EMMA UK FINALS 2013

The sound off scene in the UK has never been stronger, with no less than three bass contest competition organisers, playing with at least eight fun formats from Bassrace to ESPL. EMMA SPL or European Mobile Media Association Sound Pressure Level is one, while they alone, as EMMA, run SQ or Sound Quality classes of competition.
The SPL cars have to be properly and safely installed and get judged for a solid twenty minutes each for this. Then, they play a track from the EMMA album either off CD or the USB stick provided. They got one week to play with the track in advance as they all must use this same item of music and play full range, unlike the other formats, where folks tend to turn down their mids and tweeters to save energy.
John Kleis’ car on the Oche

They get SPL tested with the doors closed and then in an oddly hooliganistic manner for a classy format, with the doors open. Although you can stand a girthy friend in the doorway to help the SPL if you feel the urge!
And all summer long at events I have mostly been to and reported from, the EMMA Battlewagon has trundled the motorway network and delivered seriously well-organised sound offs up and down the country. For Andrew Ackerley is a mad powerhouse of together, effective management. You pay your fee and you get a whole darn concierge sound off experience. Your entry ticket, your vehicle passed as exhibitor car and issued a vehicle show car pass, your hotel booking, the judging, the trophies and even, well, meas media coverage! The sheer love for him from competitors of both boom and tweak is intense and a nicer guy, you will not meet.

The power behind the throne is dad, known as Pa Bear and although always there, he keeps in the background yet I know is mainstay tower of support, so recognition due there!
I have seen the scene (easier to type than say) grow and get healthier and some serious players come back in as it has got sexier! We have an amazing cross section of people, from basshead couples I adore, to recently headhunted computing scientists with recent Mercedes having had astonishing ‘˜stealth’ installation by old grizzled and yet golden eared sound off experts. His stock location install got him a second place in the same class as some cars with extensive modifications. I heard it and it is amazingnothing to see bar the headunit.
And the boom cars boomed like mad Bitterns, gurking and roaring, as soon as they had used their saved-up battery power to hit their biggest numbers on the SPL Oche. The day rocked.
And I was lucky enough to roar! The Battlewagon had a massive system put in it, with minimal cubic used. A slew of PA stuff from Vibe. Four SPACE fifteens for grunt, Sixteen big linen edged mids, eight evil bullet tweeters from the Black Death range and eight QB69 oblates as even more audio. It was run by a bank of amps and has a DJ rig and computer installed.

The DJ rig output was fed to the AUX in of a cheap CD deck.. this was OK at Trax and great fun. But I felt we could do better and called my good friends at Clarion and asked how they would feel about putting the cherry on the top of this wicked cake. To their unutterably cool brilliance, they not only agreed but happily went totally vertical and sent it out in time for this show on literally 24 hours of notice. This does not happen. Not normally but Clarion saw that I would be really assisted and would of course talk about the CZ702E that they sent. (You can check it out here: Link
It is a peach and the simple act of unplugging the cheap entry level deck that worked well but was low fidelity and reconnecting the three sets of RCA outs, plugging in the AUX again to the front plughole as before and it was just amazing. The rig came to LIFE and I was able to really enjoy it. So powerful is the sound now, that the poor stalwarts who run the computer to start and record the SPL runs, are of course in the near field of that system and especially the ear-ripping bullet tweeters, evilly and cunningly fitted by the Ackerley clan at ear hole height. Incidentally, this is TOTALLY clear at a hundred yards due to the needles-shaped, or acicular ‘˜throw of the speaker system because of the columnar array used.
Battlewagon showing columnar arrays, with thanks to WolfMods.

This meant they could either get hearing damage or else fight with me on the knobs, pulling back the highs so it didn’t hurt as much. Thus I now realise I spent the day giving the lads gyp and I issue the apology.. for I was just over-excited.
We only got it finished for the last event but oh WOW, what a result. A huge thank you to Vibe for the genius of such a big sexy heap of kit they gave the MAX that would damn fit and to Clarion, for flying in like a delicious corporate Tinkerbelle and just flicking that Clarion CZ702E-flavoured fairy dust upon the whole project.
The day was overcast yet as we arrived, there was Roo, looking a little frazzled around the edges but as ever, in attendance at the gate, to give you the briefest-ever ownership of your ticket as you roll forwards twenty yards to gain entry and get your stub removed!
The Celsus guys showed up with the Dynamat Half A Mini (that causes horrified consternation on occasion as they tow it face-pointing-back) and put up banners for their JL Audio and Dynamat brands, for they had sponsored the EMMA 2013 League finals trophies once again. This year, paying to have glass plaques individually engraved for each league trophy winner. They still got a seriously cool certificate on the day, with the glassware posted later.

The atmosphere was fabulous, the attendance huge and a lot of folks wandered past to be harangued and maybe even intrigued as to be told what on EARTH was going on. The Battlewagon itself looks so impressive as a Brazilian style VAN PA array that lots of folks simply stopped to take pictures and I would whisper at them. Hello, whispered at 120dB is fearfully funny to me, anyway.
I had an absolute ball all season and salute the hard work involved. I salute the nutters who GET involved and enter and I salute the makers of stuff that still exists to prove that there IS such a thing as real HiFiin a car.
I even asked a bloke with funki braids, complete with the west Indian bead endings to do a hair trick. He loved it and has been entertained as hell to come visit our world.. just watch to the end and hear his reaction..
http://youtu.be/8teWZHblzfM
Here’s the slideshow of all the shots I took that were any good. Cropped, and captioned.get your tablet and a coffee
Gallery