dbdragracing, SPL, Sound Quality, Bass Comps, Sound offs which ever way you put it its the same to me, its a audio industry problem that is spiraling down hill. and these are some of my thoughts from the past 3 years that i have been competing.

i remember when i first started you would see 20 odd cars turn upto Local dbdrag competitions and nowdays your lucky to get 10'

a big reason isnt just not enough competitors its many things


one the thing i have found that scares people off from events is those people knowing they dont have a chance against the major dbdrag players in the scene. this is why i even go to un sanctioned events, so i can get the word out to the guys that dont even know about dbdrag events. and also so the guys that know very little about the sport find out that it isnt as hard as they think and that it doesnt take big massive systems to win.

another thing is people not knowing much information about the decent products that are available out there.

it is surprising how many people i have met when taking my car out for crusies, wouldnt have a clue what digital designs is.
if i had a dollar for everytime some one has asked me what brand is DD, i would be rich.

i have been asked so many times this question. the stores in the industry nowdays dont help the scene really. yes there are a few stores that do.
but a good majority of stores do not do to scene any justice. with stores hiring people that wouldnt know a good system if it bit them in the backside. i know more then most sales guys i have met in car audio stores. and yet you wouldnt see me working in the industry as i consider myself a person of little knowlegde even.

another is when people do organise the events there is very little promotion done for the events therefore not many people know the events are even on. South Australia being a perfect example.

i have attended Autosalon events where guys entered into autosalon with decent stereos didnt even know there autosalon entry covered entry into the dbdrag event if they wanted to compete.

but back onto equipment. you go ask say 100people which car audio gear is the best for our sort of competition.
80% of your answers will come back as, Fusion, Soundstream, Pioneer, Alpine. not one of them being a SPL dedicated brand. even for SQ it would probably be the same answers.

i have mentioned, Digital Designs, SPL Dynamics, Shnieder, Atomic, ect. the the response i get usually is cant be to good i havent heard of it. and when i state thats funny being they are some of the best companies in car the field of which i compete they go, gee didnt know that.
or i hear about cars that were old as.

now back to car audio stores. an example.

i was in a AutoBarn store down here recently and just was looking at Pods. a salesmen came upto me asking what i was after and told him so the guy inquired to what i was running, i told him digital designs subs and amps, he asked if i compete i said yes i have run in extreme and Super street at dbdrag events.
he then showed me pamphlets of Option Audio gear (NO OFFENCE TO OPTION AUDIO). the salemen was saying that there gear was the best because they held a record in extreme and everything, he really up sold the gear that his store stocked.
little did he know that my equipment was far superior to what he was trying to sell me. and this is an example of store salesmen nowdays not having a clue what the industry has available anymore. they know what there stores sell and thats it, nothing more, and to them their products are the best.
So alot can be fallen back onto the Stores within the industry nowdays also.

Guys go into a shop and go i want a car to do say 145dB and a salesmen sells them gear and that person goes to a comp and does less then a 140 and goes away disappointed and loses interest in the sport straight away.
i have seen it at comps where guys have said dang the shop told me it would do much more then this, customer satisfaction and care has really gone out of the industry from alot of car audio specialty stores nowdays.

ok now to the competitors side of it.

when we have 3 groups of people that dominate the scene especially in NSW its not going to attract new commers. slowly our numbers are climbing again but for a long time our SPL scene in NSW has been dominated by 3 groups, no offence its being VT systems now 2 cars, Myself access to 2 cars, and Team SPL Gnome Owns 5 cars. thats 9 cars between just 3 groups not much incentive for people to come when we flog them at every event. this is my honest opinion. 7 of those 9 cars though run above Street classes.
yes i know it takes money if you want to be the best. but me personally i have never played against the lower guys in the sport like Street A street B or Street C, (i did run in Street C last Year once while my Suzuki was being Rebuilt) but i choose to stay out of those classes as i feel a person like me with the gear i have, and the money i can spend on gear, it wouldnt be fair, and i think street is for newer people to compete in those classes until they become good and move upto bigger classes. dont take offence street competitors thats just my opinion.
and then you get the new Street Stock classes to which car audio shops have gone and loaned or built cars for these classes.
these 2 classes are not to be for regular dbdrag competitors yet regular guys have a big part in some of the street stock cars that have ran. so those 2 new classes became just a stupid idea in the end as the rules are not enforced with regard to them in australia.

ok now to event organisers point of view. i have attended events where event organiser have loaned gear to people so there friends can dominate the event and win in their classes and other competitors have seen it and that has autosamically scared the average guy with his stereo off from competing in future as they feel why compete if the shop is just going to lend their friend gear to beat me.

example of loaning gear. people and shops loaning gear. to people to win events be it sanctioned and un sanctioned this scares people off. i will admitt i did it at one event to a regular dbdrag competitor that borrowed gear so a friend could beat the regular competitor. i have been a bad sport once but it happens alot. and this scares new guys off.

but yeah above is an example of what wrecks the sport also. when people borrow gear just to go win events and beat someone new to the scene and scares a potential new competitor straight out of the sport.


but anyway thats some of my opinions if my typing and grammar is out tough. i could go on and on as there is so many things wrong with our sport that need fixing but i took a step back to concentrate of myself and my own car, after getting involved before by organising events, running events, promoting events and even organising and bringing a new product to australia all things that bit me in the arse, so i chose to say stuff it and worry about myself in the sport and not worry about the sport anymore.


but it is a dying sport and above a many reasons why its dying and there is also many more reasons to why it is. and i dont think it is going to change really because people are just getting tired of it. and cant really be bothered. my opnpion of SPL nowdays compared to when i started just over 3 years ago is it sucks nowdays compared to back then. cars have just gotten louder and the competitor numbers have gotten lower.



thanks for reading i hope this has given you some insight into my thoughts of the dbdrag scene now days.


WHATS YOUR THOUGHTS and YOU OPINIONS OF THE DBDRAG SCENE.

DONT ARGUE ABOUT OTHER PEOPLES POSTS. I HAVENT POSTED THIS TOPIC TO ARGUE OR START ARGUEMENTS

POST YOUR OPINIONS AND MAYBE WE CAN FIND OUT HOW EVERYONE EXACTLY FEELS ABOUT THE SPORT. SO WE CAN MAYBE TRY MAKE IT BETTER AND LEARN FROM MISTAKES MADE WITH IT.

IF YOUR NEW TO THE SPORT WE WANT YOUR OPINIONS ALSO.

AND ALSO IF YOU QUIT THE SPORT THE REASONS YOU QUIT IF IT WAS COMPETITION RELATED AND NOT FINANCIAL RELATED.

BASICALLY I WANT EVERYONE TO STATE WHATS WRONG WITH THE SPORT AND WHY THE PEOPLE ARENT GOING TO THE EVENTS. SO WE CAN FIX THE PROBLEMS

Ok Billy i agree with some of what you have to say but I think we need to clear a few things up
t;line-height:100%">t;line-height:100%">I think its more of what Tara and I have been saying for years its more the industry and the big Car Audio makers not getting behind the sport and car mags not getting behind us and covering our events.
Perfect example @ Autosalon in SA:
there was a guy filming Team Freshs car do its thing and the guy ask Larissa what does it do and she told him and he waited til it did its thing then persisted to say what a waste of time for 3 seconds ...... but in that 3 seconds it produced 167.7dB

Drag cars have upto a quater to half a million Dollars spent on them to do 4 seconds down a quater mile some would think thats a waste of time. but we know its fun to watch due to the coverage the sport has we know how much hard work goes into making them do a 4second pass or have some understanding of how hard it is..

we are mis understood in the sport and people dont understand why we do what we do or what our sport is really about even. thats probably why people think its a waste of time doing what we do for 3-6 seconds of brute sound. this is a coverage problem with our industry

Magazines and Event Promoters and Audio Companies. not getting involved in it enough is a problem also.

there isnt enough coverage of the sport. Autosalon have Magazines dedicated to their shows yet you never hear about the SPL events results or a right up.
Summernats have DVD's they may mention the sound off but they show show cars more then the true SPL sound off cars.
Australian Car Audio Magazine never mentions anything about the Sport.

basically every magazine you can think of involved in our industry and events never get involved in the sport for some reason.

another thing is People Dont realise as much money is put into an SPL car as what is put into a Show car. we just chose not to use show style cars as they dont realise its no use doing up a car making it look pretty just for the stereo to distroy it because its so loud.
but yeah as much money is put into some SPL cars retail value is as much as some show cars.

example i seen a SSS pulsar that had some $20,000 worth retail done to it on it airbrushing the works turbo, system, rim, full show car,
my car retail wise, $20,000+ in stereo gear, stock car, no bling bling yet has the same value as the show car listed above, and im classed as an idiot for doing so because people dont understand our sport.

no coverage of our sport in magazines and such is why these thoughts about us occurs also.


but anyway i will leave the thread for other guys to post their thoughts in it now also.

I'm sure there is another 2 threads getting around like this, but hell I'll add to it

I asked a question ages ago on I think it was Cruising Brisbane, the general consensus among the modified car scene was basically that sounds offs are a boring waste of time.

For the main part, I thouroughly enjoyed competing in SPL, not just the competing part, but the social aspect as well.

My exit from the sport wasn't a planned thing, something just snapped in my head one day (not psycho snap ) I'd had enough of pouring money and into achieving results that no one outside the core group of db draggers gave a sh.it about.

The amount of time I was spending on the Civic was also impacting my personal life (being a family man)

I've said in the past that the Car Audio Industry (in the form of Distributors/Retailers ) don't do enough (most do nothing) to assist in trying to grow the sport, even though they ultimately stand to benefit from it.

I have to get ready for work, I might be back tonight with more

yeah well what to say.

I was in the scene awhile ago now and was fairly competitve in St A (before Tarja got good hehehe). Loved it, but all my friends had no idea what it was or what would happen at a event and when i tell them they would be like o what is the point LoL. My wife then girlfriend was the same she hated going to events when i went (unless it was autosalon or summernats) she also hated when i went to events and she would stay home as she would be bored.

The stores are partly to blame, as i know all to well that they only try to sell there gear and will sell anything to the customer just to get their cash. As you said Billy, a customer goes into a store and says my mate has this this and this and does this amount of DB's and i want to go louder then that. Store then says yeah for sure we can do that you will need this this and this oh yeah and a custom box. I have seen it first hand and been a shop that i was fairly close and in with and would laugh. Once i even had the salesperson ask me what i was laughing at (once the customer had left with their quote) i said why would you sell then that combo, this would be better.

Was then told what would i know about getting loud LoL at this point i had my single 12" 3512c DD sub doing mid 145's in my SSS. He then said that he had 4 15" fusion subs in his commonwhore running of 2 jona lomu amps and a 1farad cap with 2 guage wiring to which i snickerd a little bit. He then said what do i have i said a single 12" DD sub and a single Directed Audio amp to which he laughed and said cheap crap i would smash you. Behind him the owner of the store was watching and he knows me and what i had achieved. So i said really well lets see go get the termlab (he said what is that) i said the DB reading thingo, and we will see.

After ahile setting it up and him looking at my gear uncovered box big port and unknown cheap crap gear and all his mates laughing at it and one of them saying OMG look at his cable its massive welders cable 000guage(or was it 00guage not sure).

I said lets put a wager on it, he was like that is not fair as i have 415" subs u have 1 12" sub i will smash you, ok then how about your job, seeing as you know crap all about the car audio scence, if i win you walk if u win ill give u my car.

The boss walked over and said sounds fair to me.

He went first and pumped out a massive 138DB on music LoL, i thne set my car up put my tone cd in there and bang first hit was a 145 and the next 3 burps all 145 also as they didnt belive it was so funny.

He was devastated. He didn't get fired though he did want to know more so i told him what i knew and he was keen and eager to learn and is no longer closed minded. I even showed him a few things about his system and changed a few things and got him upto 140.4db so he was happy with that.


Anyway enough of going off track there LoL.


The reason i left was due to me selling my gear so i could go for a holiday to the USA and it was way worth it.

I do miss my gear and competing though, even though i wasnt the best it was still fun for me as the atmosphere and the ppl around the scene were awesome and i do miss it.


Damm better get back to work, im so tired and rambling on about crap.

Sorry...my bad...

SSS_Hoon

i have always loved my car audio but have never been to or entered in any of these comps, i am currently building a system that is for day to day driving but would love to get into maybe some of the beginner classes as mentioned above, how do i go about this. but as i say when the stereo is done i would like to give it the test out.

cheers guys

I had a thought while reading what billy said about the newcomers to the sport being scared off because they don't have, say, $15k to spend on a system that will do good numbers in their class. What i was thinking was at unsanctioned events, maybe, have classes depending on what the system is worth retail. Example Beginner would be $0 - $2000 Intermediate would be $2001 - $5000 Expert would be $5001 - $7500 and Open would be $7501 and over. Just a thought on how to get more newcomers.

And promotions is one thing that is definately letting the sport down. The only time I hear about any form of sound-off or dBDrag is on here. Admittedly I don't go on modified car forums or anything like that so I don't know if they get advertised there or not.

Still slightly on promotions, I was also thinking if somebody was able to make a DVD or something explaining the sport to people that might help. I know I'd love to be involved more in the sport but right now, firstly, I don't have a car, and secondly I haven't got the money I need to do what I want with a car.

That's what I think the sport needs doing to it to help it progress.




Btw, thanks if you read all of my rabbling

Reduce the amount of classes and run bassrace and internalise your competition.
Let the big fish play with each other and let the small fish play against each other.
Big fish promote and advise and help out small fish and maybe they'll become big fish.

Sales people are sales people. You think the guy at Harvey Norman selling Wharfdale speakers knows about the company that only produces a 1000 units a year from a garage but received the speaker of the year award from an audiophile magazine? Uh, no.

Don't chuck a dollar figure on it because then you have to consider appraising 2nd hand equipment and overseas imported gear. To much administration.

yes i know it takes money if you want to be the best. but me personally i have never played against the lower guys in the sport like Street A street B or Street C, (i did run in Street C last Year once while my Suzuki was being Rebuilt) but i choose to stay out of those classes as i feel a person like me with the gear i have, and the money i can spend on gear, it wouldnt be fair, and i think street is for newer people to compete in those classes until they become good and move upto bigger classes
[/quote]
well now so to go straight to the point your saying that tarja and myself should not be running in a street class cause we are experienced? what a load of bs. it is probly one of the hardest classes to run in besides extreame. i mean the rules that you have to bend to and then try and make the car loud off a single battery, no walling and while still staying under 14.4 volts yeah thats so easy, look at tarja its taken her nearly 4 years to get to 150 and me im yet to get close after 3 years but its an easy class.

as you said but you have the money most dont so at the end of the day it comes down to you didnt win but you bought the trophy cause as we all know he/she whose pockets are deeper wins.

as for the street stock classes shop should STAY OUT of those classes these were desighned for the puppet with he's fully sick street beat system. for example i asked leo if he would build a street stock car for cherie (for the point of the argument) he said no way it aint fair.

as for promo well what promo there never is any and if any one who says they live and breath spl then they them selfs would have approached mags dvd and so on to come cover some events. i myself did do such a thing and had hot 4's lined up to cover finals last year but they could not get anyone to shoot a write the artical. ignition dvd i asked them but due to the time frame were unable to get a film crew together in time. this is just a few people i have spoken to. but if people knew what the game was about and how to play it then you might get more people running but the price tag to win is way to high and most guys would rather put a turbo on there car for 3g than buy 1 amp.

thats just my thoughts

its not guys would rather stick a turbo on a car instead of buying an amp. its a case of the car scene is so much bigger geared and promoted that its more fun for a guy to put a turbo on a car.
years ago it was alot of fun to have a stereo that pumped then having a hot car. that has changed because the industry changed and the support for the car audio scene dropped.

i guarantee if you had sound off cars featured in magazines with results of event written up with those cars and DVD's comming out that featured sound off cars. you would have more people doing it as they would think hmmmm its recognition now and recognised by others and other people can see the hard work.
i gurantee numbers of competitors would climb if more SPL cars were recognised in MAGS and if our EVENTS were publicised in magazines regulary. more kids would see it as an easy way to get their cars featured in amagzines without having to go spends 1000's upon 1000's doing up show cars. very simple and easy it is

the best i have ever got to having my car in a magazine was HOT4S readers rides i have had my car in it Twice.

when was the last time you saw a competitors car feathured in a magazine. years ago probably.

and im not talkiing about magazine advertisers like DD or Autobarn having their cars featured. thats a given as they use the advertising money and contacts to get their cars featured.

and as for contacting ignition DVD troy or HOT4's
im sure if someone recorded the event properly but with a good camera on a tripod stand and went around Video Taping the cars and talking and interviewing competitors properly and we sent it to Ignition they could easily edit it and throw some music in and add it to their DVD's
and im sure if we emailed results and write ups of events with high def pictures from events HOT4's and other magazines could do write ups about the events. how hard would this be.

look at drifting for example a crappy sport that had no audience a couple years ago, now its a big nationwide thing.
why because magazines and the car industry got behind it not to mention a movie was made about it also LMAO.
but yeah it was a sport that no body really cared about until it got so much attention in the MEDIA.

if it wasnt for the MEDIA attention it gets people wouldnt be interested in it if it didnt get the attention it gets




but anyway you took what i said out of context and got your mouth running before your brain kicked in Troy.


AND STREET CLASSES ARE NOT AS HARD AS YOU THINK TROY,,,, OR ITS JUST HARD FOR YOU.


BUT THIS THREAD ISNT ABOUT ARGUING ITS ABOUT WHAT WE CAN DO TO CHANGE THE SPORT AND MAKE IT BETTER AND MORE INVITING TO NEW COMMERS.

I also think that "Pros" should stay out of Street as well.

Phil

So you mean that the shops should stay out of the street classes and leave it to the privateers

Hey Billy i think you need to back off as the new rules make it hard and i have spent ages getting Tara's car loud with 2 x 10's and 1 amp and 1 Battery and troy has done all his on a budget and i think he has done well but Super Street and classes up are the easier to get louder as there aren't too many restrictions

It's not often that i post anymore, but i had to enter on this one.......

This whole topic gets brought up once every 6 months, and nothing ever comes of it. I have tried before, i have posted a very similar topic over 12 months ago, but i didn't use that thread to trash other people.







firstly, i remember Compact Attack i think maybe 3 years ago, a lot of people attended. Tony Doran ran an Unsanctioned event.

Ignition DVD were there, the filmed all around us, looked at us and kept walking. They were at the show, standing a few feet away from us, and yet, still did nothing.

I purchased that copy of Ignition DVD, and there was nothing on the sound off.



Billy, im with Troy on this one, i did feel that a bit of that was directed at me. you have a winge and a bitch, then edit posts. You don't want to offend anyone, but you use names. before you go acting all high and mighty you need to sit down and realise that you are not the Poster Boy for SPL.

Im not saying that im perfect, i am far from it, but at competitons, RULES ARE RULES and they are there to be FOLLOWED.


You need to back off on this one.
Street classes are quite complex. There are so many rules to know, and follow. As Troy said, it has taken me over 4 Years to get the 150 mark. And that's with Leo building my car.

I can't believe you say this thread isn't about arguing, but you attack someone else and expect it to be ok?

Well, it's not Billy.

You need to wake up, because it's not all about you.

SPL was here before you started, and it will be here once you're gone.

I think there needs to be more croud integration. I've seen it first hand, the crowd gets incredibly bored standing around in the sun watching cars line up (no commentary or explanation from the people running the event as to what exactly happening) then watch them vibrate for 5 seconds before watching them drive away. I know this is why I don't really mess with SQ, the cars drive away to a quiet spot, the judges sit inside and close the doors (Quiet Please!!) and that's as far as I know what happens with that.

Big ass ground pounders flexing panels and doing hair tricks running alongside the dB Drag Racing keeps the croud going. Look at the USA, they run formats such as Bass Boxing ( 1 minute average on music with one door open) and also Drive By (Similar to Bass Boxing but the sensor is placed on a stand 1m away from the car and the car must drive past). These formats have different classes based on how loud you are so you're up against people pulling similar numbers, which would be a good way for newcomers to actually stand a chance. I'm not saying this style of competition should replace dB Drag Racing but a similar affair would be a good addition to get the crouds interested, in something they can recognise, their music played loudly.

My 2 Bob

i have been interested in getting into spl but the problems i can see are:

no advertising for events (at least in SA i dont know about other states) the only SPL comps in SA i know about are autosalon once a year and murray bridge autofest once a year, and thats only because ive been in previous years and seen the cars there...

little exposure at events, even when i do go to events where there is an SPL comp the cars are usually stuck in a corner somewhere and go unnoticed, the cars not being crazy looking from the outside usually doesnt really help with the general public noticing and being inetersted in the sport but i realise that most of the owners money is invested in the stereos and exteriors dont matter in the comp so there has to be some kind of compromise...

also its not a very visual sport like others such as drifting, shows or even dyno comps, especially with the good cars that dont rattle on the outside there isnt much to distinguish the cars while competing from a bunch of normal cars parked in the corner, maybe if you had screens with a better visual representation of the sound like graphs or something instead of just a big green number this may help...

also having more classes on music so the spectators can hear what the cars are doing easyer than the test tones which are usually hard to hear as they are towards the edge of the hearing range, i realise that its harder to get big numbers on music but street beat style comps would be cool to see/hear at events

anyway thats my 2 cents hopefully il have a system ready for next years autosalon

The upper limit in dB Drag is 80Hz. You can hear (and feel) that.

Phil

hair tricks door open burps getting crowds to sit in the bigger cars, make it more interactive is good.

theres a few cars that do this already, but there are others that dont want to risk their equipment, thats where it becomes hard. some of cars do it already, but at places like autosalon and ya everyday local dbdrag event not many people are game enough to even sit in these cars. at big shows its a different story as you always find someone willing to hop in and give it a go, but ya everyday autosalon and dbdrag event crowd interaction is low because there isnt many cars that will put on the show after runs for people to come up close and see, or there isnt enough of a crowd or the crowd doesnt have access to get up cloe to the cars.

yes bassrace, and driveby runs at a comp are good but its no use having them as formatts if you dont have the competitors to do it. we need people competing at events now i think before angelo would consider running the other formatts.

cache 22: you need more people to run these new events, you need these new events to get more people.

Why not have a few well promoted un sanctioned comps where those events are run. To get people into the sport?

thats it catch 22.

maybe run those formatts and just award certificates until the number of competitors clib to make it a fulltime formatt.

angelo tried bass race at finals and a couple of autosalons, with very little competitors opting to compete. but yeah i think the new formats might get more competitors but how are people going to find out about the new formatts and the sport still.

very little know about SPL and dbdragracing now thats the big problem. the public doesnt even really know about the sport or how they compete or where to go compete. its not that its a poor sport its a case more that not many people really know about it.

there is tonnes of young guys ya see driving around going doof doof down the road that are definately not SQ set-up cars, and if ya said to them you know ya could compete with your stereo against other stereos at comps and have a good chance at winning and meeting new friends and have a fun day out, and i bet the majority of them would go i ddidnt even know there were local comps like that and dont know where they hold comps like that or they would go and give it a go. plus they usually think they wouldnt stand a chance and think its just for professionals also.

thats the big problem NO REAL COVERAGE OF THE SPORT

if new classes are going to be run they need to be going for a while to let competitors adjust existing or build new setups to compete you cant just expect a whole bunch of people to miraculessly have a compatible setup the first few times a catagory is run.

also i agree with charger, more hairtricks and open car demos to get people in and classes based on performance similar to drag racing , go below a certain time, or in this case above a dB level and go to the next class, this will also encourage competitors to be consistant throughout the competition.

the bottom line is the sport needs more exposure!

SAME ARGUMENT, SAME TOPIC WE ALL SOUND LIKE BROKEN RECORDS, I HAVE TRIED TO GET YOU GUYS TO PULL OUR SUPPORT TOGETHER AND GO FORWARD WITH OUR CONCERNS TO THE BIG MAGS AND I HAVE BEEN LEFT COLD AND THE ONLY PEOPLE BACKING ME IS TARJA AND TROY AND LISSY.
"THE VOICE OF THE FEW IS NOT HEARD ....BUT THE VOICE OF THE MANY CAN NOT BE IGNORED"

My mates dad is able to do professional photography, but I don't know how much he'd charge to cover a sanctioned event.

If that's a possibility I can always ask him, the most recent thing that I can remember him doing was the photo shoot for Babes n Bikes magazine at the bike show last year. Taking pics of the babes on some of the bikes on show there.

I can tell you right now, if someone takes high resolution photos (8Mb Digital SLR minimum) and writes a good overview of an event (accurate grammar, spelling etc.), there would be no problem having it published in some magazines. That I can assure you of.

would be good if i could find out when and where events like these are had, even as you all say(the events to get ppl into it). i would love to just give it all a go but really need to talk to someone that knows the sport around my local area. i have not found a single person that lives anywhere close to me that has said hey man theres an event in db dragging gonna happen, we should go kind of thing. the first i'd heard of the event being held all over the place bar the big events is on this site which until a couple of days ago i had no idea about until a mate told me about it as i told him i wanted to do a good stereo install. autosalon and so forth that are advertised, if ya could have a some form of informing ppl about this sort of events it will grow, but yeah i guess im just sayin what you all have said and thats exposure. are there regular events or something like that which are local around the place or do you just wait till you hear about a big event which seems to be not very often.

OK, I'll make sure this happens at Option Audio this weekend and at Autobarn Capalaba on 5th Sept (it's going to be a sanctioned event also).

We have a Canon SLR.

Phil

LMFAO poster boy for spl as if we'd want someone like him.
and u say think before i speak people in glass houses shouldnt throw stones BILLY. i thought long and hard and for someone else to say that they felt the same way must mean that i am right in what i say. and if i remember the only reason a certain someone left street max was cause it was to hard to do things on 1 battery. billy you got some balls cause when you have a shot at me and my set up its not just me but its also leo so are you saying he has no idea aswell? silly silly boy thats right boy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sweet great work phil! now if tools like billy and troy stop arguing we might see some coverage of the sport we love.

im not the tool here mate billy is i was just replying to his post .and are you telling me that you wouldnt fire up if someone had a shot at you i think not so zip it.
a

im not the tool here mate billy is and are you telling me that you wouldnt fire up if someone had a shot at you i think not so zip it.
as my sister has she dont post much neither do i but when people like billy start dissing us we have no choise but to post up and say something

Jesus.. just agree to disagree and stop taking things on the chin so hard.

Get back to the topic as it relates across the tasman as well.

Ok, I'm not sure what you guys down south have heard of the Qld scene latley, The last comp up here at OA was great there was quite alot of cars there that i'd never seen before. Granted quite a lot of them were running OA gear but i'll be honest I couldn't care if they were running rampage as long as they keep having fun and keep coming along.. As for these new classes like drive by and the like make it quite hard at alot of events due to noise polution regulations. altho at events like Jamboree or Powercruse these are events that would go down quite well... I'm sure that with the number of people that have been around the modified car scene for long enough would have access to talk to the people that run these events and possibly arrange something?? I know northfield mooroka used to run jambo??

My mates father said his normal rate for photo shoots is around $65 an hour, but he'd be able to work something out for me for the sound off at autObarn capalaba on the 5th. Provided he has nothing else that clashes that night.

Apart from the obvious financial constraints (wedding plus mortgage will do that to you) there were other issues with the scene, particularly in SA.

SA had very little/no social scene - the people who do frequent the forums on here from SA are for the most part people that i didn't have great respect for. George and Rodney were the only guys who kept me going, and once Rodney sold up i started losing faith - when George stopped competing in Street A it was over for Adelaide Pro Sound Street A,B,C competitors. I finished out the year with a trip to Melbourne for semi finals and that was it for me.

Also i did find that the gear is expensive - no matter how you look at it, to me competitive in Street classes you also need money for the high end gear. I competed with second-hand gear and plenty of help from people like George. Phil helped me out by supplying a recoiled older 9918 but fact is that all up the whole setup cost a good few thousand dollars and was too heavy for daily use, so effectively my 4kw amp and killer sub sat in my garage between (the very few and far between) comps. Next step for me was to look at a pair of subs, new amps and another 2150, it was too much money to look at even taking that step, even with doing 148-149's on my current setup. If i wanted to take the next step up i was definetely in for the better part of $5k just for new amps - so yeah money definetely plays a big role in anyone's final decision, especially when you see that you're limited to a certain number you can pull and you won't get near the record... when GSAqua ripped that huge street c score i knew there was no way i could ever chase that unless i took the step up into serious cash, so i left it.

Time was also a factor - even with George's shop always at my disposal it was difficult to make time for the testing and tuning work involved. When you see the amount of time required to get loud you really respect the people that have been doing it for years and slowly crept upwards with their scores (props to Tarja and Troy esp).

Now to the competitions themselves: the judges are absolute legends and that's without a doubt one part i miss the most - spending a good afternoon chatting and talking crap was great. Many competitors were quite secretive about their setups but were still amicable and enjoyed abit of a yarn even though in the lanes things stayed pretty professional (Matty, our final run at Melbourne was one of the most memorable ones i've ever had). I don't think the social aspect of dbdrag events is necessarily lacking among the competitors, we generally didn't have much else to do at comps but sit around checking each others stuff out and watching drama unfold in the lanes.

What you do definetely see is that there is very little crowd involvement and from the point of view of an outsider it's neither very visual, nor is it very exciting. If the cars were running music all day with open doors and people allowed in and out of the cars it'd be a different story, but truth is that when i was wired up for burps i had gains set for tones and quarter ohm. no way i would play music through that sorta setup, not to mention the battery life - my car sat on a charger every minute when it wasn't competing..

i think dedicated musical bass systems like Charger's are doing good things about getting people into the cars to see what they're missing out on. There's also the lack of crowd involvement in our cars though - at Autosalon's, the show cars sit there and people are allowed to go through and look around the car, take photo's etc. whereas at autosalons, SPL cars are usually outside and there's no access to them. I still remember at MAS semi's we were extremely shytty about the security not allowing people out to the docks to see our cars, not even our friends! i was allowed my fiance and that was it. how are people supposed to see my pride and joy if they're inside and my car is outside and they're not allowed out there?

my opinion - purely from a competitor's perspective - the price of gear needs to go down. Many really interested guys turn away when their cadence or sony or fusion gear doesn't cut it to make the next step up for $2000 woofers and $3000 amps. It's not viable for an ignorant member of the public who paid $200 for his subs and another $300 for a 4-channel to power them.

Also, there needs to be a shift in the mindset of show organisers to give SPL competitors the same level of respect that showcar entrants get. They pay a fee just like everyone else, it's noway fair to have competitors out in the cold and rain like second-class citizens.

Thirdly, make the sport more visual - have an expression session on Saturdays where people can sit in cars and enjoy music, big stereo's show off hair tricks, leggy blonde's drape themselves across the bonnet of a car with 145db music blasting out of the open doors (okay maybe that last one was just an old fantasy of mine). but you get what i mean - visual and crowd involvement is key - how many people will sit there on a cold platform waiting for 30 minutes at a time just to see a car on a dyno for 10 seconds? HEAPS! because it's visual - they see the car revving off it's nuts and even though the thrill is short, it's all in the visuals and numbers. Explaining to poeple that 150db's is actually a huge number for a street car is almost impossible when they haven't had a chance to experience 140dbs with music.

Finally, make local comps more interesting - We went to a JB Hifi comp one time - they were okay enough to put on a sausage sizzle and get the lab running in the carpark so people could meter their cars etc, problem was there was nothing else going on - there was no decent music, no giveaways (and there was plenty of merch there to give away, they just weren't giving it out) - obviously after afew runs people started losing interest. That was one of the BETTER local comps i've been to. Local places need to advertise and put up a bit of merch or something to hook up the winners, and encourage their staff to get their stuff together and learn abit more about audio. like billy said - if a bloke wants to get abit more serious about their competing, they should be able to guide them in the right direction, not steer them towards the overpriced shyte at the top of the line of crap product they sell - sure it might lose them 1 or 2 customers on the odd occasion, but it pays off in the long run because people start to actually trust the advice of salespeople and return, more traffic in a shop is good for business no matteer how you look at it.

One thing i did like was the inter-shop battles that went on in new zealand. shops basically making wagers against each other with a certain set of rules in place (i.e. power and cone area restrictions) - keeps things interesting for the shops too when there's abit of competition on at a shop, people might see someone do 150's with a single woofer and start asking questions about how they did this or that..

Anyway that's it from my long-winded post.

I understand what you guys are saying about stores.... I know that when you understand more about the industry and spl in general it makes it harder to look past the better higher grade competition equipment.... But lets face it I work in a area where i have 3 other audio stores on the same strip... What the general punter comes in looking for is boom sounds for 1000 bux.. we do our best to explain the differences between running their 15' off a 4ch and a monoblock. at the end of the day were there to make money, if the customer has $1000 bux to put thru the till today if i don't take that off him i'm not doing my job...

lets face it the average bogan will come in on payday and spen 60% of his pay check in one go... you have 1 chance there isn't much point in trying to sell 5k worth of gear coz that will cause him to say "I'll come back next week" meaning i'm going to the next store, and as long as they sell him what he want's he'll be happy...

I know what you mean billy and sorin but generally (I know because i do the same thing) you will walk into a store and play dumb to see what the sales guy knows... Generally you will know more... 99.999% of the time you will have Truckloads more experience then the sales guys... 99.999% of the time you will have wider knowledge of other brands of equipment. Guess what as a sales guy knowing other brands of equipment does help sell but knowing Your equip will make you money... I'm not sure how many of you out there are sales people, But generally sales people like it or not Their job is to take your money... Esp when the retail spending is nosediving like it is at the moment, Even woolworths and coles are seeing the pinch at the moment and you need food to live... unfortunantly car audio comes a little further down the line of importance....

You walk into a holden dealership and ask for the fastest car would you expect them to sell you on a ferarri?? even tho they don't stock them?? 2ndly as this person isn't trained on the ferrari and is only speaking from personal knowledge would you expect to get all the correct information??

at the end of the day I had been around car audio for 5 yrs on and off and knew a fair bit more than than the average bloke off the street, now i've started playing with spl i've realised that most of the guys on here have forgotten more than i know... but the majority of what i've learnt in the last 3 or so months is completly usless to me at work as these guys just want to have their rearview mirror vibrate to the beat... they don't care about world records.

I guess as far as the sport goes we need to get people to care, in order to do that we need to get them competing, but competing in classes that make them competitive with there $1000 boom sounds system... the hardest part about this is most of these guys are running a single 12 in a commodore or falcon. The Street Stock classes are the key... but at the same time there also needs to be some education for these punters before then jump into the lanes and start playing rap music off their Ipod... Kris Frome did a great job of this the other day at the Autobarn comp at runaway bay. He explained how to read the termlab screen and explained to some extent how to find the res freq of their car....

I guess this is simalar to what the boys from Team Manual Shed did for me at my first comp... Mabey we need to be approaching the new guys at a comp and giving them a hand to setup their system...


Anyway It's time for me to get off my soapbox....

i havent read every post in this thread but to get attention in this sport if thats wat you would like to call it you need BLING over numbers

they would walk right by as tarja said becuase there isnt much to look at esp when at a big event based on drag racing, show n shine as you cant hear bass in a magazine and def not well on a dvd or video clip

the sponsors should put out some cars that are also painted up well and looing trick as its all about image to those who dont know much about it

i think its all based on that.
do more demonstrations at populated places in between main events maybe?

gotta spend money to attract ppl everybody knows that (not just on your own vehicles)

i mean ive spent $10k on audio gear and its not running yet in the last 3 months and my car is nothing to look at, who else but an SPL nut would care? YA GOTTA MAKE THEM CARE SOMEHOW

just quickly sorry bigwilly consumer spending is higher nowdays then it was years ago.

hense the interest rate hikes and price hikes over the poast year, its because inflation has gone up.

inflation going up is when people or consumers are spending more. only problem is people are spending more on credit nowdays then they were years ago. spending on car audio is still as high as it was a couple years ago. its just going more to ebay and stuff, which kills the industry to. but car audio store owners that i know in my area still make a killing from car audio

but anyway let yas get back to the topic


cheers

Sorin is on the money with his post as usual. But there is something else that I want to add.

It's threads like this that actually do nothing to help SPL grow. For instance;

I might have been interested in SPL comps.... but after finding this thread on google why would I want to get involved in a competition that has a huge my wang is bigger, better and louder than your wang mentality? Someone mentioned that there is a great social aspect at these events- hard to believe when you have a read of the crap said in this and many, many other threads.

More often than not whenever I read a thread in this section there is a crapfight. Billy is not the only one who starts them either.

Oh and then you blame the shops. Not everyone is an expert in which gear will help get you a 150db score, but if some pimply faced kid working at autobahn tells you a set of 6x9's or whatever will get you that score- its not his fault- its your fault for not doing your own research first. Take responsibility!

I got more I could say but that will do for now.

I may be wrong, but in my oppinion:
Beginners wont compete against the big guns. Beginners want to be able to get that gold plated piece of plastic that tells them their "sik" system Habib @ JB HIFI hooked him/her up with is better then friend a/b/c.
Take Sunshine Autobarn for example... Couldn't organise a good s**t, but managed to have well and truly over 100 people at it's most recent spl comp. No, they had no idea how to use termlab... No, there wasnt any big scores but everyone had fun.
I was speaking to the local competitors (who had no idea of MEA existance). I asked if they thought of ever competing at sanctioned events, in which most replied NO WAY. When asking them why not they replied that they dont stand a chance.

No offence billy, but ametuers seemed to be scared away by the big players such as yourself. No fault of your own, you take the sport VERY (EXTREMELY) seriously. With this extreme competition ametuers simply cannot be bothered. It isnt fun being thrashed by some 20db+. Even if you are in in different classes, from a competitor perspective, I'de prefer to be in my safety zone (competitors of similar scoring as my self) then to be shown up by the big guns.

Do you see the go karts racing with formula 1 cars?

Somehow, I think these "self run" often poorly set up SPL events by the smaller shops will continue to draw decent crowds and plenty of entrants (25+) whereas sanctioned events will continue to draw the same 10 or so people until they too grow out of the sport.

i been waiting for the 2008 thread of "HOW TO IMPROVE DB RACING"
this topic comes up every year!!!!
But like others said "nothing gets done"
and it "ALWAYS" ends in arguments!!!!!!!!ALWAYS
My reasons for leaving the sport that gave me a buzz is simple.
1. we only have 2 or 3 meets in Vic a year and can't justify spending that money for a total of 15-20 seconds a year.
2. to turn up to every comp and its the same people.
3. to have others bag the crap out of you cos of the equipment you use.
4. other priorities in life have occured.

i have done many autosalons in my time and you do see crowds around the DB section......then in a blink of an eye they all go. There is no attraction for them at all.
you always hear things like "boring", "waste of money", "you can't play music in those cars anyway" but to me and many of you guys here, it gave us a buzz and enjoyment, and of course the social side of things. i have met some great people in that time here in Victoria and also in interstate. (met ALOT of tools too!!!!) i do miss that still to this day.
As for Db Drag Racing here in Australia i feel the best days are over.
i haven't been to a comp in a while but from what i hear in the car audio industry (and i do work in the industry) is that it may as well be dead.
sad to hear really.

Good luck if your trying to turn it around.
you are going to need more than a photo and a write up in a magaziine to turn it around.

KEEP IT LOUD
DB JAY

Well, unlike the USA and Europe you wont find any of the big dollar demo vans from the big manufacturers. IMO these are what get the average joe interested. It doesn't matter what brand they are, or how loud they are, they just need to be neat and tidy installs showcasing lots of their equipment and they need to be blasting ALL WEEKEND!

dB Drag has come a long way in Australia over the last few years, back when I started competing we had one 'official' comp a year in QLD at Autosalon and even then they didn't always run the correct classes. Now we have competitors who are up there with the rest of the world.

after looking at some of the comments here its easy to see why everything seems to be going downhill this may be a hint as to why people arn't turning up to comps anymore...

i think over the last 10 years the 'FUN' aspect of comps has dissapeared, the actual competition and format has got better and more fair.
i remember going to the 'big boys toys' event here in perth back in 98 and there was a whole pavilion full of 40-50 audio cars all cranking music all weekend!, you've only got to see how many people a insanely loud car playing 'music' draws, i remember motovation 5-6 years ago and there was like 100 people standing around my car (i have photo's ) while playing flat out for 25 min!.

people dont seem to do that anymore, they have the dbdrag on sunday so no one turns it up much on sat and i feel that competitors take the comps a lot more seriously than they did so that means they need all there voltage and dont want to destroy anything.

when it comes down to it the 'sport' needs more to hear and look at, and by look at i dont meen the crappy 'full sik' rubbish that seems to be appearing all to much these days! i mean look at just about all the so called insane car audio cars that have been featured in hot4's, autosalon etc i the last few years, 'i mean its why i cancelled my subscription!.

also worthy of mention is the demise of so many very good audio brands in the last 8 years, being bought out by larger companies and alike, (soundstream is one) quality brands that once were well respected but these days are complete rubbish.


people may also laugh at monster class but at least its spectator friendly, its what the sport needs, more people to look at a rediculous thing like a toilet or (cringes!!) wheelbarrow and just think.......... WTF!!! even timmy agreed there should be a shopping trolley class

The reason stores (unsanctioned events) get more entrants than sanctioned events - is very simple. They are promoted more than actual sanctioned events! Sorry to dB Drag Racing as I mean no disrespect to them (and tip my hat to the fact they still keep it going despite dwindling numbers), but that is the reason, plain and simple!

The stores inform and promote to their customers, local advertising and so on.

I guess that's why you could say SQ events are outnumbering SPL events these days - because our organisers are promoting the event, be it through MEA, and their own customer base, as well as local advertising. A lot of our shops have advertised coming events on main roads through hiring a traffic sign (the digital one), for up to two weeks before the event.

Even we (in SQ) have been slack in promotion (compared to what we could do), and the interest is there. Sure, they may be boring for spectators but we had 10 first timers at the last comp in VIC and from what I hear they all loved it. Hopefully we'll retain 4-5 of them as longer term competitors.

We are toying with an SPL format here in Australia to partner with MEASQ, and this has already been trialled and been a success. Maybe the classes and numbers can't be compared with U.S, but at least you can aim for an AUS record and participate in at least 5-6 events per state (in the short term, next year maybe even 9-10 events per state). If we could run dB Drag Racing's format we would, but too much red tape and no control over the format to tailor it for Australian market trends and conditions.

Food for thought. But I do believe the days of dB Drag Racing are done in Australia. I find that really dissapointing as it was a db Drag Racing event at Autobarn Hoppers Crossing when I was 16 years old that excited me and got me into car audio. Some 14 years later I'm still here and have worked in many different areas of the industry (as well as obviously starting this website) as a result of that one event (that incidentally had no less than 40 odd cars, and a wicked MC on the mic - Evan Jones revving everyone up).

Explain how monster class is more spectator friendly, I don't really know what the rules are for it.

What you said there made me think it's; put big speakers in *anything* and make the loudest possible noise. That sounds like a heap of fun to try and build something along those lines.

there are no real rules for monster class

MARCb whats the SPL formatt thats been trialed along side the SQ series.????????

be interested to know what it is and how it works classes and such.

I was one of those people

A lot of you know that i work for WOW (its a job and it pays the bills)

Ive spoken to management about promoting SPL comps and the reply i got was "there is no market for cars that just go "brraghhhhtttt" for a couple of seconds"

However, being that WOW stocks Option Audio, for the current competition (Aug 16) and for the last one on July 5th, WOW was promoting it pretty well, we had a couple of our cars there, the large Marquays were WOW's aswell.

So it seems that WOW will help promote when its one of their suppliers running a comp, but doesnt want a thing to do with Competition Car Audio of any type on their own.

On a good side of it though, one of the guys who competed in St Stock A on July 5th has the bug and wants to get louder. He Loved it and had a great time, he was happy that he was able to walk away from the comp with a certifcate for his 2nd place, but now wants that 1st Place trophy.

To me that says people will enter if they know they will walk away with something.
If they know they will be up against the Australian Record Holder for the class they happen to fall into (in the case of "joe bloggs" off the street and not a dedicated SPL competitor) they do lose the incentive to compete. But give them something for competing even if it is just a certficate telling them how loud their car is... that little piece of paper is enough to some people to make them think

"Hang On, i want the Trophy next time"

maybe give certficates for 2nd and 3rd, and a "your DB score" for the others in that class who dont happen to place in top 3....

thats true, sometime's people want to walk away from a comp with something more practical than a trophy, winning audio gear is a great idear but i guess it really depends on the store, not all of them would say they could afford it' even though having a competition at your store has other benifits along with helping to promote the sport.

if theres no market for cars that just burp, 'and i can see why spectators and some stores would find them un-appealing!, its time to have spl formats that will appeal to people on a streel level, rules that say only music is allowed to be used and such, but i also wouldn't like to see the hardcore competitors put out, so we still need to keep dbdrag.

perhaps thats what should really be mean by 'street classes'