and the diamond market and those kinds of things definitely helped grow the brand,
but it didn't sustain the brand by any way, shape or form. No, it was kind of like the commercial,
you know. Yeah, exactly. That was the ground roots marketing, you know. Yeah. And then the
enthusiast base is great for that because the enthusiast base goes out and finds these things.
You don't have to market to them because they find you. Yeah. Yeah, as long as your product is what
they want, they're going to do it themselves. But then again, that doesn't sustain because
there's only so many of those, they don't want to spend money and they move on to the next thing
just as quickly as a life cycle. Yeah. So, it's not, it's not for a lack of desire or anything
else, but going through that and then, you know, a couple of things I've, you know, dabbled in show
wise and stuff like that. And then, you know, continuing Aggie land throughout. And then I
think, you know, in my mindset where I really dug in was wanting to make MPTG or Aggie land
because I've always had the most, thank God for Chris Bate because I mean, he's really
backed the show and let it breathe. And he pretty much just lets me do what I'm going to do. It's,
you know, he's like, as long as you're doing it, you do it. I don't even know if he's going to
be there this year, to be honest. That's wild. Because it's the same week as Euro finals. So,
I don't know if he's, I don't know if he's going to Euro finals or not. They could be, maybe, I
don't know. But you know, it's, it's like, he's that much. He's like, hey, Louis will be there
right to check. Don't worry. They'll get the door opens for you. It's your thing. Do it. And then,
catch up with me later. I'm like, okay. But in all that, it was a very gut wrenching thing for
me to go through with the transition because I mean, it makes, it makes so much more sense now
that I'm on the other side with what sounds does and with what we, we do in that space. Because,
and it's, it's so rewarding in so many other ways, you know, that hybrid wasn't. And also,
hybrid was rewarding in ways that sounds, you know, it's, it's not a one for one in any way
she performed. But in terms of being able to, you're not begging for every sale. It's just like,
here, listen to it. Here's the full thing in two hours. It can be yours, you know? Yeah. And
that's something that you just can't do in car audio costs this much. We done now, you know,
exactly. And then you're on your way. And for you to see a game, cool. You got through your warranty.
We'll take care of it. The buck stops here. If we're not going back and forth going, you know,
well, their DSP did this, well, the amplifier did that. Well, you did this, like, when you're selling
one component of the system, there is that constant. Well, if somebody's honest with me, it's like,
hey, I set this up wrong. And I messed it up. And I'm going to be like, hey, stuff happens,
we'll make it work. You know, let's figure it out. But when somebody is like, I don't know why it
looks like it got plugged into the wall. It just happened like that. Your speaker is effective.
It's like, no, no, no, no, no, I didn't even listen to it loud. I know there's, I know there's bits
of char coil, you know, char barbecue popping off of the coil into the box. But don't worry about
that. But at the same time, I mean, I, in the process, I mean, I lost real friendships. I lost,
there was a lot of things that fell apart during that case. And a lot of that was me because I
couldn't personally, I had a hard time personally handling all that and the shifts and not being
in control of certain things. You can't do all of it, man. I mean, because it would have fell to
you alone, you know? Well, and, and there's so much, you know, it's, because I constantly get that,
the question, you know, is, is, you know, hybrid still in business, what's going on, I never hear
anything, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, yeah, it's, it's all still there. If you want something,
you get a hold of me, whatever. But the problem is, is that, you know, the amount of effort that
takes to sell $1 of hybrid versus $1,000 of sounds is that much of a difference. It's,
it's, it's, it's ridiculous. So I mean, you have to focus on what, on what steers the company,
you know, it makes a lot of sense. But all that to say with the, with the show side of things,
I think it's my psyche and going through that process now being on their side of it for the
Spartan and, and being able to kind of look at it from more of a distance now after time has
passed, because it's three, three plus three and a half plus years, you know, since kind of the
worst of all that was in the transition. And now I look at, and I think it's why I get so defensive
of what Jeffrey would call the competitor show. Because I've seen what happens repeatedly when
you try to, when you try to get to that next step. And if you're, if you're going after a market
that isn't coming to you, you end up having to make changes that leave the market that you already
have. And to me, that almost necessarily means doing things that are compromised for your enthusiast
base. And to me, you know, in the same way that things shifted in a way to sustain a company
and business and be able to feed my family and everything else that, that also kind of necessarily
changed the focus of my time away from the enthusiast on the flip side, all of that passion
has gone into trying to make the events like Aguiland the best for the enthusiast and have 100%
focus on that person. On those people involved, the judges, the competitors, everybody involved,
because it's a dynamic, it's not, the judges are basically volunteering, you know, no matter
how much we could do or couldn't do for, you know, it's like, it's still.
None of it works without the other. You have to have all of it, you know.
Right. And I mean, and you want judges that are passionate about this, you want judges that are,
and I don't mean this in brand bias way, but you know, bias that know what they, they like and
know what they, what sounds good, know what doesn't, have experienced thousands of systems over dozens
of years, like what we have and people who are relevant and in this and doing it and, and eat
it and breathe it and live it every day. And along with the competitors who are just as involved.
I mean, that's why, you know, I really kind of dug into the, the invite style where, hey,
I want people who are involved in this and doing it and live it and breathe it. That's, you know,
this is as much of a get together as its competition, you know, and, and especially Aguiland already
has that vibe to it, you know, where it's, it's a big, well-produced get together.
Yeah. Yeah. It used to be kind of a party.
Well, maybe a little more so, more so than it should have been, but
that has, that has its liabilities as well.
And again, I'm not, I'm not saying that the other things don't have their own space. It's just,
I think why I've, I've bristled against it looking back now is because I, I guess I'm, I'm being
uncharacteristically conservative in that aspect that I'm really trying to preserve what we have
in that, you know, in our society, in our people. And, you know, as, as Richard says,
you know, many times that we're here for the people and the brand is SQ, you know?
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's not about, you know, once we get into, once we get into those cars
with a clipboard and a pin or as a group together, whatever the brands shouldn't be the focus.
Right.
Because again, it comes down to the people that you're going to buy from or do from or
with and whatever, you know, whatever that dynamic is.
Yeah. And I don't, I don't, you know, to my knowledge, I don't remember working with anyone
that really had kind of a, like a brand bias or anything like that. I think all the judges
that I've worked with in recent memory have all been really good about that and
having an encounter and any problems.
I think a lot of people think it's there. And I know judges have, you know,
slipped up as far as just the way they might handle themselves with a certain something or
other. But when it comes down to the score sheet and, and making a call where it counts there,
I have, I haven't seen that trend, you know, like what people would, it's, it's much more of a trend
about how something sounds and certain brands have the same people pushing,
tuning techniques and what they're going for and what benefits them in that space and everything
else. So I mean, you're going to, you're, you're going to lean more towards what you like versus
what you don't. And if a certain group of people consistently do that, then that, that's good on
them for having enough cars to do that, you know, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that was, that was, that
was part of it with, with hybrids. I mean, it wasn't about stacking the, you know, it wasn't
actually about stacking the, you know, classes to win everything or whatever else. We just happened
to have a really good following for a while. But as a result of that, what I have seen, you know,
and since then with certain, you know, you have certain groups that are using a similar tuning
or a tuner in particular, whatever, like that does kind of drive the curve as far as
where things go as far as what the judges are getting accustomed to listen to and everything
else during the day. So I mean, if you have a bunch of cars tuned by similar people, I mean,
that could be bad. It could be good. I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying it does,
you know, kind of affect the outcomes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in a long, a long game kind of a way it
does. And, you know, I'll say too, like, it seems like there's a big, a fairly big cross-section
of people who are hardcore in this thing that we do that have also may have addictive personalities
also might be neurodivergent. There, there's a, we all seem to as a group tick slightly different.
Oh yeah, for sure. Than other groups. And, and I think, you know, with that, if you were to change
the game, the way some, some, you know, would like, you know, where, hey, everything, everything is
a hundred percent objective and there's no inconsistency among judges and whatever that is,
always wins, you know, towards like a SPL style outcome. And I've said this many times and I'm
sorry for harp on again, but again, I'll say because of all these reasons, if you were to
actually be able to accomplish that, I think that a lot of people would actually become
disillusioned with it and not enjoy it as much as a reason. Yeah, I think it would be
different people that would enjoy it, you know, it'd be a totally different group, I believe.
But at the same time, it's like, what mainstream people are we going for that would be? What is
the example where you see this mainstream of dozens or hundreds or thousands of people
participating in what we do? What's the example that, I guess, because I mean, you know, you kind
of marketing one-on-one, you kind of have to go where the people are. Yeah, yeah. And so it's like,
It's like parallels with something else. So it's like, so where are these people coming from?
What are they doing? And what does this look like? Because I don't know what that is. You know what
I mean? Yeah. If you take, you know, some I've mentioned before just because I have, you know,
for personal reasons to see the parallels, but you know, like livestock judging,
completely different thing, you know, but it's also very, very similar in so many ways where it's,
you know, it's, it's well qualified judges making a judgment call, subjective judgment call on how
things are sorted, you know, first to last in the same way that we do. And they have the same
thing where multiple judges is more, you know, typically more desirable or either that or just
a superstar judge, you know, who is just going to be able to, you know, people are going to accept
their outcomes and whatever else, but they have the same problem. They have, you know, there's
waning amounts of people doing it. They have to do their work to keep, you know, people involved
in doing it and everybody participating and, and, and on board and you have the same level of people
that complain and, you know, think it's unfair or this or that or whatever else. And there's a lot
of, there's a lot of feelings in all of this. And that's part of what makes it great. And it's also
what can make it not so much fun, but all that to be kind of my settlement on saying why I really,
personally, as far as I can see in the future, we'll always be 100% focused on the competitor
style events in the way, you know, like Aguiland has done without having, I'm not going to be
going after every Tom Dick and Harry, I'm not going to be breaking it up to where, you know,
well, here's the pro division versus the amateur division versus here versus there, like,
yeah, yeah, it's a run what you brung and it's all in the line. And then we don't have to worry
about all those things. And you see where you line up, you know, regardless, you know, overall,
it's not, it's not a, it's, it's more about bringing everybody together to, to get value out of it,
whether you win or don't. The idea is that, Hey, if you, you know, my concept as much as possible
is to maximize the value that you get out of that event for coming in 30th. And then anything
above that is a bonus, you know? Yeah. And it's a great event because of it. I think
it's one, it's, you know, ever since I started participating, you know, both competing and
then later on judging, it's been one of my favorite events because the people are very welcoming
crowd, you know, you feel, you know, kind of included, you know, in the, in the whole show.
And then Chris and his crew are such gracious hosts that makes it really easy to enjoy, you know,
and they have, you know, usually a barbecue lunch, you know, one of the day on Saturday.
And it's always a great time, you know, so it's become one of my, one of my very favorite shows.
I missed the old hybrid show that you used to do. That was great. Yeah, me too. Yeah. I would,
I would like to see a reprise of that. And maybe, I mean, we're, I guess doing a
event in Las Vegas, February 6th, 7th and 20 next year, 2027. Yeah. We'll be doing an event
in Vegas. So we might be able to bring back some of that, some of those dynamics there.
That was a really cool event because of the, it was a higher level of judges feedback. I mean,
that the focus on the show was much different, you know, as it was helping competitors be ready
for finals or just competition in general. And instead of just who wins the contest. And that
was a, that was a really cool event because of it. Well, it was the same, it was the same thing
there where it was 100% pet or focus. And also, you know, going through all that process and kind
of working to being involved in all the events and kind of combining everything, you know,
in that, I was for sure in the back of my mind, thinking there was going to be
some secret sauce that came out of all that. This is, this is the threat of competition. And
this is what we can do to bring it all back together because I'm very much a data driven
person. Like, you know, if I get enough data and it was like, okay, I have all the data now.
And then it was like, I still don't freaking know.
It was a little bit of happenstance, a little bit of, you know, this,
the right time of year, the right people involved, easy to get to place when there's a lot of factors
that go into making, making a show work that I think that competitors don't realize how much
effort goes into to do in these things. Oh yeah. And I think there's a ton of room to be able to
branch out and grow. I guess, I mean, my thing is that, oh, sure. I never want to lose focus of
the people who are involved in making it the best possible thing for those who are here now.
And then let the people who aren't worried here today, we'll let tomorrow worry about that.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I remember when Chris, when Chris paid, you know,
changed Aguiland to try to garner some of those sideline competitors to come back, you know,
and get, you know, and he put a lot of money out to bring back that style. And, you know,
it was the same people as normal. So, exactly. Yep. And then, I mean, I think it's the same
thing with the, you know, with the new competitors. It's, I think the biggest thing that anybody
can do, again, this is a people driven thing. And this might be where the opportunity is really
big. And again, this is where I'm not trying to detract from the efforts that are happening
throughout all over the place as far as, you know, different styles of events and everything else.
I guess I'm looking for ways to make sure we kind of understand what we're doing and then,
and then maximize that as much as possible. It's like, if I don't think it's enough for somebody
to hear your car and go, wow, that sounds really good. And then get out of the car and then something
happened. Yeah. I, there's more to it than that. Because I think there has to be a connection, you
know. Yeah. Like either a personal connection or, no, I think it's, it's the competitors
are the people that will end up dragging other people into this. More than, more than any other
thing. Because that's, that's how I got into it. That's how all of the people that, you know,
were sound team six over the years, that's how they all get there, you know, because I just
sort of dragged them into it. And I'll make Chris, you know. Yeah. And you guys had a real,
you guys had a local dynamic that, you know, no brand could ever have. Just being able to get
together, you know, to go, to go out to eat and have that community. I mean, that's, that's huge
on its own. But my thing is like, when you're in the, when you're in these cases where you're able,
obviously the biggest opportunity is when somebody's demoing in your car, right? Because you have that
you're one-to-one with them in the car. And that doesn't need to turn into a sales pitch. But I
think if we can kind of get that into a, okay, what's, what's our next step here to see how we
can get this in your car, you know? Yeah. How do you close it? You know, and that's the hard part,
right? Because, you know, the competitors aren't necessarily the ones that can fulfill that. They
can, they can help connect the dots, you know, you know, hey, where are you from? And that, and
that might be where we need to pull, you know, and I ask has historically been the best at
being that market marketing driven organization as far as connecting the retailers together. And
Mecca was really good too, you know, especially when, when Steve was running things, he, he, he
did a really good job of having the retailers be involved. You know, if you have, if you were
at an event, you know, and usually from speaking as a Mecca event director, what usually would
happen was Steve would go, okay, well, if they're going to, he will put on them, but if you're
going to have a, if they're going to have a competition at their shop, they need to be
a retail member. And I'd be like, okay, Steve, I'll send you the hundred bucks, you know? Yeah,
we were retail members for years. I mean, there are several Mecca members, you know, retail
members out there that don't know they're right, Mecca retail members, just because I was like,
yep, I'm having a show there and yep, they're set up as a retail member and here's the money,
just take it and move on. That's funny. In fact, I had, in fact, there was Mobile Audio Plus.
They were one of those and he sent them a retailer package and everything. And one of them, you know,
I had Mecca, Mecca Retailer and Sticker, you know, for the door or whatever. And one of them
put on the inside of my, my gas cap on my truck. Get out, go to put, get, go to put Desolate on
the way back and there's a Mecca Retailer member or Sticker on it. That's funny. But you know,
it's that kind of, if we were able to pull that together in a way where there can be more follows
or more closing, I guess that's kind of where I'm connecting to with the fact that if I go to an
event, I'm going to make money for what I'm doing. I'm not there to just do whatever as far as at the,
you know, like with the Brawley's and the motorcycle side of things. But if you, you know,
if you look at things at that in that same regard on this side, where, you know, people are doing
a lot of work to branch out and everything, it's not enough for them to feel good. They got demo.
I think we got to get that to the next step where, okay, what car do you have? What do you,
you know, what would you think about having this in your car? What's your budget? Where are you
located? Here's the shops there. Reach out to the, you know, or can I get your number? Because
that's the biggest thing people are never going to reach out. You know, you can be like, oh,
here's my card. Pete, nobody's going to call you. It's like, you got to get their information
and then have somebody follow up on that. You know, if you do that a thousand times, maybe you get
10. But that's 10. 10 would be a huge number right now as far as, you know, if we were able to get
more, that much more involved. So I guess, you know, I'm kind of taking what Jeffrey laid out well
and taking that kind of the next level and going, okay, now what do we do with that? And how do we
keep pushing into this thing? And I think also again, making sure we understand what,
like the Aggie lands or even, I would still call SVR more of a competitor event, you know.
Yeah, it is. And, you know, I think the finals in Arkansas, you know, that's, that's going to be a
competitor event. Obviously, the ISCA finals and, you know, the exponent is going to be more of a
selling event with the competition involved. So, yeah, I mean, it's basically attached to a trade
show. So they have, they're going to have to, they got plenty of time, they're going to be there
for like four days. So yeah, but you know, there is enormous potential there. But it has to be
executed on, you know, to make it work. Yeah, it makes it a little complex, but I think it'll be,
it'll be really cool to see what happens. I think on the flip side, the way the competitors, I
guess, look at the industry and the brands, again, like the ones I listed off there supporting SVR
at the beginning, you know, I'll remind you, those brands aren't there to sell you product
because you're, you're not the target audience. Right, yeah. Be very thankful that those brands
are involved making an event like SVR happen where you're in the air conditioning, you know,
all weekend. Because those brands aren't involved that you land. And guess what,
you're going to be out in the heat when you're not being judged. Now, you'll know when you're
being judged and you'll have the opportunity to come inside for that. And the judges will be
taken care of and all that. But, you know, it's obviously a different style of it when it comes
to that. SVR is much higher production level because there's a lot more, a lot more money
involved. And it takes all those guys, it takes all of those, those sponsors to make that happen.
I mean, I'd hate to see what all of that costs, you know, what the place costs to rent, you know,
what it costs to get the judges there, what it costs to house them and feed them and all that
kind of stuff. It's a lot. The money goes immediately when it comes to like the, as far as
like the entry fees and that, especially like at Aguiland where this year, there's no orgs or
anything. So you don't even have that kind of slush coming off of that. Extra. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Like back when Lone Star, we did Lone Star for a couple of years and it's how you high-fived, bank
rolled a majority of that. You know, again, there we did have, we did have, especially the first
year we had vendors and everything, but again, it was 500 bucks, 1000 bucks pop, you know, when the
event was negative five figures. So it's, it's like, you know, the tents were like $28,000.
So, you know, there's so much that goes into all that that again, it's like,
I don't want to say be grateful guys, but at the same time, it's kind of like, you know,
whatever you can do to help push something, you know, these people's ways and help out the
community internally without just asking for free stuff or whatever. I know, I know everybody's,
again, friends, I know everybody helps each other out and, and that's good. But, you know, I think
the more we can, if, if we're going to put focus on growing things or, or whatever, if, if that's
where your mindset is on what you want to do, then I think getting a clear pass towards
that on how that happens and how we execute on that and how we go to the next, you know, get,
get a call to action for the next step is, is important.
Yeah. I think that's part of what made it really big in the beginning, you know, you know, when
sound quality was first to competition, you know, back in the eighties, moving into nineties, when
it was huge. And this is really sales driven at that time, you know? Well, yeah, because you're,
I mean, back then, nobody knew how to install something except for the installers. And even
then, yeah, well, yeah, there wasn't YouTube. Exactly. You didn't have Dima. You didn't have
And so 100% of it was to get people involved to, to go to a shop to build a car to compete.
Yeah. So I mean, you didn't, you had, I think that's the hard part. The people kind of don't
understand now. It's like the amateurs back then were all shop built cars. Oh yeah. Well,
it was, it was much more even a car culture in general for the regular public even.
That kind of made it huge for that time. And here's this new, this new thing that you can attach to
it, you know, the stereo stuff. And it just was a great time for, you know, the novelty and
sales generated by it, you know, and I don't think we'll ever get back there because this is
the world is so much different, you know, people aren't even interested in cars as much as they
were. But, but, you know, to, to get the people that, that love sound and great sound will have
to try to capitalize as much as we can. Yeah. And, and again, on the flip side, like, enjoy the
community that we have as well. Absolutely. You know, I think that's, don't, don't be looking for
the next person so hard that you overlook the person that's already next to you. You know,
that's one thing that I think I was talking to someone else about this is what made Steve
Stern so great at this is every time you went to his show, he was the guy doing the entries and all
that kind of stuff. And he knew everyone's name. And he was really, you feel, you really felt
that he was grateful that you were there. And he was real genuine in all that.
Yep. No, I agree. And he, and he did a lot of work, you know, I've told our people too, like,
the only reason that I did as much with Mecca as I did back in the day, when I was doing more events
with SCLG and everything else was because he was calling me like every week to say, you know,
what, what, what do you got in the docket? What are you planning? What can we do here? What do
you think about this? You know, he, he was good at pushing it. I mean, they, they basically made
the forex events for us for Aguilin and SVR and the hybrid show. That all came about pretty much
for that to just having a, you know, kind of a way to elevate things, you know, and get,
get more, more people involved. But he, you know, he never, from the very beginning,
when I first went to his house in 1999, you know, it's been a long time ago, but it's like,
it's like, you know, he, he took this kid off the street and went, sure, let's do this.
And yeah, it's his, his presence, you know, he, he was also, you know, on the flip side,
not liked by certain people. And, and he definitely has days because he was, he stood up for what
he thought was right in the, in that moment, no matter what, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And so,
it didn't back down from a challenge. Exactly. If you cross that, you got the horns,
but you knew where you stood with him. There was never, you know, there was never a shadow of
a doubt, you know, whether good or bad, you knew where he stood and he was able to work through
it. But yeah, you're, you're absolutely right. That was, that was a big part of it. And there's
just not the, the event promoters. And in that case, you know, what, like the case you're talking
about, Steve was the event promoter in that, you know, he, he was, he was the person that was on
the ground boots running. You know, there was, there was very few, you know, I would say that
my shows and, and then West Coast with Richards were probably the only shows that he just never
really touched, you know, he just let us do our thing. Yeah. And Richards, a phenomenal
example of that today, you know, as far as on the event promoting side, because he's not,
he's so involved on the SPL side plus the SQ side. When I went out there last year in
the Reno or Vegas, one of the events out there, I probably, I might be wrong. One of those
desert cities and for one of his events and SQ was kind of shoved around the side, you know,
whatever, but you walk through the SPL lanes with him and he's like a celebrity. But yeah,
I mean, same thing. He has such an amazing pulse on everybody that's involved. And if Richard won't
communicate with you, that's probably your problem because he's very, very good at on the
communication side and just being open and honest about what he doesn't have. There's no agenda
there, you know, and, and it's like, he just, again, the brand is SQ and it's all about the
people and let's just make it work for everybody. Yeah. And so I think, you know, he's, he's, I
would say at one point, I was that person that was in touch with everybody, you know,
that was up and coming to compete and everything. Now, I mean, I'm, I'm too far removed from it
all. But Richard is definitely that, that person that I think has, has an amazing pulse across
the country as to what's going on and, and, you know, kind of what we can do next. I mean,
and I know like Jeremy in Texas, you know, he's, he's done a tremendous job at keeping
events going and everything else. Now Mel Valdez is, you know, getting some events going,
leading up to Aguiland. Cassie has, you know, done her fair share over the past couple of years,
no doubt, in an area that never really had any shows. Yeah, it'll take, it'll take a lot of
effort, you know, between, between, you know, all of the, the people in their regions, if we're to
make this, you know, a rewarding and, and larger thing into the future, you know.
Yeah. And just keeping people involved. And I don't, you see how many shows Richard does in
California constantly and people show up. And I'm like, I don't know that I feel, I feel like
there, you would get a certain level of people just tired of driving to events, but I mean,
they keep doing it. Of course, their weather is much better than ours. So yeah,
they don't really have an off season. Yeah, that, that helps a lot that they,
they have the weather on their side, but the more excuses we can have to get together that aren't a
giant production, you know, might be the way to help, help some of that. I mean, Angie, Angie
Landis in Florida has really done her fair share in kicking that area up consistently.
For a while, you know, this kind of, not a lot happening in that, in that particular area,
but she's done a great job in reengaging and getting people involved and excited about
competitions again. And, you know, she's spearheaded, you know, making that Florida Audio Expo
thing happen. Yep. And she's done a really good job with. Oh yeah, 100%. So the more we can all
support each other on that, especially the ones that are on the inside, because, you know, obviously,
if you're not growing, you're dying. It's one of the other. But as long as we, we don't grow just
for the, just for the sake of growth, I think it's, it's, as long as there's a somewhat of a
strategy that we can pull together and agree on, and I guess that's my biggest thing again, is just,
is kind of knowing what we're doing, what the effects that are, because I would say the growth
that happened in the, you know, we talked about like in the 80s into 90s and into the mid,
you know, it seems like I wasn't as involved, you know, personally, because I wasn't in this area,
then I was in the Northwest where it was kind of remote, you know, from everything. Yeah. But
seems like around that 90s, 1997 era was kind of when things fell apart.
And I would say that that was partially due to the growth.
A little bit, you know, yeah, it grew and grew and grew and, you know, some people were there
to try it and they didn't know what a great sounding system was, but they thought
their sounded great and then they get smashed and then they don't return. And so there's a lot of
that kind of thing that happens back then. Now it's a little more inviting in a way that if
something's not up to par, you know, on sound or something, there's usually a few people at every
show that are willing to help figure it out and get you over the, over the hump for the next show,
whereas back then it was really cut through. Well, and if you have 20 people in your class,
that's a good thing if you win, but if you're 20th out of 20 people in the class,
yeah, you don't go back and that's one class. I mean, that's not a money round. That's one class
with your incentive for what your next step incentive, they're like, oh, well,
I could do everything that I could possibly do. And you just didn't have, granted,
you didn't have the information back then that you do now.
Right. Yeah. And so, I mean, a lot of it was being tried for the first time then, you know,
and, you know, install was such a huge part of it then, you know, it became this giant money game
to be able to win. And most people figured out they couldn't afford to win. And so,
they would just go do something else, something cheap like golf.
They're out. I'll shatter everybody's thought process now. There is no cheap hobby.
Like my hobby is cassette tapes. Guess what? That could be very expensive very quickly.
But I mean, you know, like it got to where the brand identities for a lot of the
car audio brands was involved with competition so much to the point they, you know, they had people
that were nearly on payroll to just build their car or build a car and go win. And how can a
normal person that works at like a gas station or whatever, you know, if you're trying to get
everybody involved, like how does a normal person never afford to be competitive in that kind of a
thing? You know, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. It nearly ruined it, you know, and that kind of went away for a
while or at least took a huge downturn. You got the kicker semi showing up with Mark Eldridge
and Gary Biggs in it. Like, yeah, I mean, each, you know, so every, every brand had their, had their
time, you know, like MTX Thunder Force and, and, you know, PPI had a huge team for a little bit.
And then, you know, kicker JBL, so on and so forth, you know. Well, I think even back then,
when everybody realized that there's not enough ROI on it to keep doing that.
Right. I mean, that's another reason why it kind of fell apart because
number, number one, the normal people can't afford to do that to, so you would lose competitors.
And then the, the brands that were paying for all this didn't get enough money back in sales
to make it really worthwhile. So then just everything sort of went away and it became
more of the enthusiast and hobbyist that you see, you know, these days.
And I don't know personally see any reason for that to change, you know.
No, no. The people that are in it now are a lot more passionate and enjoy it, I think.
And enjoy each other. I mean.
Correct, correct. There's not, there's not nearly as many like fistfights as sure.
Right. They still happen, but yeah, not, not nearly as many.
That's why you don't see a Kegadaguland anymore.
And this is all just discussion. And if somebody has a, if somebody has a, you know,
differing opinion, I would love to have them on and discuss it more.
Yeah. I think, I think that those were great days and we had to have them to get where we are now.
We'll never, I don't see any way back there, honestly.
It's like, it's like bemoaning discos at this point.
Right. Yeah.
Why don't we have more discos? What happened? Well, that's gone now.
And I mean, I think every generational thing is going to see those issues. I mean,
baseball, basketball, like, you know, tons of sports. They have all of these, obviously,
beginning to cycling and stuff, like any of these things, they're all doing the same thing,
going, how do we get the young people involved? How? Oh yeah, it goes in waves, you know.
It's like, and I don't know that you do. Like you have to, the people who want to get involved,
you have to do it yourself for one. And if you do it yourself and then other people enjoy it,
and they, they get into it, then cool. If they just go, Hey, that's fun, not for me, then fine.
If it's cool enough, people will find you. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, I think we'll probably beat
that horse, but I don't know. It was on my, it was on my mind and I had a discussion with a
couple of other people in there. Like, you know, I was like, oh, maybe it'd be fun to kind of delve
into the topic a little bit. Yeah, but I, you know, I think we're in a pretty good place that it
seems to be on the upswing again. Cause I mean, we, we had reached a pretty good point, you know,
in 2019 and COVID and went down again, but you know, we're on the upswing. So I think we're
doing all right. I mean, the bookshelf there wasn't bad. Cause like 2019 we had like what,
90 some competitors at a finals. Yeah. And then 2021 when we did the first loan star,
we had like 70, 72 or 73 competitors, which, you know, was easily from a, for a sound quality only
event, you know, the biggest non-finals event of recent time. So, you know, you had more
interest in finals that year. Oh yeah, for sure. Well, cause finals was still all over the place
at that point post COVID. But yeah, you had a good bookshelf around COVID as far as, you know,
bookends around COVID. But then I think a lot of that was just with the change of hands and orgs
with IASCA and Mecca, both changing hands at the same time, you know, you had,
obviously had event directors bouncing around, some doing more shows, some doing fewer shows,
finals not being consistent as far as location goes and just did general economic and, and I think
personal up people since then, like, you know, there's, there's a lot of people out there where
paying thousands of dollars to get somebody's feedback on their car is not the top of their
priority in life right now. So I totally get that. Yeah. I think there's just life is happening
right now, you know, and, and just in general, the world is in a different space than it was.
But obviously there's some of us that are just never going to, you know, stop doing it, but
I'll be doing it until I'm dead, I guess.
Here we are. This is, this is our life.
I just like it. I don't know.
Yeah. And, and why, I mean, I guess that's the next question. Why? I don't know. Like I said,
it's a, it's the, it's the people, you know, it's the friendships for me, you know, yeah,
like I'd put on a recent post, you know, one of the Facebook things, you know,
someone had asked, have you ever, have you ever been to a, a sanctioned sound quality event or
something like that? And everybody's, you know, posting their trophies and all that kind of stuff
and, and, you know, we know all the people that's been to them. But, you know, I posted on there,
it's like, yeah, I mean, I've met some of my very best friends doing sound quality over the years
to go into these contests and stuff. So that's why I do it.
For me, a get together isn't enough to disagree. Just maybe it's just the way I'm built, but I
really need something to do. Yeah. I really like to get together, you know, and, and, and for me,
when I'm at those, it becomes my mission to kind of meet everybody, listen to every car there.
I almost like I'm judging, but not actually writing things on a score sheet.
But the same kind of mentality, you know, I want to meet, I want to meet all the people there,
like what brings us all together? You know, how do we, how do we keep this kind of enthusiasm?
How do we get more enthusiasm? Because it's, it's a lot of fun. It's what drives it, you know.
But, you know, I, just like you, that's, that by itself is not enough for me. You know, every
once in a while, I like to see if I still have it, you know what I mean? Can I, can I win one
still, you know? And, you know, every once in a while, I can. Mostly in second place.
I just need a room and a calculator. And I'm, that's, I'm good. Just give me a, even when,
even when I, like I mentioned earlier, going out to the Vegas show or Reno show, whatever it was,
with Richard, you know, I get one of those Vegas deserts, one of those Nevada places.
Exactly. And, uh, yeah, I was pretty much immediately put myself in this scorekeeping
role. So, you know, I was sitting in my van, tallying up scores.
That's funny. He didn't even know I was coming. I just showed up, like I just drove up and I was
like, Hey, Richard, he's like, what? Got something I can add. Exactly. I need some numbers stacked.
Anyway, uh, yeah, we'll see where this conversation goes, but I appreciate you taking the time as
usual and we'll chat soon. All right, man. Talk to you later.
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