Pioneer’s smart Brabus Best DJ-Car Install In History!!
The association between Pioneer and the smart car (never use a capital on ‘˜smart’ for this car by the way) is now well established and the latest car they have put together with each other is astonishing. Not because it’s cute and pretty and well installed, no, because it is insanely loud and clear for the amount of equipment.
It was all done by A1 Audio Designs’ Paul Richardson, who also installed the now legendary Audio cabriolet. Yours truly put them in touch with one another and yet this job was no simple re-use of ‘˜known talent’. No, Paul had to be auditioned all over again versus the competition and despite there being some very good installers around now, he won the job on pure merit.
Again. The man’s a genius.
The install has just eight voice coils in it and all the positioning was done by actual experimentation. For instance, in order to get just the right box size for the subwoofers, the amplifiers had to migrate up the walls in their own sexy rear-most side builds to accommodate. Likewise, the tweeters. They really didn’t need both HFs from both sets of components used (the Pioneer TS-A171Ci that scored well enough to get an award flag) and so there is a single pair of tweeters in this car, even though there are two mid bass drivers in each door. It may well be why it images so beautifully. The solid A-pillar build is also part of the quality. The tweeters are so VERY rigidly mounted that they actually sounded better than in my own test rig!
The woofers likewise, a brace of TS-W259S4s also did well in review and I can now see why the G-man at Pioneer was so keen to get my review samples back so soon they were destined to go into this install!
The place I went to catch up with the car was the South Bank where the smart urban stage was at one stop in its 2011 tour. A temporary pavilion, a lot like they build for Formula One hospitality (but even posher!) housed the car and a bar and a Gaggia coffee machine and lovely people to look after you. They were also promoting the new all electric smart car. You know, you get free parking and incredibly, free electricity to charge your car at special places in London and the infrastructure is growing. I think it won’t be long before we see our first HiFi in a battery powered car and I cannot wait. After all, that’s a LOT of DC they have
But back to the smart car. It is a bespoke job, all specified from the factory and with made-to-fit-with-Brabus stuff. Like the matching stitching on the factory seats and the door cards with the same distance apart of the lines of yellow thread matching perfectly
The back is the really cool bit though, as it had Rob Anderson in attendance. He has the coolest job in the UK electronics trade as he is in charge of the DJ kit in the UK for Pioneer. He is the Product Training and Demonstrations Executive. Rob was showing punters how to mix and even record their efforts on the only DJ mixer on the market that you can just plug a USB stick into and record. The DJ system so well fitted into the back tailgate comprises a full-fat set of two Pioneer CDJ350s, and a Pioneer DJM350 and Pioneer HDJ-500 to boss it all with.
One of the smart car crew just kept losing her cool and starting to dance before realising she was at work and that it might be a bit too unrestrained. But it truly was like that bit in The Mask when the coppers all dance to Cuban Pete as they cannot help themselves.
The sound is astonishingly potent and typically for me, in testing the system I caned it FAR louder than they had dared and while it topped out below SPL car stuff, it was musical and sweet and just bloody BRILLIANT FUN!
I loved the thing to bits and despite the Pioneer man Girish Janday having been proper in love with the Audi Cabriolet, I think that for him a New Flame Has Come!
We’ll give the last words to him. ‘We’ve worked with smart for a couple of years. The urban stage works well for us as the DJ kit in the back opens up a new client base for us. It’s a celebration of the partnership. I worked with Mercedes who gave us the brief and the deadline of today’s event of readiness of the project and we brought it in at budget, on time and absolutely on the corporate message. We achieved our objectives.’
You can see more pictures of the car in the whizzy slideshow thingy here:
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And learn more about Pioneer here:
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And more about the smart urban stage here:
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