Waking The Dead: THE VIBE HEARSE

Now not a lot of people know this, but VIBE stands for Vented Innovative Bass Enclosures and when they first came out, the sheer bling of laser etched aluminium surfaces on cast chassis, with super-sexy areo ports of spun aluminium as well, coupled to that never-gonna-date leather crackle paint finish, proved massively successful. There were other slightly flash looking bass products about at the time but not only has Vibe out-poshed the rest on the pretty packaging and sexy looks front ever since but the basic grasp of how bass is made and the cost effective bloody grunt of the product is what made it fly. They just worked well. Their growth, even to the point of selling British Bass to the Americans, is the stuff of legend.

Then, they sold subwoofers into the domestic market and indeed, these days sell audio products to markets that never really had such potent bass expertise applied before, like gaming. Their home subwoofers immediately won awards for what they could do for the money and I recall reviewing one for Home Cinema Choice. Never, before or since, have they flipped a down firing home subwoofer onto its side so as to be able to photograph a pretty transducer!
And the demo cars down the years have been bonkers all equipped with the ample MDF mastery and leather crackle paint finish of their in-house fitting gimp, Rich. The only ‘˜fail’ was when they wanted to give away an Audi TT and the Elf & Safety herberts decided it had too much woodwork and the occupants might get Dutch Elm Disease, so it quietly melted away instead.
And a really fat while back, this awesome car appeared outside the offices only to get ingested and stored away. I saw it I saw it.

Wibble-wobble-fade, flash forwards and the Vibe Hearse was real, finished and mind bendingly loud. The ridiculous Reaper amplifiers, the new generation of massively over powerful battery banks in cars that were street bassing to a hundred and sixty decibels for real, all came to influence the locked away bass gimp. And his labours bore fruit in spring as it was released at the Modified Nationals show 2013.
I am not going to take you through the system as Ryan Hawtin, Vibe’s marketing dude wrote a press release so damn good, I am going to reproduce the whole thing, with nary an edit needed, below. What I will do is regale you with what happened
I was at the show, and Ryan came and got me, said to check it out. Delivered me to Rich to feel it, as operator. Now, Rich is a clever bloke and although the system was not ‘˜tuned’ at that point, he knew he had it at an optimum gain structure and there WAS a lot of surface area of cone, with really muscular amplification and a mains-supported battery bank, with enough battery acid to render a small cow down to a skeletonand I have reporting repsonsibilities to you, dear reader. BWA HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA.

So, I got in, had a little demo from Rich, who then, with a knowing and evilly twisty little grin and a twinkle in his eye, showed me exactly, and I mean exactly which knobs did what. Ryan was stood on the stairs of the Vibe truck rig opposite when I let it rip.
Having just cranked my internal body-sensate Sound Pressure Level meter that weekend from able to judge up to 157dB to really knowing when 160dB was trying to rearrange my bones, I absolutely wanged that gain.
It was literally British-meaning awesome. My whole body was flung around in a kind of bonkers all pervading insanity as I lost the ability to move properly, through synaptic vibrational signal failure. Rich saw this as I kinda went ‘˜tharn’ like a rabbit in the headlights or paralysed with fear by a Stoat and knowing he had had his result, reached for the controls as the glove box popped open through the sheer brain numbing PRESSURE. I was like, ‘OH MYYYYYYYYYY!’ Clawing for breath back in my chest and loving it.

Ryan looked terrified and even Rich was a bit startled, for while they would be in deep doodah if they blew something up, like a fatter Jeremy Clarkson of car audio, I sort of knew that I would a) get away with it and b) if it really did what I thought it would, it’d make great press. So, like Clarkson smoking the Bentley’s tyres that time, I absolutely stonked the system.
And will go out on a simple statement of fact limb that corporately they have not dared utter for fear of backlash, maybe:
‘The Vibe hearse will generate upwards of a 160dB bass pressure field inside, if you are daft enough to want to run it that powerfully.’ There.. now go read about the thing in Mister Vibe’s own words – and he is much more respectful to the expert installer who perpetrated this work of audio art, which sounds brilliant as simple open-door Public Address.
First, here is the system diagram:
The full VIBE equipment list:
BlackDeath Reaper Amplifiers x 3
BlackDeath Bubonic Subwoofers x 6
BlackAir Stereo 4 Amplifiers x 6
BlackDeath 12in Pro Speakers x 4
BlackDeath 8in Pro Speakers x 6
BlackDeath 4in Pro Tweeter x 6
Deep Cycle Batteries x 13
DeltaBox Line Drivers x 2
DeltaBox Bass Generator x 1
The BlackDeath Hearse By Ryan Hawtin
The Hearse is a project that we have wanted to do ever since the inception of the BlackDeath product range. At a time when other companies are shying away from elaborate demonstration vehicles we wanted to undertake a bold, in-your-face project that showcases exactly what is possible from VIBE Audio’s best products.
The Hearse was purchased just over two years ago from an undertaker’s where it had spent the previous thirty years in service (there was some very interesting dust and dirt in the back…). VIBE Audio has always been proud of its British pedigree and the classic Daimler Hearse was chosen to reflect this.
Anticipating the Hearse was going to become an extremely heavy vehicle our first job was to have full hydraulic suspension fitted by the legendary Rayvern. Then when the hearse got back to VIBE HQ it was stripped completely and over the next two years in-house fabricator/installer/MDF Magician Rich Laker chipped away at the project.
Here is that man-gimp-genius

Rich has been with VIBE since the very start. He began by making the very first VIBE bass boxes sold to customers and over the last twenty years Rich has worked on every single VIBE demo vehicle from the Dredd and the Bass Tunnel to the Lambo and Audi R8. Rich is able to work miracles even with the tightest time and budget constraints and projects like the Hearse simply wouldn’t be possible without him.
All work on the Hearse was done in house by Rich (with a bit of help on the wiring from Mark Fisher) and it packs in our very best VIBE BlackDeath SPL products. The huge bass box is made with 50m thick MDF and 30mm Plexiglas which allows the six BlackDeath Bubonic 15in Subwoofers to be seen from all angles. Powered by three of our massive BlackDeath Reaper amplifiers running off thirteen deep cycle batteries the Hearse required a mammoth amount of cabling. The SPL levels this massive box creates at the front cabin area are insane, giving a worrying amount of flex to the windscreen (replacement windscreens for Daimler Hearses are hard to come by!)
The mids and highs are not neglected with the door cards, boot build and roof mounted coffin packed with PA style speakers from our BlackDeath Pro Speaker range designed to throw the sounds with clarity and volume.
As the Hearse’s primary function is to be an eye-catching demo vehicle, we wanted to go all out with the gothic theme, choosing to leave the hearse fairly standard outside and by using distressed wood and satanic mood lighting an Addam’s Family-esque interior. As with everything VIBE does we believe that it’s the little details that are key to the overall story. The hearse is packed with lots of quirky little features, from the skeleton arm window crank to the BlackDeath hidden dashboard graphics. There are plenty more hidden on the vehicle still waiting to be discovered too!
We’ve been really pleased with the finished project and the response it received when it was unveiled at Modified Nationals was phenomenal. The hearse is one of our favourite ever VIBE demo vehicles as it ticks all the boxes; its eye catching, its memorable and most importantly it’s ridiculously loud. We’ve got loads more plans for the Hearse too, so expect it to evolve even further over the next few months!
Adam again Well writ that man! Finally, your reward for reading thus far, is the gallery of my shots:
link
For more of the hearse, check out the Flickr gallery of more stuff herelink
And visit the website to learn more about Vibe: link