[VB] [T2] Radio, DIN Opening & Rip Van Winkle

[C. Dreike]

Robert,
I always enjoy your learned rants. Keep them coming.

I will be attending the OCTO show this Saturday in Long Beach, CA.
Go to www.octo.org for details.  Should be around 250-300 split window 
buses.

Hope to see some of you busketeers! Stop by and say howdy!

Cheers
Chris
64 DD Kamper Kit


Scientists seek to understand what is,
while engineers seek to create what never was.
As the "Bad Astronomer" Phil Plait says, "Teach a man to reason, and 
he can think for a lifetime."

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Mann" <robtmann7 at gmail.com>
To: <type2 at type2.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2014 2:18 PM
Subject: Re: [T2] Radio, DIN Opening & Rip Van Winkle


Nick wrote:
>
>2ea 5.25" between the front seats, ABS kick panels in the future for
>mounting
>2ea 6"x9" under the middle seat in boxes
>2ea 12" subwoofers in Blaupunkt box in the cargo area
>1 425watt amplifier in the cargo area

Nick has been good enough to confess youthful excessiveness,
opening the topic of gross vehicle sound systems; it is certainly not
him personally that I'm criticising.

How many watts input electricity does such a '425W' amp
demand?  The claim to produce 425 W audio power will, I predict, turn
out to apply to periods <1ms while some capacitor gets drained.  The
audio power produced, on average, may well be < 1 W and therefore in
no danger of overtaxing a generator or alternator which can produce
only c.400W.  Nevertheless, I feel an urge to open up on this theme
of power in vehicle sound systems.
My home stereo features 1960s Goodmans 12" speakers, which I
couldn't get matches for so one is an Audiom 60 and the other a
TriAxiom in a different cabinet.  My ears don't much detect the
music >5kHz I'm sure, and I'm v content with this pair.  But my main
point is that when I, in my own excess decades ago, slapped 6 honest
W into those puppies the neighbourhood was rightly annoyed (c. 1
acre).  One single honest W converted with reasonable efficiency,
despite the feebler alnico magnets of the 1960s and whatever guts
they've lost in a half-century of use, is all suburbia should be
asked to tolerate, and then only rarely.  I don't know whether anyone
is bothering to mfr efficient speakers these days, but I'm darn sure
they could.  The 'security' piezo-horns force something towards 1 W
of actual sound onto the burglars who, absent special protection,
cannot stay in a room with 1 W of audio.  They are efficient (having
to work off smallish no-maintenance 12V batteries after the burglars
have disconnected the mains).  But woofers they are not.
Anyone who wants to abuse their ears as many of us did when
young & foolish should seek efficient speakers rather than
stupendously inefficient speakers which seem to have been created so
that a certain sub-culture of vehicle sound-system enthusiasts can
vie for a Wasteful Wankers title.  At this rate the apeakers become a
means for selling even more expensive kW-label amps almost all of
whose output gets wasted as heat in the speakers.  I for one stand
against this unhealthy decadence.  And the inane pulsing boom
distracts me as they thump past on their way to a local annual
hotrodfest featuring a competition for Loudest  ...  :-(
Sami's rig sounds far better value, and much more efficient,
than the bloated gear so heavily plugged by the big auto parts chains.

May I also carp quixotically against the term 'sub-woofer'?
Actual woofers were often not much good < 30 Hz (the lowest note on a
typical organ, made famous by '2001', and the lowest note on a
typical bass guitar).  Are we to believe the progress in more
powerful magnets and more flexible speaker-cone margins has now
allowed hi-fi <<30 Hz, because that is what the term 'sub-woofer'
implies.  But, meanwhile, what happened to 'woofer'?  SuperCheapAuto
Inc does not advertise them.

I flash the Friday card as a backup, because gross sound
systems in vehicles is not only bus content.

BTW I anti-carp my discovery of the vehicles & people (mainly
Poms) of http://www.dmfv66.com, the Dairy Flat air-cooled VW club who
seem to be organising something like those Buses of The Corn etc that
youse NorteAmericanos so enviably stage.  My first mtg with them last
night, in the real world of a home Workshop, has me in a good mood
today, so my grump-thru regarding vehicle sound systems is in spite
of, not because of, my current mood.
Let us spread the enlightenment which has been realised by
the formerly excessive Nick and nearly all the rest of us.  If we can
get by happily with c.50 bhp, let us also promote efficient sound
systems.   And let's encourage Library items on insulation,
not only thermal but also acoustical, so that anyone who slaps in a
TriAxiom in a folded-horn enclosure taking up all the space behind
the back seat will not annoy too grossly those s/he overtakes 8-) on
the way to the Loudest Hotrod contest :-P.


-- 
Robt Mann
Whangaparaoa, New Zealand
'73 VW 1600dp Devon camper
'53 Meteor V8
various Jawa-CZ and Jawa-NZ strokers
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