Its pretty much majority of top cars from the East Coast, some Midwest and a small group of devoted CA vehicles. every car should be open and on display. Just walk up and talk to the owners, most should be willing to give demos. Bring your own USB preferably in FLAC since Flac is pretty universal, altho many may play WAV files too. Be respectful of people's time and equipment. Most SQ guys will have at least 3-8 judges for the weekend between Finals and the 3x for multiple orgs. So even tho someone may say "you can turn it up" ...dont---Get it to a reasonable volume to get your listening impression but dont try and test the limits of the system---the people doing every Org just forked out over a GRAND in entry fees, plus hotel etc.... so u dont want to be THAT guy who caused someone to have issues. (yes Ive seen it happen over the past 20 years)

There is also a huge car show in one of the side venues. SPL is in another. so lots to see and do. definitely cant do in one day

If youre getting a demo, and a judge needs to do their job, please be respectful and let them get judged and come back later.

biggest thing is to remember, that everyone has a common goal to make their vehicle sound its best--and sometimes that can vary from car to car and person to person. It may not be to your preference, but that doesnt mean its wrong.
Ive given Demo's before and had people just flat out say " yeh I dont get it, my friends car sounds way better" ---then their friend finished almost dead last while I'm in top 2 or 3 in my class.

to summarize
Bring your own music.
talk to people--most will love to talk about their cars
and be respectful of people's time and equipment.
Remember--it is a competition--people handle competition differently- some may be more stressed than others, some may be more willing to give demos before judging, some prfer to have judging complete before demos

 

Bring your own music.
talk to people--most will love to talk about their cars
and be respectful of people's time and equipment.
Remember--it is a competition--people handle competition differently- some may be more stressed than others, some may be more willing to give demos before judging, some prfer to have judging complete before demos

I am glad you said what you did about bringing USB because I would not have thought about it otherwise. At NCSQ I would always let the owner take control or ask them what volume number is the loudest and I would steer clear of it. I had one instance where I turned the volume on the director slowly, nervous that I might turn it up too much, and the person giving me a demo took over and cranked the knob up to the max lol. Todd for instance let me connect my phone and play music directly from my Spotify so everyone is different like you said. But no way anyone about to be judged wants anyone disconnecting their source for a demo. I will have tons of questions to ask people about their setups and hopefully, I can learn a thing or two. Thanks for the advice mic.

 

This will be my first finals, not really nervous but I do get a little antsy until I get judged. I like giving demos unless I am close to being judged, if I know the judges are coming around, I like to wait until they are done. This way the demo doesn't get interrupted and I also have the vehicle setup to be judged. Meaning, I have the seat where it needs to be, the USB drive on the judging tracks, and my BT turned off on my phone. When I give demos, I use my phone.

Generally I will be sitting by my vehicle unless I'm wondering around, either way I will have my doors open and music lightly playing. If you see than, the I'm all for demos. And like Mic said, I'm usually one to let it rip; but not until after all the judging is done. I enjoy talking about and showing off my vehicle, so don't be shy.

 

I'll be on the lookout for your car then for sure. Your build log was a great help to me when I was gathering materials for my build, specifically the section where you highlighted with *asterisks the things you used and didn't end up using. Question, when you get judged are you in the car with the judge or do you watch from the outside with your face pressed against the window? Another, is there a general understanding that doors open playing music is a sign that they are giving demos? Can't wait to see you there.

 

I made it to my first show a few weeks ago and got to listen to some cars. Something I wish I had done before that I have done now, is I printed off the Judgebooks and scoresheets from EMMA, IASCA, MASQ and USACi and I have been looking through them to learn what judges are looking for for tuning my car, but it would help to know what to listen for as you sit in other cars as well.

I have a somewhat related question. My car has no CD or USB input, well, USB would go through Android Auto which has a garbage response, so how would I get judged? I thought it was frowned upon to download the tracks to a DAP.

 

Nope. Lots of people use DAP now a days. For Emma please purchase the tracks directly from Emma use and load them on to your DAP.
For Iasca, you can download them from Quboz which they now have a partnership .
For masq contact them for their playlists.


Dap should be in reach of judge. Clearly explain tracking and volume.
Make sure tracks are in correct order (this is a rule)
Dap needs to be secured in some fashion, it can't be loose and become a projectile if vehicle moves and has to come to abrupt stop

 

if all you have is a DAP for playback, then have the tracks on it, in folders/playlists, in the correct order. set the volume correctly on it, disable password locking, and maybe increase the screen timeout to like 15min.

be prepared to show the judges how to operate your system (tracks up/down, scrubbing, volume control, muting, etc). don't assume they know.

have your DAP mounted somewhere accessible from your listening position.

if you don't have the tracks (eg masq technical tracks) reach out to the organizers to figure out how to proceed.

 

if all you have is a DAP for playback, then have the tracks on it, in folders/playlists, in the correct order. set the volume correctly on it, disable password locking, and maybe increase the screen timeout to like 15min.

Never think about screen timeout. I will do that from now on. Thank you, sir.

 

I generally don't let anyone except judges control my system. When doing a demo, i control the volume and tracks. Once I go through my usual demo tracks, I will generally ask if there is something they want to hear. I don't let anyone touch it purely if something happens to break out of the blue, I want to leave zero doubt. Unless it's someone I know can/will fix it if they break something. Nick got in at Aggieland and maxed out the volume before the music ever started playing. I was like, "O'****, here we go." Even I don't max it out. 🤣

 

I generally don't let anyone except judges control my system. When doing a demo, i control the volume and tracks. Once I go through my usual demo tracks, I will generally ask if there is something they want to hear. I don't let anyone touch it purely if something happens to break out of the blue, I want to leave zero doubt. Unless it's someone I know can/will fix it if they break something. Nick got in at Aggieland and maxed out the volume before the music ever started playing. I was like, "O'****, here we go." Even I don't max it out. 🤣

Yeah, that makes sense and is fair. I had a friend once who had a volume-touching problem. In my old CRV I had a set volume in my head that I would never go past, like 25/35?, and this particular friend cranked it up to the max and I awkwardly told her "Heyyyyy, can you like, not do that please". We were in the car with the window down and two of our other friends in the backseat listening to white girl bangers so the situation warranted a quick little volume raise I get it. Fast forward to literally a few days later, she did it again. From that day forward she lost front seat privileges. 😢 I think Nick may have serious hearing issues lol. I've seen videos where he does exactly that, he will hop into someone's car and crrrrrank the volume way up. He probably trusts that people have their gains and everything set to where max volume wouldn't hurt anything, but it's the polite thing to at least ask.

 

Got once into situation with Volume knob,.... We listened to a system with a friend (Im a 20+ years emma judge, he is long time competitor and he was quite familiar with the system we were listened it to) and there comes system owner and remind us that we should not excede volume of -20 on his ODR,...at the time he said that, we were already to +5 hahahahahah but barely reached 85dB doing that...There was more option that we drain battery with those A class amps than to damage anything in a system....was a funny experience

I sometimes leave folks that I know alone in my car with their music selection and they can set volume for themselves, but I explain them before what is the Volume limit and that they should listen with their ears and not with their fingers...so far, absolutely no bad experiences since system is capable to get quite loud and usually it is too loud for them so nobody excersizes with volume knob too much 😆

 

Doing some last-minute preparations and sorting out what songs I want to add to my demo playlist. Looking forward to picking competitors brains and hearing some great systems.

 

Great first day. My ears took a beating from all the demos I got. BTBT's pillars look phenomenal in person. Haven't had a chance to listen to the Mercedes that Pete is demoing, I think I overheard someone saying it's not Pete's car which is confusing. Regardless every time I walked by someone was in there. Tomorrow I am just going to stand there until he lets me in . Lots of beautiful builds here. The blue BMW by the front is stunning, I saw the accuton tweeters they are the only ones of their kind that I know of at finals. Marc's challenger is absolutely stunning. The attention to detail in the engraving and hydro-dipped amp cover are nuts. Looking forward to day 2.

 

Peter S own Mercedes S class and he didnt ship it to US, that Merc he demoed was old Mercedes CE 300. This is his power diagram