Car audio, I suppose will never die. That is, of course providing that we continue to drive cars indefinitely. Semantics aside, I’m constantly reminded of my early 20s lifestyle when I had sound systems in my little white sport compact. It only takes one obnoxiously loud Honda civic going by to remind me of this. You car hear him coming half a minute before you see him, and as he drives by, the exterior body of his car resonates in tune with his musical tastes. Im sure you know what i mean. These fellas are usually heedless to the fact that everyone within a half mile radius has to “enjoy” their music too.
I recall the other day, as I was sitting in traffic, there was one such car audio buff waiting in line behind me. I remember way back, that it used to be cool if my music would vibrate my rearview mirror. Well, his music was making MY mirrors shake and shudder on every base hit.
Well, I was never this bad; my systems were a little more modest, as I didn’t have all the money in the world back them. I do recall, however, cracking open my windows an inch, just to be sure they would hear me coming.
Trunk space
Perhaps if you had a large trunk, as a car audio enthusiast, you may have a little space left over for small bags, etc.; After you’ve displaced it’s volume with a large sub box. There really aren’t any other practical options for housing your subs, as they need a sealed, or ported enclosure to work. I did finally smarten up and got rid of my large sub box and installed some “free air” subs on a board, which sat directly behind the back seats. This setup effectively used the trunk itself, as the enclosure. Not as efficient as a proper box enclosure, but it freed up a lot of trunk space. Didn’t really look as pretty from the trunk side either, but that’s not what was important.
Speaking of pretty, I did manage to avoid the ghetto phase of having speaker boxes sitting on my back dash, or chopping holes into my back dash to install some 6×9 car speakers, etc. You’ve seen it I’m sure, these installs seemed to be consistently accompanied by a trashy looking rust bucket car on it’s last leg.
For most, it wasn’t all about the sound, looks were always important too, as half the point was to get attention. Racing stripes, big wings, nice rims, tires, body kits and paint jobs were all effective ways to “improve” the look of our rides. In retrospect, I’m kind of glad I didn’t have a lot of extra money back then, as my car managed to stay quite respectable looking.
Tags: 6x9 car speakers, car audio, cheap rims, enthusiast, honda civic, subs