International Mini Meet IMM 2014 Install Prize

Words by Dan ‘˜minitaz’ Stradling
Every five years the International Mini Meet, or IMM is held in the UK. It is when all the Mini car clubs from everywhere, get together. Fully half of all attendees are from different countries to the hosts’, every year. And they come from all over the world. This year, sees the 55th anniversary of that much loved small tin can Alec Issigonis designed and is joyfully known the world over as the Mini. In all of its variations including Wolseley Hornet, Riley Elf and the flat-fronted Clubman.
This year’s was at the Kent County Showground and was hosted by the SMOC or the Southern Mini Owners’ Club. And an awesome job they made of it, too! This tale is that of the sound off side of the Mini show and in particular, how we gave away a full makeover and audio install. We had a day visitor arrive, win the prize and go home later with the car fully installed! We call ourselves the AudioCrew.

The AudioCrew have formed from the love of and fascination with the small go-kart of a car, plus their desire to improve people’s perception of car audio. Having an in-depth knowledge of Minis has been very beneficial as we have specialised in running sound-off competitions at Mini shows over the last eight years. We are made of a group of guys from various work backgrounds, with many of us having competed in both IASCA and EMMA sound off competitions. All of us own or have owned a Mini and wanted to run an automotive audio competition for the improvement and education of the perception of car audio and its ability to be installed in a very safe and secure manner but also keeping it simple and accessible by the average Tom, Dick or Harriett. We do this for the love of both Minis and car audio. We take no payment for the competitions we run. It’s funded from our own pockets.
The sound-off at this year’s IMM was available free of charge as usual to all Mini owners, both classic and BMW, in two flavours; a simple dB test, or the full sound-off experience made up of four sections, each of which is aimed primarily at safety as a number one priority. The four sections are as follows:
ONE: Safety The whole car is checked for correct cabling, appropriate fusing, bolted-down audio equipment and power supply systems, covered electrical terminals (including no bare wire) and grommets used when going through any rough or sharp bulkheads and panels.
TWO: Installation This is where note is taken of uprated charging, braided cabling runs, nicely presented installations, speaker grilles, lighting to emphasise the audio equipment and general appearance of the car from an audio perspective.
THREE: Sound Quality A judge spends up to twenty minutes in the car with the windows shut (quite a mean task on a blisteringly hot day) and has a CD (or other audio source; iPod, USB stick, SD card) and listens for how the system reproduces the tracks. The judge is looking for a wide and high sound stage with good linearity and clarity. Not in a clinical way but more of a very listenable method towards what the human brain finds pleasing.
FOUR: SPL Test This is purely a test for the vehicle owner to get the highest decibel figure possible. We use a TermLab sensor and a laptop and give the owner the option to play specific frequency tones that we provide on CD, or music of their choice. If the owner chooses to sit in the vehicle, then ear defenders are provided.

At this year’s IMM, we were basing our expectations on that of five years ago where we judged twenty-eight cars in the full sound-off four-section test and at 30-40 mins per car, that’s no mean task. So we geared up on Friday for the onslaught to start on Saturday morning. After judging the cars of some well-known faces to the AudioCrew and seeing an amazingly high standard of installations including hardware from the likes of Genesis, JL Audio, Audiobahn and Focal, we were happy to see some different types of installation. A Nexus tablet as a source unit? Luxurious Alcantara trimmed tweeter pods and a large twin Kicker sub installation. Each year it never ceases to amaze us the different ways that Mini owners choose to install audio systems into their cars.
This year’s sound off winners were Les Leagas with a score of 111 out of 120 (look out for this man in future EMMA sound offs) Runnner up was Faron Scrivens, with third Place going to Steve Toomes. The winner of the SPL competition was Darren Hircock with a score of 155.9dB SPL. Not bad considering he was running on just one amp after the other went into protection the day before while being a demo car for the sound-off area! But remember this car is known to be one of the loudest cars in all the UK. Runnner up was Ed Page on 139.0 dB.
As a new and very exciting addition to the AudioCrew’s presence at the IMM, a free competition was available to Mini owners. The prize was to have a full audio system installed in their car on Sunday afternoon! The list of kit included a Pioneer DEH X8500DAB DAB/CD/ Bluetooth head unit, a bulk-pack of Dynamat Xtreme, JL Audio 6.5in Coaxials, 10in Subwoofer and four channel amp, as well as an amp wiring kit and RCA leads from Stinger, a new full deluxe carpet set from Newton Commercial, and a complete speaker pod and boot-board kit with subwoofer enclosure from Optimise Automotive. Quite a bounty.
The competition entries ran into the hundreds and one lucky winner was drawn shortly after 3pm on Sunday. When the winner found out, it was actually an entry made for their friend which made a nice surprise for everyone involved. The Winner was Emma Rodgers and her boyfriend Lloyd Covey, they were local mini owners and had just come on the Sunday. The mini was Lloyd’s. He was slowly putting a sound system in his car but it was low on the priority list of jobs on the car. I’d say they were very worthy winners and were happy and shocked to have won.
The car to receive the AudioCrew install challenge treatment was a Mini Checkmate from 1989. The car is used every day for work by the IT Purchaser from Maidstone. He had travelled three miles, while one person told Adam he had come from New Zealand.

As we set about the installation (perhaps over-stocked with installers at six), the removal of seats, carpets, and existing audio equipment seemed to quite literally fly out of the doors and onto the floor. The boot also received the same treatment and was emptied with as much zealous energy. The first item to be installed once the factory fitted sound deadening was removed from the majority of the floor and boot panels, was the massive bulk-pack of Dynamat Xtreme (supplied by Celsus). Hands were set to work on all surfaces that could be seen (and some that couldn’t inside the doors) with rollers applying the sticky vibration reducing product.
Cabling supplied by Stinger (and happily using our contest to mark its return to the UK market from Armour Automotive) was soon run front to back, quickly followed by the deluxe underlay and carpet set supplied by Newton Commercial. This was trimmed to the car during installation, as every Mini owner will know, not one Mini is the same as the next!
New head unit cabling had to be installed as the factory fit doesn’t supply enough current. A Calearo DAB window mount aerial from Celsus was used instead of the shark fin, as our winner wasn’t keen on changing the look one bit. Then the head unit was connected up. The boot was taking longer than expected as it is made of seven panels, complete with a fully built sub enclosure to house the JL Audio 10WX subwoofer. The front speaker pods were installed to the kick panels and housed the 6.5in JL Audio coaxials also supplied by Celsus and then the system was tuned by the technical skills and keen talented ears of Jon Griggs, Celsus executive.
The owner of the Mini who swagged all of this stuff was not left out of the installation process, as we made him install the new engine earth! Since Minis are renowned for having bad charging systems and this one was no exception.
Whole system was planned to be fitted in three hours from 4 pm to 7pm Live at the IMM on Sunday evening! The install was not all plain sailing, as the owner had recently installed some nasty bitumen based deadening which had already started going brittle and falling off in places. So all that had to be removed from the doors, boot and interior before the Dynamat Xtreme could be installed. The Headunit needed a brand new fused power feed run and a few other feeds where also missing, as the standard wiring was not complete. But still the whole system was fitted in the three hours. Not only that, the system was then tuned by JL Audio’s (and multi time national Sound off champ) Jon Griggs. So the winner drove away with the brand new system installed and setup perfectly, It was fiar to say the system sounded amazing and the new owners where blown away.
The AudioCrew team is made up of Joe ‘˜Ruckus’ Hunter, Dan ‘˜Taz’ Stradling, Simon ‘˜Ferret’ Hughes, Pete ‘˜HIT IT WITH A HAMMER!’ Winbolt, Chris ‘˜Save The planet’ Kemp and Russ ‘˜Croydon Minis’ Dickie.
A massive thanks and appreciation goes out to the whole AudioCrew team, and their long suffering families for their ability to accept our addiction to car audio and the lovable cars they adore and consider one of the family.
The system give away could not a have been possible without: Celsus ICE,( JL Audio, Dynamat and Callearo), Optimise Automotive, Pioneer, Newton Commercial, Stinger, Adam Rayner, Jon Griggs, Southern Mini Owners Club and of course the IMM 2014 Install Challenge team, plus Southern Mini Owners Club for supporting and encouraging our eccentricities for many years.
Full slideshow of the show days images taken by the AudioCrew are HERE: Gallery