Onan & The Sin of Car Audio Addiction

I’m a little hazy on my very first wank, but I can clearly remember my first car audio system. It was in my mum’s shopping car and comprised a regular Pioneer radio-cassette, bastardised by a Harry Moss 50 Watt Equaliser/Booster, playing out of some perfectly horrible Audioline ‘Supersound’ speakers in the front door panels
You would turn on the tape or radio and then hit the magic on button on the fader-bristling front of the Harry Moss thing as soon as you could hear music. A sort of gurgling, scratching, roaring noise would then come leaping out of the speakers, as the machine filled with electricity and the sound grew to major ugly raspy proportions. After just a couple of times when I forgot to turn the blaster off before killing the system, Mama got the benefit of full amplification when she turned the key and was sufficiently startled that she never dared to play the radio in her own car ever again.
Nowadays my car audio system uses ten channels of amplification, with something like 2,800 Watts of muscle. Despite this sounding intense, it is still strictly medium when compared to the systems on the car audio competition circuit. The point is, I don’t get anything like the sheer delight and joy from my super car system now, than I got from that distorted ear-ripper in Ma’s car before, and even wanking is no longer quite as entertaining as it was when I was thirteen.
It’s here that the comparisons begin. Since time immemorial there have been some decidedly odd lonely practices that men (mostly) have got up to in the privacy of their own little space. The seemingly normal type with a respectable job (Member of Parliament) found dangling by the neck and quite, quite dead with a bag over his head and an Amyl-Nitrate-spiked orange segment still clenched firmly between his teeth in the pursuit of the ultimate semi-conscious orgasm, or the casualty department case with a small copy of the Venus de Milo rammed deeply his bum, hardly seem like commonplace occurrences, except to the doctors who deal with the aftermath and they have seen it all before.
There’s the rub, literally, since unless you are quite young and in the company of a very professional Tart With A Heart Of Gold, it is very unlikely that anyone will ever be in a position to teach you a better way of wanking. You are the only one concerned, and let’s be honest, you are dealing with someone who truly appreciates your efforts.
Likewise, be it ever so raucous, nobody can tell you that the horrible noise you listen in to your car is not something you find enjoyable. If that soundtrack to a Bollywood movie with a classically heartrending warble by Asha Bosle is the thing you want to cry to, as you sit immobile by the hour on the M25, then there isn’t anyone qualified to tell you it’s wrong. Car audio and what you play on it, is thus truly as individual as you and your angle of dangle.
In my capacity as a pundit on these matters (audio, not Onanism) I have had plenty of cause to wonder how on Earth some of the people whose cars I have listened to, could possibly put up with the bloody horrible row they make; in much the same way you must have when the bastard has pulled up next to you at a particularly long set of lights (the sort with squeegee-boys in attendance) and proceeded to regale you with a bit of ‘Speed Jungle’ at full chat.
Likewise, I have also marvelled at the awesome sums of money and hundreds of man-hours of time some of the nutters out there have heaped upon what is after all, nothing but toys, even if the result they have achieved is a paragon of audio excellence.
On the other hand, if someone else is present, then both the enjoyment of your car’s radio, or the delights of orgasm-chasing, take on a whole different perspective. Exactly what to listen to at parties, or on the M6 beyond the Lake District, can become a thorny issue of debate, wherein your tastes may well be called to question. Likewise, the age-old worry as to whether you are creating exquisite ecstasy in the soul of your partner, or just a sensation close to having a bit of wind, comes to mind during the pursuit of a climax.
Whether you listen to the cricket, scan mobile phone calls for entertainment, enjoy church organs playing notes at 16 cycles per second or Chumbawumba pissing the night away at 150 decibels, you can easily be categorised with comparable levels in masturbatory habits. A sleepy tug in the morning; an adolescent’s lonely session with the latest copy of Bare-Arse monthly; something involving KY jelly; or a Cabinet MP really going for it, are all analogous with these variations in audio urge.
The only real difference, is that car audio kit can be hellishly expensive, even when compared with the esoterica found in posh home HiFi mags, and wanking is generally free, unless you are employing a paid expert, or using a silken rope and specially imported Guatemalan citrus fruit from Harrods food hall.
Thus, the true car audio enthusiast will tend to buy his kit carefully, read the specialist websites assiduously, and may well buy equipment sporting compatibility with fancier bits of audio itemry that he may not immediately be able to afford. A bit like getting some special lube that you can only use once you have the special Ostrich-leather gloves to go with it…
The truth is, that unlike masturbation, the subject of audio has always been seen as one deeply immersed in ‘cool’. If you know a great deal about home HiFi, you can be seen as a ‘Guru’ to your mates and discussing how many Claggaferrets per metre your speakers will go, or the merits of Aluminium Extruded Speaker Stands versus Lead-Filled Mild Steel down the Pub with your cronies, becomes of great importance to your social standing.
High-end car audio is even more involved than home audio nowadays, even allowing for the advent of Home Cinema. Road noise means you have to use a lot of Watts, which require Amperes by the dozen and so needs a special alternator and huge power cabling…. Bass enclosures to make the Bass to overcome the road noise that needs the Watts. Crossovers, both Passive and Active, motorised Doodahs, Compression Drivers, Data bus links and Sound Deadening Material to make up for what all the other kit can’t cope with….help. Even with the best sites covering the minutiae of all these lovely toys and how to play with them, not many folks are able to hold their own at the dealer’s. Thus they stand a more real risk of becoming baffled with Audio-Swahili bull**** here, than almost any other shop.
I shouldn’t worry, helping translate from Technoshite into Colloquial English is how come I get to pay the mortgage. Unlike Home HiFi, where an awful lot of people try to pretend that they actually know what a ‘Claggaferret’ is, enthusiasts of car audio tend to be far more meek and willing to take advice. It is to these folks (all the motorists who have ever been into a car audio shop) that I offer the following advice.
Your choice of stereo equipment, speakers, what have you, can only be based on hearing different sorts; “Knowing Better” if you like. Meanwhile, if what you can both afford and enjoy seems OK to you, then other people are no more justified in telling you that it’s bad, than they are to tell you how to hold your own willy when wanking. So don’t worry, be happy, and unless a Doctor has told you that you suffer from some form of clinical deafness, you can be secure in the truth of your very own, untrained, ears.
Oh! and one last thing, as far as your health is concerned, one pastime is far worse for you than the other, for while masturbating furiously all your life may well help you retain prostate health well into your old age, loud music will make you deaf fast if you do it ’til yer ears ring. And there’s no such thing as a Claggaferret.
Adam Rayner