Week sixteen – It’s still a cool scene

I know there has been a lot of despondency in the trade generally but I have seen the face of enthusiasm still glowing freshly, I have seen the young and the vigorous, (and the horribly ‘comfortable’) they EXIST! Firstly, I was at the EMMA sound off at Auto Audio very near to the Ace Café in North London and took a bunch of video clips to assemble as a news bulletin in the shape of a series of one-take-wonder unedited segments and second I drove all the way to Lowestoft on Sunday to attend the open day of keen young stalwarts Dalco Car Audio.
At Auto Audio there were some of the most incredible cars ever seen at a sound off. Over 1.5 million quids’ worth (and that’s almost certainly an understatement as the Enzo has doubled it’s £600 grand tag since they made it) and a works van with Pioneer £1,000 ODR tweeters in it parked next to it!
The Dalco guys have a super-customer who ‘went extreme’ after a three JL Audio fifteen incher install and now has a £30 grand-job Astra with custom paint and bodywork. And a wall of nine metal-coned tens. It’s awesome stuff and so lovely to see all the new enthusiasm as the Ferraris were all new installs and there was some new blood in the EMMA camp as well in the shape of fresh competitors.
We published our first set of headphones last week, the wonderful Bowers & Wilkins P5s and yet didn’t manage to get the £80K Astra van ‘tweak’ install feature published due to access issues. There’s also an article from Moderator Harryredchow to publish about how the Placebo Effect (and event he Nocebo Effect) relates to car and all HiFi for that matter…waiting to be seen.
I am having some bloody-nose fights with video processing software right now, which is the reason for a small delay on refreshing the front page video but also have a pair of spliced-together clips from the recent ‘Oscars’ event at the Ace Café to put on the front page too. All that and reviews to catch up on.
I’ll go get on, then.
Adam Rayner – Online Editor