OK, much interest in here concerning opening a shop in this industry, so I can share my personal experience on this very topic with you guys. Keep in mind that this is solely my view on the subject and should not reflect upon anyone else on ECA. Anybody else with personal experiences please share them here>>>
First, a bio of me...I am 35 (YIKES!) and have been addicted to car audio since 1985 (Beasties, Run DMC, 2 Live Crew, MC Shy D, etc). My first system was in my '76 Dodge Aspen consisting of a Kraco cassette deck w/ 5 band EQ built in running a pair of Jensen 2-way 6X9s in the rear deck. Then when I got some more cheese I bought a Coustic Amp190 and began experimenting with subs. First, a pair of Pyle Driver "Source" 10s , then some 10" 3way home speakers in the back seats (YIKES again!), then a pair of Pyle 1540s with a pair of Motorola piezo tweets running off Radioshack 2-way passives. I just kept experimenting and trying to better the sound and get more bass. The damn kid down the street with the S-10 kingcab with four Pyle Pro 18s running off a Hifonics series 7 Colossus totally ruined me for good (hehe!) I was ADDICTED!
So, over the years I began to tinker more and more with systems, I got a job building conversion vans locally and developed some crafting skills and got really good at using tools and learned how upholstery was done. I started a tool collection while on the job there. In '92 I began Radiology school for two years, during which time I took my second car, a '71 Superbeetle, and did a complete frame-off resto on it, then totally customized the interior top to bottom FROM SCRATCH!!! Did some performance junk to the motor, chromed everything I could, then did a much larger scale system based on years of researching car audio magazines (we had no internet, you darn young whippersnappers!LOL). I had subscriptions to ALL of them, and read them religiously over and over.
Anyways, the Bug's system was a Kenwood cassette/ CD changer combo, Advent point-source 6" in the doors, Clarion 5s in the back, Power Acoustik tweeters in the pillars, two Power Acoustik 30X2 amps on the mids and highs, a Kenwood KDC901 (?) amp on the subs, and 4 Sansui 10" subs mounted in isobarik pairs in a ported box. I was damn proud of that car, and won a few trophies at car shows and VW events, but never took it to a stereo comp.
After graduating school in '94, guess what? Thats' right , sucka! Mucho Flow from new career = New Ride!!!! I went to the local Honda dlrshp and drove off in a 1994 teal green Honda Civic EX demo with 375 miles on it. I wonder where that car is now.....? Anyhoo, of course I had plans for a totally new system, since I had continually been studying all the magazines and whatnot. I took a job in Tampa with a mobile Xray company, so I moved there. Being from a relatively small town this was quite a shock. Especially when my new apartment was within walking distance from Sound Advice! Can you guess how many times I went to THAT store!?!
I was like a lot of you are, window shopping, trying to design systems in my head, checking specs like a mo-fo, etc. Anyways, Some important things happened to me between March '94 to SBN 95'....1) Rockford released the DSM amps in late '92, and I had a hardon the size of florida for them! 2) Oz Audio subwoofers were both highly revered in recent magazines AND they were sold at Sound Advice! 3) I got a Sound Advice charge card!
So begins the next "plateau" of system building for me. Rockford Punch 200 and Punch 40 DSM amps, a Punch Link (WAYYYY cool then boyee!), Infinity 6.5 reference coaxes front and rear, the Kenwood cassette/ CD combo from the bug, and two Oz Audio 250Ls in a BUILT TO EXACT SPECS ported box like the one CA&E built for them to test with. YES I paid Sound Advice to build it b/c, believe it or now, I didnt want to **** anything up with airspace and port size, etc. HAHAHA! I built the amp rack and insalled the amps and coaxes, wired the box myself, and tuned the MTX RTXO3 crossover. HOLY SHIZNIT BATMAN! What a difference in sound quality over the bug. Before I had hard hitting bass (who cant in a bug, for christs' sake) but now I had DEEP bass extension and awesome clarity! WOW! I knew I was onto something, and the next step was better clarity, higher highs, and what the hell was "staging and imaging"?
Well, I turned my attention to the head unit, and decided that I'd buy into the hype that Alpine was the best. Specs wise, they were. In '94, the 7525 cassette and 5950 changer combo was the best cassette/changer duo made imho. soooooooo, ch-ching! And guess where I bought it from? Thanks right kids. Sound Advice! By now, the salesmen knew me by name and knew I was a well-versed shopper with a bad addiction. In Dec '94 I asked for Sound Advice gift certificates for Xmas, and guess what? I got em! So I went in and wanted to upgrade even more. ADS was huge then, but I loved my RF punch amps. I considered Boston PRO comp sets, and almost got them, but there was this ADS stuff that was awesome and Infinity had the Kappa separates. Over the past few years I travelled the state of FL and went to virtually all audio shops just to look and listen, and I remembered going into Sound Ideas in Gainesville and listening to a demo car with Oz Audio components in it as well as Oz subs a few months back. I asked my Salesman if SA carried Oz components, he asked me why. I told him I wanted to enter my car in the Spring Break show in Daytona in March since I had been a spectator for a couple years and wanted to see how I would do. I said I had the Oz subs and would like to stay all Oz. He asked me why I didnt go with ADS or MBQuart, and I said I didnt want to run what everybody else had, I wanted to be different. Then I asked him about the pretty painted sub box with plexiglass on the back that they had in the showroom installed in a BMW 325 'vert. He said "hold on", called down to the install bay, and had their lead installer come up to talk to me.
Enter Dennis Smith, a guy with 10 or so years of install experience and the Sound Advice installation guru and fiberglass whiz-kid. After talking with him and telling him I wanted to compete at SBN, he suggested doing a flashy fiberglass install on the civic to highlight the components in the trunk, and since he had former competition experience, suggested we try horns to help with imaging. But the kicker was he wanted to "build the horns himself" to make them midrange-only horns. I figured what the hell. However, there was a strict stipulation to this since I was totally emotionally attatched to my car----I had to be there with him hands-on! Thus the Civic began it's IASCA life, and I began my lessons in fiberglass techniques. Over the course of those three months, all of my credit line and all those gift certs were used up, but I was learning, and learning WELL. Hell it was more than worth the 3K I spent there, because when I left, even though the system was merely OK by my current standards, I knew that a whole new world was revealed to me and I would later exercise my inherent creativity and craftsmanship to hone the skills I would need to never have to rely on another person for an installation again! Not that I had a bad experience, but At the end of the install, Dennis up and left SA and I was forced to finish it myself and with the help of another SA installer who was so-so in order to make the show. I vowed then that I would never ever pay for another installation of a custom system in my car.
So began the competitions. They were just about every other week. IASCA, USAC, IASCA regional, USAC triple, etc etc. I travelled ALOT to compete in SQ, and each time I got judged, I learned. I would work on the car between shows, trying new stuff. I would eventually try stuff like Qforms, then I'd try making my own kicks, then I'd try different angles of the speakers in the kicks, and so on and so forth. Trial and error and the drive to win a Regional IASCA and USAC event are the two things that taught me how to install at my current level of craftsmanship. I wanted to try to motorize my amps, so I designed a model, bought the parts, and worked on it until I got it right. I wanted to paint more stuff, so I practiced painting until I figured it out. You guys get the point here... Well, I had friends who knew I was into this sound thing heavily. We all know that our friends have asked once or twice if we'd "help them out" with installing a radio or an amp, right? Well, that was also a big part of my "training", doing friends' systems on the weekends in my garage.
Traffic Jamz>>> After the civic was done at SA, and I had built some additional stuff into the install, I went to another Tampa shop to "show it off" and to see what was going on there in terms of products. They were amazed, then offered me a job b/c they had a guy quit recently. I could only do it part-time b/c I was a full-time Xray tech, they agreed. I told them I wanted to learn more about installing and custom stuff, and that mt specialty was building boxes. They said that was perfect and I could build all the boxes I wanted. After a while, my nickname was "woodchuck" LOL! Seriously, I have built every possible kind of subwoofer box you can ever imagine. This job lasted about a year and 3 months, then I moved back to Ocala to get married and start a mobile Xray route here. I used the Traffic Jamz experience to learn about the biz, selling and buying, who rep'ed what lines in FL, the actual cost of stuff, the taxes, the customer service aspect, etc.
After a while, my car was getting to be a bad-ass, and I was at the highest level it could go without a major overhaul. I had a sizeable but modest tool collection, and air compressor (a MUST!), spare parts, assorted wire and spare accessories, a growing "stereo friend" population who I was doing installs for, and was becoming known around the sound-off circuit. My talents were getting better and better and I was perpetually getting high on the feelings of accomplishment that building systems gave me, ESPECIALLY the civic and how it made peoples' jaws drop at the shows. I was addicted to be addicted, there was no cure!
Enter my Cousin, Bobby Hillgaertner. He was a stereo buddy, and after I palled-up with a local stereo shop in Ocala and had an open account with them. I would build all their custom enclosures and SPL systems in exchange for letting me order supplies and buy stuff at dealer cost to do installs on my car and friends cars at home. Bobby got a new S10 single cab, and we bought him a modest Rockford system and I did some neat mirrored plexi and vinyl behind the seat for him highlighting the subs and amps. He too became hooked on great sound, and strated going to shows with me. After a couple months, he got a new truck, this time a king cab S10 (Gee, where is that truck now...?) and he decided he wanted to build IT for the next SBN ( I think it was SBN 97???) So, we turned my garage into an install bay and we built a system so bad-ass it won the Novice class without being tuned! Painted fibeglass, plexi, flawless vinyl, and 30 band PG eq's in the doors right behind FRONT SUBWOOFERS! THis was just more fule for the fire! I had two vehicles I had built that were bad-ass and people loved them! Bobby was hooked too! TOgether, we toured the IASCA and USAC circuits, building other systems on the side and continually doing minor improvements to our stuff.
When I moved into my new house in 99, this is just an example of how bad my addiction was/is, I purposely picked the house not because I liked it but because it had a 3 CAR GARAGE!~!!!!! WooHoo!!!! Bobby and I were in hog heaven! We built work benches and shelves and a router table and lights out the ass and a wood rack for MDF and on and on! We made that garage a small custom shop. THis would be the birthplace for the shop now known as Audionutz.
In my garage, over the course of almost two years, we re-built my car front to back (including the old version of the new dash , which was the Focal/Punch amp set-up), re-built his truck (with new amps, 12's in the doors, and Sony head and processor, ), and built another Civic for Jason Syner a.k.a. Skillet that would compete in the 601+ class with 10" subs in the doors and 13 Rockford amps in a SEA of painted fiberglass in the back seat area. Skillet came along and shared our love of this thing we call car audio, and each of us learned from the other techniques and tricks for installation. Bobby excelled at sanding and bondo work, Skillet was great with paint and wiring. I was the master of box design and the fiberglass molding dude. We busted our asses at night and on weekends with one purpose in mind----WIN FINALS!!!!
Well, Bobby did win eventually, I placed third, and Skillet placed 3rd or 4th. We did good, but I knew we could do better. Everybody we talked to said the same thing--"You guys are so good! That is awesome work! You should do it fulltime! YOu are Millionaires and don't even know it!" Well, after hearing that stuff over and over, I knew it was time to do something. I didnt want to regret NOT being in business for myself when I had the chance. I thought I knew enough about this business to just go for it, and I knew we already had a big "following" of customers and friends who could keep us busy. Sooooo.......
Stay tuned for part two!
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