MY HISTORY IN CAR AUDIO

Welcome to my car audio section of my little piece of the web. I have been into car sence I was about 14 or 15 years old. I started out with some cheesy K-Mart stuff and have never looked back. Over the years I have work at a few places selling and installing. I like the install part the best. Some of the places I have worked are Audio Outlet in Gainville FL, Safari Audio in Ocala FL and Audio Design in Ocala FL and Ultimate Audio in Ocala, FL

Audio Outlet was a total joke. Somehow that store had a few good lines of products but they ripped people off, did installs under a shade tree out back and only sold pre-fab boxes. I guess to me it was a discrase to those lines to be in a store like that. I am not one for ripping people off like that either. Sorry Johny, but that is the truth of your store.

Then there was Safari Audio. I had been going to that store for years, most of the time just looking and asking 100 queations but sometimes I would drop the cash for the equipment I finally desided to buy. I never have other people install my stuff but they still where pretty professional about it, always selling me wires, connectors and t-tapps. I actually worked there twice for a short time but in the time I did learn a few things. I learned a lot of things to shorten your time and make things easier on the installer. I learned just how easy it was to make a basic amp rack look so nice. I learned that zipties with the screw holes in them are your friend as an installer. I learn a lot of small things in that time but I also learned the ways of lieing to your customers to lead then to beleave something that just not quit the truth. "each enclosure is tune specifically to your car" was actually we made in fit in your trunk. Somehow they sounded pretty good but still....I also learn the skills of marketing, or should I say using someone elses marketing to bring more volume to your store. Another car audio store was running radio adds saying "look for the big pink building on the corner of Pine and 200" so Safari bought the building right next door, closer to that corner, and of course painted it pink. Of course this concept would only work it they had better products, service and most of all prices and they did. It was only a matter of time and the other store was out of business. Kind of on the shady side but I guess it worked. Another funny marketing tool they used was actually calling the new store buy another name: Audio Workz. When someone would go to one store and not like something about it and then end up at their other store the customer had no idea there were actually one in the same. Each store pushed its own lines but in the end they really sold the same things. In those days those stores could and did do some cutting edge installs. Plexi and streched vinyl where the in thing and they did it quit well....within what they felt was cost effectiveness. As time and install tricks moved on they did not. When fiberglass become the new craze they were still doing there old stuff and that quicky became old school and no one really wanted it. They had a set way of doing things, nothing out of "their" box. I think in the end all that finally caught up with them. The Ocala Audio Workz was the first to go, them the Ocala Safari and in the end all four of there car audio stores closed. I was kind of sad to here that but then on the other hand there was a few times that Pete, one of the owners, tried to tell me I was not smart enough to do something........and that really left a bad taste in my mouth. From that piont on I did not have the same respect for him and the stores. Somehow I always felt like I was not up to his standards but in the end I guess everything works out. I hear they are still doing home audio and I wish them the best of luck in that and lets hope they learned a little over the years.

The next place I worked at was Audio Design. When I started working there that name was not even made up yet. It was ARA auto and air. They had a little room no bigger then I walk in closet that they had been doing some audio out of. The products they were selling were stuff anyone could sell like low end Clarion, Fultron (now called Memphis Audio) and Pioneer. They did mostly dealer work: deck and four speakers mostly, but nothing even close to high end. After being there a few months and talking to the owner about the posability of making good money on car audio and still being fired up about things with Safari Audio the owner expanded and ask me to help be the main designer on the new story, now duely named Audio Design. I spend 100s of hours planning, drawing up designs, calling companies, researching, fabing and biulding. Our claim to fame was going to be our sound room. It was a totally custom built room with a PASS switching system capable of 12 head units, 24 front speakers, 12 rear speakers, 12 subwoofers and 6 processors. I design and built 6 towers, each having 6 standard sized removable panels to make changing out speakers easy. The center of the floor was raised. The original idea was to have the amp rack in this floor but the owner did not want to spend the money of the thin glass to hold the weight of people standing in it so the amp rack was angle up to the make display board. Only 6 amps where actually mounted in this but it was piped into the stores AC to keep everything cool. The PASS system used I touchscreen computer. As you pick each of those 6 amps each would light up. The whole setup was a huge pain to setup but was really cool once it was all working.