Total original playboy of car audio. I still think he is the first guy next to Fishman to use extensive fiberglass to design systems and make them original. Sure there were the Speakerworks guys in the past, but Steve broke through and continues to create vehicles one step ahead of any others.

I've been following car audio close for the past 20 years and Steve is one of a kind..

 

Steve is def. one of a kind, but Fish was doing the stuff before Steve. I actually met Steve when I was with Fish. Fishman and myself worked together here in Tacoma WA and we had a show at the shop one day. Both me and Dave were judges and that is the same day we met Steve Brown. Later that day Fish was so impressed with Steve's first car (old toyota corolla) he gave him the nickname "homeless" and it stuck from there. Steve is a great guy and I got a chance to catch up with him at a show here in seattle this past year (since he lives in LA now).

 

Wow. Did not know your history of car audio. That it truly a gift to have worked with those guys. I am very jealouse.

 

ya me and Fish and another guy would stay after work all night drink bud light and eat Salsa Dorito's So as you can see my background with "high end" audio is quite involved! My friends shop in Scottsdale is very high end.. also another friend ran Rockfords RTTI years back.. Brian Schmidt is his name.

 

Sounds so fun.

So you must appreciate such finer things in life as Linear Power amps, old Punch 45s, Nakamichi tape decks, Alpine parametric EQ.s That one yellow CRX si with the ADS system and a few Buick Grand Nationals

 

OMG that brought up some old memories.. what about Soundstream and Obcon boxes (old friends with the owner), PPI art series amps... Rockford Power 1000's in chrome..

those were the fun days, but i didn't make enough money doing it..

 

Background is an obsession for perfect sound. In the process, I have tried about every high end head unit, amp and speaker out there. I have wasted a lot of money along the way, but have finally found what equipment will make me happy.

I still have about 20 pairs of speakers still sitting around my house not being used which include McIntosh, Focal Utopia, Focal Poly Kevlar, CDT High Defintion, MB Quart Qs and more. I sold most of my amps I stopped using, but kept the speakers as they are not worth the time and effort to sell.

Head Units, I only use McIntosh. Amps, I use McIntosh for highs and mids and Brax for subs. Speakers, depend alot on the shape and size of the interior. I mainly use Scan Speak.

I had a system in my 90 kind of like what you are looking to do. I had a downfiring 12 inch in a custom made sub box that was dowell mounted on the back of the rear seats when they were folded down. It took like 1 minute to remove it or install it. I also had an amp rack in the front big enough for a 6 channel McIntosh and a 600 watt single channel McIntosh amp. The amp rack and amps could be removed in about 2 minutes. The car was then ready for the track. I attached a picture of the McIntosh head unit and have pictures of the entire system at home.

 

I did not have enough cash back then either, so over the past few years I scored a few Power 300's and other good stuff. My buddy had a mint PPI Art Series he sold not long ago.

I miss that old gear, it's just fun to play with and listen too. Still to me nothing sounds warmer than Linear Power amps

 

I cut my teeth on PPI Art, Orion, SS and all that stuff.

Milford and Butler have a very warm sound. Tubes trade off thd for warm sound though. Sinfoni are pretty warm for a solid state. McIntosh class A still has the best sound and their electronics and filters are leagues ahead of everything else in the car audio world. Their thd of .0015 actually means something as it is not compromised by crappy electornics on the back end like a lot of amps on the market and their thd rating is at peak power and not at 1 watt at 1 k or whatever manufacturers can get away with advertising. Production of a clean signal at 1 watt, 1 k and 4 ohms (as most amps are rated) can be accomplished in a $ 50 amp. Low thd over the entire output frequency, after any onboard electronics, at peak power, and at 2 or even 1 ohm is very, very costly.

Other than Brax or McIntosh mono blocks, the Sound Stream Human Reign is a very decent class A sub amp and it looks cool. Not good enough for mids and highs though even at $ 2,500 a pop. I had a Human Reign in my last TT and it was pretty cool to open the trunk and see that distorted face popping through the coffin.

For the price, JL has nice filters and electronics as does ads and Matts for subs. I also like the F1 Alpine head unit.

 

ya Doug I hear ya with all the current stuff... but years back before the Macintosh there wasn't a whole lot of "high end" stuff.... I mean ya the linear power and what not.... but things really started to change around '94

 

i hope your car never gets jacked

 

looks great... only thing I would have done differently for the ultimate stereo setup is 10w7's...

 

Very true.
I have heard good things about the Brax, but have not had the opportunity to listen to them.

Seems these days as far as headunits go the theme is to jam as much stuff in there as possible, selling features rather that SQ...

I don't need little Dolphins poping across the screen all day

 

Doug H, PM sent.

 

Hey DougH, do you have any decks you wanna sell, send me a PM if you like.

Thanks

Christian