It was good to see you again! The scene in Texas has grown quite a bit in the last couple years. Some serious cars now as well as some serious cars being built. Should be a killer season and good competition.
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Tough to tell if you are looking for feedback, so apologies in advance if you are not...
As a middle-aged guy who was bit by the car audio bug back in the early 90's and has been installing, fabricating, engineering for years since then (and used to moderate forums in the '00's), and was even pulled away from my IT BI implementation consulting career for a few years, to manage a retail start-up funded by a millionaire who was willing to pay my IT salary in the late '00s), have worn a few different titles on my SEMA and CES badges during those years as well, having worked with small-label brands on engineering, and obviously "buyer" for my retail years.
I still maintain there's no better place to develop a reference ear than the high-end [home] audio section of CES, listening to demo after demo, hotel room after hotel room filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars of the most exotic gear available.
I managed to bring in Scott Buwalda for a SQ seminar series to our shop, and we had Bryan Schmitt train our staff as well (Bobby Brown built our shop - nice to have an owner with funds).
And in all those years, even with my above-average passion - I've never competed. And not because I wasn't interested, clearly.
That's my first reaction to this thread - it's seemingly being started by "yet another" group of existing competitors who have their own ideas for specific tweaks and rule changes. I'm not saying that's not valuable, but it's 'yet another competition sanctioning body'. We've seen it - even if successful, history repeats itself - surely there will be yet another band of rebels (2022? 2023?) who have their own ideas for yet more rule and class tweaks... who will start up their own "alternative" sanctioning body, or take over and make rule changes... I'm not intending to imply gloom and doom, but this seems like the familiar vicious cycle, since we're churning the existing cohort, familiar names and all.
Maybe the recent surge in SQ-competition energy and numbers means that's fine and dandy, there is a more recent attraction to SQ than the years I mention, but I still don't see this targeting people who aren't competitors, or were never competitors. The recent uptick in SQ activity could be argued as "there's plenty enough interest!", but I'm not seeing MASQ as the gateway drug - and if that's not part of the MASQ concept then perhaps that's not a concern. I'll bark up a different tree (but again, as a never-competitor, it's also something I'm not actively pursuing).
I'm surely biased with my own history of remaining an outsider (other than running some shop 'sound offs'), but I don't think my experiences are unique, or that the recent uptick makes them irrelevant. I'd argue that if there's more competitors, there's an even larger wave of SQ enthusiasts who are remaining non-competitors - proportionally. I think "interest in SQ" is it's own
If anything, I think my passion is above average - and still I didn't get involved. My opinion is - it's people like me who you need to engage, to identify ways to make competition more accessible, and more fun, to bring new life into it.
I would advocate being attractive to more people than 'existing competitors - exclusively those who aren't happy with their existing choice of sanctioning body and happen to be within range of events held by this new body - or who have time to add more events on top of their existing competition choice' - phew!
If it were me, I'd be wanting to talk to people who are car audiophiles, clear passionate fans - but never competed. I'd be wanting to talk to people who are home audiophiles, who never got into car audio, even. Think about how many people are regulars - hundreds and thousands of posts and regular participation on enthusiast car audio forums - but are NOT competitors. Ask them not only "Why not?" but also "What would it take to get you involved?" The answers would reveal the hurdles that an organizations should tackle. I don't think anyone has ever taken that approach.
I could be wrong - but my gut tells me there's a greater demand for a new organization built to address those individuals who never got involved by removing their hurdles and reaching out to them (and of course manufacturers, shops, distributors would ALL be big fans of that - wouldn't take much convincing that this could directly increase their sales), to bring those people into competition.
I suspect there's more demand there, than there is of 'existing competitors who are disenfranchised enough to be motivated to try something new'. Just a guess, but it's not based on nothing.
Even without having done any such survey, I would suppose the list would look like this, if you asked people who are enthusiasts enough to be on forums/groups:
- Financial constraints:
- limiting access to high-end gear
- limiting access to paid-for shop installations
- limiting access to complex system designs
- Interest constraints:
- SQ means different things to different people.
- Installation goals are different to different people.
- Perception constraints:
- "Car audio is for kids"
- "Car audio is for trust fund kids"
- "Competition is just for people who [can/do] give blank checks to shops"
- "Competition is for elitists who all know each other"
- Location constraints:
- limiting access to certain brands/gear
- limiting access to competition, or at least frequent competition
- etc
If it were me, I would try to simplify the recipes. Why not add these type of classes?
- Beginner Stock - using factory locations only, and only a safety inspection (no install judging - sound only). Make this RTA-only, but with friendly judges offering advice on sound aspects that could inspire and motivate the competitor.
- Beginner Modified - same as "stock" but allowing for alternative speaker locations (still safety only). Maybe bring in subjective scoring as well.
- Beginner Install - safety and installation judging only - zero listening or RTA judging. For fabricators and installers who might not be SQ purists! Engage friendly judges who can also offer to listen, just to give advice that has no impact on score.
- SQ-L classes - Do a separate SQ score, and an SPL score - the combined score wins. I could think of a few ways to split this into beginner/intermediate/advanced - maybe beginner is RTA only, intermediate adds subjective scoring... and on from there.
These would be legitimately enjoyable for participants primarily, and competitive secondarily - which I personally think is the correct priority order.
Then sure - the advanced classes can look like what you have laid out on the web page, for the seasoned competitors.
My TL; DR analogy is to skateboarding (I'm involved with that in my community). It feels to me like a skatepark implementation project-
Build it too advanced, and you only attract the pros and semi-pros - and find that doesn't get used as much as you thought... too many skaters feel alienated.
Build it too basic, and you get an overabundance of scooter kids and elementary school kids with their parents, and the advanced kids are annoyed and unchallenged and disappear.
But if you survey the community, and build the features progressively - you can end up with a good blend that attracts beginners, and encourages them to progress.
Again, my apologies if the intent wasn't to gather feedback. I'd be glad to delete this post.
That is good feedback, thank you. Correct me if I am wrong, but the overall theme of your feedback is "how to get new people into the game", so to speak. That is a question that has been asked and never really answered, for many many years, dating back to forums that are no longer online.
There are a few really good, annual get-togethers that many non-competitors and competitors attend. Some people that attend them go on to competing, but most don't and that is perfectly fine. Competition is every one's cup of tea. There is also a stigma, with some, that competition is stupid, or full of self back-patting egomaniacs, or whatever. No one will get across to those people :)
With regards to yet another org, that's somewhat fair. However we aren't looking to usurp existing ones. We host IASCA in conjunction with our own format for example, and are working with IASCA on future shows and collaboration and if someone comes to one of our shows and only wants to do IASCA we don't mind. These days it is quite uncommon to see a single org show, outside of maybe the SPL arena, but I'm not overly familiar with that side of things so I could be wrong. Heck even EMMA, the European org, has made its way to the U.S. For the most part we saw what we felt was a gap in the scoring, tried it out locally, got good feedback and decided to further it along.
Having said that, most of the new folks that get in do so because they came out to an event and want to get some feedback without all the sugar coating. I've seen some guys that came over from the SPL only world just to see what it's all about and ended up building some really good sq cars. Some have no desire to be really serious and go on to finals and that's fine too. Some just like the local camaraderie and don't mind a judge telling them everything wrong with their car haha... Sometimes they get bit by the bug and keep coming back and progressing.
With regard to some of your class suggestions, RTA only scoring tells you almost nothing about how it sounds. I say that because you can do two different tunes (in the same car with same equipment), make the RTA look the same and they'll sound completely different. There are other orgs that do offer RTA judging as a separate category, much like SPL, and some enjoy that, mostly though they do it to go for that all encompassing award. in MECA that would be BOBOS. IASCA used to have rta as part of their triple crown award (IIRC). Install has the well deserved and unfortunate stigma attached to it, which is why it is also now a separate category unlike the old days. We are bringing in a very simple install (mostly safety focused) with our regular sq scoresheet, but will also offer a full fledged install for those that want to go that route.
We did start out having a stock style class, but found (locally anyway) that people quickly start doing mods and end up out of that class quickly. IASCA has a Novice class which is very much a stock-like class and MECA has one with a few mods allowed, much like the ones you suggest.
Some of the perception constraints you mention are quite common, especially the "blank check" one. It is unfortunate as well because some of the best cars I've ever heard were diy installed and tuned. I know of at least four off the top of my head that were DIY and went on to win their respective classes at finals, sometimes multiple years. Yes there are a handful of really good shops who can do it all and they get the attention they deserve for their cars, but it certainly doesn't take one of them to win, and it doesn't guarantee a win. But it is true that can be a hard sell to new folks. A good example is a recently new competitor in my area that has less in his total equipment than some people do in a single amp, and it sounds very good. When he first contacted me he was "afraid of embarrassing myself" as he put it. Well he certainly didn't. In fact he won his class first time out.
I do agree that even the best of high end cars can't compete with a good home audio setup. No argument there, and I don't personally know of anyone trying :). Some use a home reference setup as the basis for, well, reference for their cars. One of my mentors has a reference set of speakers he's used for many years and I've seen him get in a car, get out and head to the reference, listen for something, then get back in the car and start tweaking.
In any event, we didn't start this thing up overnight or on a whim. It has gone through a few iterations with several people providing input along the way. We have only just this year made it more widely public. Even so we are still tweaking things here and there as more get exposed to it and either we find something we missed or a suggestion comes along that we never considered.
Again, thank you for the comments.
I would say "accessibility" is a better way to put it. It's not quite synonymous with "entry", because all these hurdles do present entry barriers, yes - but they also discourage advancement. Imagine an organization with only two classes "entry level" and "veteran". Entry level may very well address hurdles that prevent people from starting, but once they start competing, they may find the next leap intimidating, even inaccessible.
And that's not only a hurdle with progression - I also don't see this as a linear thing, and I think the attempt to pigeonhole it as that is one of the things that leads to dissatisfaction. Once you start competing, it shouldn't just be about 'the next class'. It should be about "What direction do you want to go in next?" Not everyone has the same priorities and preferences - some fabricators I hired were excellent - and knew nothing about SQ or tuning. They simply loved the installation, fabrication, motorization aspect. Once upon a time, that played a huge role in IASCA too. To those people, "all the tweaking" goes way beyond what they are interested in.
Other people could care less what it looks like, about gimmicks, or even about spending anything but the minimum of their budget on cosmetics - it's all going for the highest end gear that they are personally dreaming of. For those people - they LOVE the tweaking, and see organizations that mandate building show cars as elitist.
I had a friend a while back who was a DJ, and he was into car audio. Did he care about imaging? The opposite, really. He wanted to create a dance club environment in his car. I helped him - what a different set of criteria, to intentionally diffuse the sound rather than create a "stage".
And of course, my personal obsession with imaging is a bit overinflated, if I do say so myself.
To try to pull all these people into a single path of progression, judged against each other, on a single set of criteria - that's a tall ask that I personally think goes beyond "finding a compromise". "Car audio" isn't a singular interest with a singular idealized end goal.
This turns into "accessibility" when someone takes more than a cursory look at the introductory classification. I wouldn't think most people would only consider the entry-level class, when deciding whether to start something.
Yes, exactly - that's actually very in keeping with my point.
Someone starting out - give them an easy goal! An achievable one. They are new. They don't know phase and timing and reflections and absorption and on-axis from off-axis, imaging, none of that. They went to a shop, they bought some replacement speakers and a subwoofer, and they started to read a forum where guys are trying to convince them to take off their door panels and make those actually work like speaker cabinets. An RTA measurement only for an entry class - that's perfect.
Once they start to learn about imaging and acoustics, maybe they step up to a DSP. Maybe they build some kick panels. Maybe they do something in their A-pillars. In my humble opinion - all the better if they DIY it and the cosmetics look more like kindergarten paper mache then they do OEM-correct. This is probably their first fabrication effort, and it might just be built on at least semi-correct acoustic principle, if they've been taking things in. So why not allow them to do that, not judge cosmetics.
Or - maybe the opposite. For guys who are installers, but not tuners (for SURE there's guys who are fabricators out there, but aren't necessarily refined-ear audiophiles), why not have an install class? There's a category for people who's tweak and tune is really stretch and upholster. Their priority might be so much "cosmetic perfection", that they do their personal hot-rod looking like something out of Kindig or Coddington.
...they are probably disenfranchised by some negative experiences at hot rod and car shows they *thought* they were a part of. "Electronics? Get out of here, kid. Cut off your muffler - that's the only audio allowed here." :wink:
My point on the RTA is to let people do the most rudamentary competition first.
Then add the in-car judging.
Then add the cosmetics and installation - or maybe spin it off entirely. Wouldn't it make sense to enter the "sound competition" and "install competition" separately? Try for two trophies rather than one - that's a step-up goal. Or just go for one.
I just wish it were more flexible, less of an attempt to corral hobbyists of such a broad range of interest.
Oh - and SPL. Sure, there still should be dedicated classes for that. It gets insane.
But personally, I think an "SQL" category would be the one the most hobbyists on these forums would have the most fun with. I'd think of that as a more advanced category, even without an installation cosmetic judging (again, I'd spin that off separately, for those who do care about that). Doesn't it sound fun to have your front stage that you passionately refine, tune, and tweak - and when it comes to competition day, you can build a "whatever" crazy sub box, and add that to your install just for the competition? There's a lot of science that goes into SPL also, that a lot of the enthusiasts on these forums understand nearly as well. Lots of forum members resent the perception of a SQ guy as someone with a sealed eight in their trunk, or an SPL guy as someone running coaxes off a head unit, with a 3000w sub amp and a pair of 15's.
Anyway - long enough rant, I just have thought more accessibility and flexibility/progression paths would be appealing.
I do understand that - I'm not trying to throw wrenches into the gears, just haven't had an appropriate post outlet for the ideas before. :cool: So apologies for the torrent.
I’ll add that when I said progression I didn’t necessarily mean going up in class, but progression in making their car better as it is. Sometimes people move up in search for that but not always.
And there are avenues for just install or even just rta. Just that nobody ever just wants to enter those categories on their own, even though they have the option in most circumstances.
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I would like to see a tuners only category. The jugde resets everything to zero. You then have up to two hours to set amplifier gains, EQ, TA, Phase, etc. No previous presets allowed. This would at least eliminate the ones that wrote a check (myself included). Some folks that write a check to a shop are very capable of install and tuning but might not have the time or resources. Other people are clueless about car audio. They take their car to a shop and then go on to win competitions without ever having knowledge about anything.
I feel a bit regretful of commenting now - this sort of thing probably warrants it's own thread.
But for the record I love that idea as well - I agree with the tie in to the old "blank check" concerns. As a DIY guy, I share it with you - Trust fund kid goes into shop, drops off car, says "do whatever needs to happen - I want to compete", and a few weeks later picks up his car.
To me, the installer is the one who truly qualifies as the competitor in that scenario, not the owner.
I think of it like art - art is subjective, and in an art show, it's the artist who is recognized, not the customer.
I have a feeling we all think of car audio as art - different kinds of talent, and different kinds of personal achievement - different mountains to climb.
Like different kinds of art - I don't want to beat a dead horse, but what makes me rub my chin, is this idea of trying to establish one set of rules or progression path, for all these different individual priorities:
Car audio art - there's imaging, there's basic tonality, there's installation (that alone can span anywhere from "OEM look" to "Fast and Furious show car") - and yeah, definitely tuning.
I say that to more concisely summarize my prior post:
Maybe what I'm dreaming of are more modular, Lego-block style competition classes. Compete in imaging if you want. Compete in fabrication if you want. Compete in wiring if you want. Compete in SPL if you want. Compete in tuning if you want - that would be a seriously fun one, if you could eliminate cheating/presets/Dirac/memorization and the like.
I think that would also improve "accessibility", because it could follow any individual competitor's priorities and investment (time/experience/money), and would allow them to simply skip the parts they don't like/can't yet prioritize - beyond accessibility, those are also things that might discourage potential competitors from starting - yes.
On the topic of entry-level competitors- I'm only thinking of DIY competitors here: Once they are hooked, they very well might start pursuing some of those other areas as well. Installers always seem to develop a pride in themselves, to be the best fabricator, to know the most about equipment, about acoustics, about placement and the effects, to be the best tuner, etc. Or SPL. I think DIY and pro installers definitely inherently want to collect experience (and trophies) in more than one category. Building bragging rights... personal achievement. That's personally what I'd like to see competition foster.
The guys who write checks? Sure, they have other achievements in life that led to whatever backs those checks (or at least, you'd like to hope they aren't simply trust fund kids). If they didn't do the work, I do have a hard time viewing those as "the competitor", since it wasn't their knowledge and talent that produced that result. I'm not discounting that there's ALSO a talent to putting a photo book and presentation together for judges, but that's not really "car audio competition", it's presentation competition that happens to use cars with stereos as a presentation subject.
But maybe we could take that discussion off this thread.
I was thinking this might be feedback to consider implementing, but I believe they are pretty finalized in what they have established.
Anyone who thinks a “check book” install automatically wins is almost clueless or is blind to the current world of SQ competition.
People spend years tuning vehicles to win, it’s not an overnight process, it takes time, effort, feedback, more time and endless massaging of the system to dial it in.
I spent two years working and tuning on a $3500 system to beat out much more expensive systems when I won my championship. That same car placed 2nd and 3rd in its class over 3 years. It’s not always about money and I really wish people would get over that fact. ANYONE can win if you know how to work a score sheet...
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No one said that.
The point was that the installer and tuner do the work. They are the creators, they had the knowledge, they applied the knowledge, they did the work. It's their accomplishment.
A person who writes a check - writes a check.
No one started any bribery theory.
i DIY'd the first iteration of this build, as well as all previous builds in prior cars. i'm definitely not a trust-fund kid. i simply don't have the time, space, tools, or experience to get the results i want in the time i want them. hopefully soon, i'll have a garage and i can begin fiddling on my own. there's a supportive community out here that i'm sure can help me make something nice, but i'm no island.
that said, my car's been down to JT three times now. JT is one of the best installers in the country, no amount of self-will and grit will get me the experience i need for the same results as JT.
once the install's complete and the resin is done outgassing, the second part begins: tuning. finding the right seating positions, messing with the dsp, setting levels and gains, fixing the install (resonances, squeaky panels, additional sound treatments, etc) are all part of tuning.
it's been said above but tuning takes a lot of time. partially because you spend time learning your system as well as figure out how to make it sound the way you want. it's iterative too. feedback from others, listening to other vehicles and attending live music shows are some factors which impact your expectations.
i've spent countless hours with people in the area on tuning, sharing methods that were shared with me. i think "tuning days" are just as valuable as the "build days" we have out here in the community.
even though this thread is about a new sanctioning body, most of this post hasn't about competing. :)
as for whether newcomers: many attend shows to learn, get better, and show off what they have. i've sat in shop-built installs that sound okay, some that sound fantastic. i've sat in DIY-built vehicles with okay and fantastic results. how good the results are depend on whether the install matches the capability of the speakers, followed by tuning. i've sat in DIY budget builds that rival installs with expensive gear, purely because they're operating within the bandwidth capabilities of the drivers and installed+tuned correctly.
as for MASQ: score sheet looks interesting, seems to blend a MECA and IASCA sheet together. hopefully the judging content is more dynamic than the latest IASCA materials and more exciting than the MECA stuff :)