The SoundQ Garage
Tech talk for the DIY car audio enthusiast that care about sound quality
The SoundQ Garage
Amplify Your Knowledge, Not Just Your Bass! Ep. 3 with Luke Ouellet
Dive into the fundamentals of sound quality car audio with Luke Ouellet, founder of RW Soundworks and builder of award-winning competition vehicles. Luke's refreshingly honest approach cuts through industry myths to reveal what truly matters when creating exceptional car audio systems.
From his recent success at SVR to his philosophy on vehicle selection, Luke shares insights that will transform how you think about car audio. "I focus on the core values and pieces I'll never compromise in a sound quality build," he explains, highlighting why proper installation trumps fancy equipment every time.
The conversation explores critical but often overlooked aspects of SQ builds. Luke emphasizes that speaker placement is paramount: "Physics are physics—a $50 speaker in the correct location will sound a million times better than expensive speakers in poor locations." He debunks the myth that premium cables make a significant difference while stressing the dramatic impact of proper sound treatment, which can reduce audible distortion more than any piece of equipment ever will.
For those seeking professional installation, Luke offers valuable advice on identifying trustworthy experts. "When they have to repeatedly tell you their resume during the sales process, it's usually a big red flag," he warns, suggesting instead to look for genuine communication and strong word-of-mouth reputation.
Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or planning to hire a professional, this episode provides actionable wisdom to guide your sound quality journey. Luke's parting advice? "Stop and read. Understand audio as a fundamental piece before making decisions." Your ears—and wallet—will thank you.
good day everybody. This is ed at the SoundQ Garage. We're on episode three right now. Today's theme is I don't even know how. Let's see what it takes to build a sound quality SQ car. My guest today is Luke Owlett. I hope I got his last name right.
Speaker 2:He's one of the most Not too most shabby not too shabby.
Speaker 1:How's it? How do, how do you say it?
Speaker 2:luke owlett, it's uh well, what is the french canadian pronunciation? But olet is totally like. To me that's just as normal as hearing wallet um the w is silent and invisible, exactly so.
Speaker 1:Anyway, luke is one of the most respected voices in the SoundCube world. He's the founder of RW Soundworks, he's built a number of competition level SoundCube cars which, by the way, have won plenty of SoundCube competitions and he runs one of the most respected events in the scene. Why don't you introduce yourself, luke?
Speaker 2:I appreciate it. Ed, thank you for having me first of all Been enjoying the first couple of episodes with both Ryan and Mike. Thank you. I think it's a good little more of a not a surface-level conversation. Like I find a lot of podcasts, this is a nice deep dive into some of the nuance. But anyways, I digress.
Speaker 2:I'm Luke Ouellette, from up in Maine, so in a very, very what used to be a very quiet corner of sound quality and in the SQ world I am very young. I've only been kind of doing this since late 2021 because my truck didn't ship with the audio system that I was hoping it to when we bought it new, and then the rest was easily spent thousands of hours, whether it's researching or working physically tuning, learning over the past four years. This hobby is an amazing passion of mine. I really, really, really enjoy all the multifaceted parts of what car audio is. To me, the most important thing has always been about the music, but how we get to enjoy that and the path to get there has been something that I've really, really, really enjoyed. So I've taken that knowledge, tried to digest it and turned it into a little bit of a side business, which is what you introduced earlier as RW Soundworks, where it's an ebb and flow. As a side hustle I kind of turn it off, turn it on as I have kind of availability with my day job. But what RW Soundworks is is I'm a niche high-end installation called myself a shop, I guess, but it's a one-man band that I try to only do a few select projects a year, produce them at a very high level.
Speaker 2:My fabrication skills are evolving, so I'm not the most flashy build but in terms of what the fundamentals which is, I think, really what we're going to dive into today, I focus on kind of some of the core values and some of the real pieces that I will never compromise in a sound quality build. That may be contrary to what most people either price their builds at or maybe don't focus on. If you're a DIYer, they may not be thinking about it as heavily as they should be or thinking too much in some other places. So I try to strike kind of cut through a lot of the BS and focus on really the simple aspects of car audio and using a, a priority system to build cars with, and so far I think my truck has always been my test bench, but I've been able to build a couple of other cars that have done very, very well and the customers are, most importantly, really happy with how they're enjoying it.
Speaker 2:And then we got a huge one in the works right now. That has been kind of going around and we can dive into that a little bit later because it applies to, I think, a lot of the aspects of what we're going to talk about. But we got a huge Jeep sound quality build. That is probably, to me, the most insane build active right now and should be pretty crazy when it's done. But that's me sort of in a very big nutshell.
Speaker 1:But that's me sort of in a very big nutshell. So yeah, I think I've seen some pictures floating around on the interwebs but truthfully, luke is being very, very, very modest because I've seen the level of workmanship that he does and it's chef's kiss, I mean it's thank you Very, very.
Speaker 1:The man is a stickler for details and he does some incredible work. Uh, your buddy there with the GTI. I saw the progression of that. I've seen the progression of your truck and I've seen some of the stuff that you've done with um. I don't know his first name but nemesis. I know you helped him build the box, justin justin is his first name yep yeah and uh, yeah, your, your, your build is top notch. You're right up there with the big guys, so don't, uh, don't be too modest I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:I think it's been really this past kind of year, year and a half, or my confidence as a resource for other people, a resource that actually do work. Then it's felt good to kind of feel that momentum build inside of myself and a lot of it has come down to the people I've surrounded myself with. I think that's like such an important part of what the learning experience is. I think I've been able to be really fortunate to work alongside and learn and become friends with some of the best names in car audio and the. I think it's short. I've been able to take shortcuts in terms of my progression in the learning experience, being like people I'm talking about like Nick Apicella, miguel Rios, matt Kim, people like Ryan who are like Nick Apicella, miguel Rios, matt Kim, people like Ryan who are like the epitome of the DIY side and then even leaning on some of the bigger old school names Brian Mitchells, the Mark Brunos these folks that have either been around the scene for a long time and then some of the judges in the competition scene that are really good about embracing people who are trying to lean into this hobby on a real serious level, have been really great teachers and I think that in those relationships that I've had have been truly what has allowed me to accelerate, I think, to the point where I'm at now in terms of understanding car audio.
Speaker 2:I think the physics and the audio side is still my weakest point of understanding the true theory, but I think that comes through experience and building cars and listening to what your ears are telling you and then you get to make more informed decisions based on some of those experiences. But I would still say that sometimes when I talk to Nick and he explains to me certain things on the scientific level go, okay, I'm a baby still when it comes to that stuff and I have so much to learn, uh, but I still feel that I'm I'm really well rounded in terms of my understanding. Is that? Um? Because I think install is really uh is one of the most difficult parts for people to to comprehend um and how important it is.
Speaker 2:What goes into in the installation of a great system and the insight that it provides on the decisions you make with your builds is something that it's why I think diy is. Not everybody should do it, but I think if you have the time and the resources and you want to try it. I think it makes you understand this hobby on a completely different level and it also makes you really appreciate if you are deciding to have somebody else build your car, how you're looking at them when they're talking to you, how you grade their work, because sometimes maybe not the most showy build, when you peel the panels back and you start to really look to me, the stuff you see is mostly fluff. It's what's behind the panels, what went into the decision, the locations, it's all the stuff you can't see. Uh, that is just as important, if not, it is more important. I'll say it's more important than what you see visually.
Speaker 1:uh, I think 100. Yeah, especially what a lot of people don't understand that somebody who does installs at your level. It's like take a bowl, take a salad bowl, and you're going to mix in part installer, part upholster, part woodworker, part electrician uh, you know what, what else? Part problem solver uh, part acoustic expert. You know, you mix it all up and you got yourself a part acoustic expert. You mix it all up and you got yourself a SQ type installer. Because it's not just you can go to some shops where they got great fabricators and great installers, but they don't know how to tune or they don't know how to problem solve, or they don't know how to do sound deadening correctly. So when you have somebody like yourself who is well-rounded and knows how to do all those things correctly, that's, you know, that's like the swiss army knife of sq installers, wouldn't you say?
Speaker 2:I totally agree and I think that exactly how you just unloaded and unpackaged the skill set that you need to do car audio Well, um is. I work, so I grew up around commercial construction my entire life, so I've been watching buildings get put together in varying sizes everything from $50,000 to 45, $50 million projects in my life and all those and I've like honestly, usually the smaller, like sub-million dollar projects can be generally more complicated and more difficult than the huge ones. There's a certain there's breaking points and tipping points for everything, but my point being is that it's general contracting, certainly in the planning mindset, and more of a consideration like how I approach projects, because I understand that SQ is the sum of a bunch of little parts coming together correctly and that's the same thing as building construction is that it's only as good as the weakest link. Building construction is that it's only as good as the weakest link, and in building construction it may take a little bit sometimes for that weakest link to show its face. I think the same thing is true in car audio.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's glaringly obvious that there's an issue in some pieces, but a lot of good building projects don't really start to show their value sometimes until they have time and experience and age and that's where I think you start to separate some of these systems that were built correctly the first time. People like to me. I will not compromise on how long it really is going to take and I still undervalue dramatically how much hours I put into a build. But I won't compromise on kind of this minimum if we're going to go to like the Jeep is an extreme example, but regardless, if I think it's going to take 25 hours to build a front sub enclosure, because that's how I build it and I'm not going to compromise on how I build it because one I don't want to call back about it. The best customer is the one you don't hear from again until a few years.
Speaker 2:Because you're losing money if you think about it Exactly. And the other side of it is I want the customer to get really good value out of their money. They don't have to think that they're fighting some battle of time versus production. And that's why I think I'll never do this full time, because the way that I treat SQ is a true passion of mine and I try to take on clients that have kind of similar passion for music and that usually allows a much more conducive and understanding relationship.
Speaker 2:When it comes to kind of quoting and allowing time to do these projects, or hey, we may not build everything at once, but we start to okay over the next. The like the golf r format is the perfect example of taking stepping stones, like once we kind of turned a corner with that build and I started to understand where we were going. At the end of it it's like, okay, we're going to take these incremental steps, never take a step backwards, but we're only going to take so many steps forward at a time where the jeep is like, okay, we're going to just take the whole leap right at once and but you still are taking all the same steps in the process. And to me that I'm not like if I made this my full-time job and I made this my sole source of income, I think I would treat it very differently and I would view it as a different lens.
Speaker 2:Um, and I don't want to do that because it's just not not what I intended this to be like. I'll probably I don't think I'll do install for like the next 10 years. I may, depending on who and I maybe something I only do once a year with one car, which I'm totally okay with. Um, I'll always be around the hobby for the rest of my life. I know that, but it'll be. It's something that is is a passion of mine and I want it to remain that way so, in other words, you're very selective with your, with basically the jobs that you take on.
Speaker 1:But one of the things that that thought just went in and out of my head. I was going to say it'll come back to me, we'll edit that one out, but let's see. So, anyhow, let's move on. And so know that you, uh, you just went to sbr, right, and you cleaned house out there I wish I could say I completely cleaned house.
Speaker 2:I do think that it comes back to that point of being well-rounded. When I look at the field, um, I think there's a couple of other cars like I think you got to put obviously, obviously Mark Bruno's Challenger as being probably the heaviest hitter that's been in the car audio scene in the past couple of years. It's won SVR the past two years and won Aggieland this year. I finally got to listen to it at SVR. I think you have that car that is just extremely well-rounded, generally, does very well across the board, extremely well-rounded, generally does very well across the board and it doesn't matter what organization you throw at it or if you put it in a money round where there are no rules, that car is exceptional. And then you have some other cars that do tremendously well in a money round situation but maybe not in the orgs or they can be a little more streaky in the organizations and and that's where I think my truck is does very well, as I think, like wayne baron had a similar performance, scott smith and then myself, for kind of the standouts in my, in my brain, where I saw um, good consistency and I think that's a testament to definitely tuning and because I think tonality is such an important thing. I think technicality is obviously, especially in competition. Your car being technically correct is important, but I think tonally is even more important. So to me I think that's where Miguel and I jive really, really closely is in our preference for tonality and what that generally translates to in a competition world Seems to fit really well, kind of almost across the board.
Speaker 2:I think Emma is probably the toughest organization across the board. I think Emma is probably the toughest organization. It really has its own kind of set of music and tonality preferences that I've never been the guy to be like. I got to tune for this org, I got to tune for this judge, tune for this tune for this. Emma's the only one I'm actually considering taking that different approach to, because I've always been like okay, this is my truck is my truck and you're going to get what you get and this is how I like it, this is how I listen to it and it's going to score where it's going to score. But I think that I'm trying to realize and understand the true ceiling of my truck in the comp world before it goes away, probably in a couple years. So I'm trying to play that.
Speaker 2:It's called the game. You got to play the game a little bit in competition and understand, um, your environment and who's who's listening to your vehicle, how they're listening to it, what they're listening for, and you, almost you got to tailor that a little bit, I think to to squeak in that like that top five percent. I think I'm on the cusp of that. My truck does very well for its platform. But in order to try to challenge the best vehicles, you got to really hone in and like you're talking like splitting hairs in a lot of these places, but when you're with a good judge that's listened to hundreds or thousands of cars in their life, they're going to pick up on those nuances. So because generally people are usually bringing pretty good cars to competitions, um, so you got to differentiate yourself with these small details.
Speaker 2:But I think the truck at SVR did really well, gave plenty of demos. It was really flattering to have judges that were not judging my car want to come, get some demos and get some great feedback. And the feedback was very consistent, which is I take some I'm humbled a little bit by that or like I take a little bit of like solace, and that is that getting consistent feedback means that I was seating people correctly and that my car is doing things consistently, even if it's consistently wrong. Um, there's things that I think that's a good thing because, like, sometimes, when, like people can go to their first show and their like feedback is a little bit all over the place, they don't really know what to do with it and understand it, and sometimes they get turned off by that process. And especially at svr where, like, like I ran probably 13 judges or 14 judges throughout the weekend through my truck.
Speaker 2:So trying like you got, to imagine that all these judges are doing 49 other cars throughout the weekend and so they're they're exhausted and trying to get like verbal feedback is difficult, um, and you can't blame the judges for that. It's just literally it's a time efficiency thing that you have to keep up with the pace. But getting consistent feedback was very comforting for me. That it's like okay, I can take action based on that feedback, which is something that's good. That I'm like okay, I got to hone this a little bit, hone that a little bit, and then it's not like hey, the truck is doing this thing way off and I heard this, and then you're like, okay, well, is my install way off or is the tune way off? It's like, no, this is this little thing. This little thing, this little thing, fix them. Come back and you'll gain five points. And then okay, now I'm flirting with top five instead of top ten, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, basically you're swimming with the big sharks there at SVR, so you've got to give yourself a pat on the back for that, because the people that are competing at SVR so you got to give yourself a pat on the back for that, because the people that are competing at SVR.
Speaker 1:These aren't just, you know, first year or I mean, some are here and there, but normally these are people that are that. You know. They're vets in the industry and they've been basically honing their systems for quite a while and getting it better and better and better, and every year that they come back it's better than you know. If they consistently win, they're not just going to leave their car alone, they're going to polish it even more for the next season, because they know that people like you and other competitors that are coming up in the SQ competition world are also nipping at their heels, and you're also polishing your truck and you're getting your system more and more dialed in, so they have to dial theirs in even better than what they even had. So to compete with these guys, it's not, it's no small feat this.
Speaker 2:This this year was. So this is my third svr um and I placed highest. In my first svr I got 10th and which way which, looking back at it, was like insane to me. I think about it and because like I uh, last year I don't think I came, it was kind of a mixed bag of a tune I didn't know, miguel Nick was in Switzerland so, and my tuning skills were definitely a little firing from the hip in terms of process and I wasn't able to trust my ears nearly as much as I do now, and so I didn't place nearly as well as where I thought. And then this year I was kind of on the fence with svr because I was building the jeep and trying to balance day job and and the amount of hours it takes to build the jeep and taking basically a week off to go to svr um, and but I'm like like I pushed through the competition aside.
Speaker 2:Svr is just seeing. It to me is always about the people and it's the one time I get to see everybody that I interact with literally as much as or more so than my own family, that I get to finally see them interact with them. We all listen to cars and we give each other shit. For the competition side of it, it's kind of a secondary objective. Some people definitely take it more serious than others and that's totally fine. But for me, I'm going there to, to, to meet and hang out with the people that uh have the same crazy passion as I do and this is, to me, svr is the mecca of that.
Speaker 2:Um, from both the level of car like this year to me was stacked. It was like if you were placing top 25 in this group, it is highly respectable, not saying like placing lower than that isn't. But when I look at the cars, they are like your pick any car in the top 25 and they are a top two, three, four car in in their region in the us, uh, or their cars that are like hyper at the top at every show that they go. I think, besides a handful of cars, the brian gill, jeff hall, a couple of these cars that are always in the competition mix and always in the upper uh levels, uh, and we weren't. We didn't have miguel either, um, but he's got something special coming that will certainly shake up the world.
Speaker 1:Miguel's got something cooking, huh.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Aside from those three, he's Mazda. Right, he's got a Mazda, or is he building something new?
Speaker 2:He's building something new. He's introduced it on his channel. People go check out his YouTube channel waveform tuning You'll see what he's got going on. He's got a model Y. He's got some speaker company that begins with an a and ends in tons going into it.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I think he got a little excited last time he tuned my truck and we we did some stress testing, um, and yeah, he, that thing from just a platform standpoint, like, take away like his capacity as a tutor, uh, russ is doing the install as an installer. And you just look at that platform, the Tesla model Y, objectively it's good, it's like, if we're like, to me, if it's the epitome, it's probably the best SQ platform that you're buying today. Um, with the exception of kind of what the dodge challenger is, that's the only thing that kind of rivals it because of just the shape and depth of those, of that cabin. But the model y from, um, oem locations, uh, native sound treatment, like all these pieces. That car is so good and and, um, yeah, we should. That's maybe a little segue of how I look at cars if I were to choose one just from a pure platform standpoint. Uh, the model y really is there, but when he comes next year it'll be svr will be even crazier.
Speaker 2:But this year was stacked. So like me getting 12th in the money round, I was totally happy and okay with like if I place two points higher, I'm in seventh. I place four points higher, I'm in fifth or something like that. Um, so you got to think about like how tight that spread is from like 15th to third is like six points or something like that, or five and a half points. It was like crazy, crazy tight. Like you get a couple good scores from judges, you, you were leapfrogging way up and so I think that's a good testament to like how strong SVR is as a field overall and good judging. So I thought the event was super smooth. If you guys have never been to it, if you're within 15 hours of wheeling West Virginia, go to that event. It is the best SQ event to me In terms of the pure SQ. You want to listen to the best cars, biggest saturation. Svr is the best environment to experience that and I highly suggest that if you're into this hobby, at least attend that event once.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been dying to go Ever since I heard of it years ago. I've been wanting to go, even just as a spectator. I'm not a big competitor. I used to compete back in the day, not that I'm against it now. I think competing is really good, even if you're not a competitor. It's not bad to compete in a, in a competition here and there, because the judges will give you feedback and they're gonna give you a lot of constructive criticism on what you should do.
Speaker 1:Um, at the last event for hvr that mike had, uh, ryan convinced me to compete. I didn't want to compete. I was like, nah, I don't want to. I didn't want to compete. I was like, nah, I don't want to compete, I don't want to compete. And at the same time I was like, man, my cars. I didn't think my car was competition worthy. And Ryan's like, yes, it is, yes, it is. And he's like you got to compete. And I was like, okay, I'm going to compete.
Speaker 1:And I knew it wasn't up in my to my ears, cause I've heard really good sounding cars, cars I knew there was something missing. Well, there was something missing, because miguel, nick and kevin gave me a lot of pointers and when I came back home, I went in there and I did exactly what they you know, because all the feedback was consistent and I could tell okay, so there's, there's a theme going on here, let me tweak here and tweak a little there and tweak a little here. Boom Made a huge difference. So I didn't go in there to compete and be upset because I lost or whatnot. I didn't look at it that way. Once I got that feedback and I was like wow, competing is not just for the sport alone.
Speaker 1:It's also a really good way to get that feedback. And I was like wow, competing is not just for the sport alone. It's also really good way to get that feedback from those judges, because a lot of people are going to get in your car. You know people at the get-togethers and at the competition. They're going to get in your car. They might not have the heart to tell you what's wrong with your system. You know they're going to be like yeah, it, it sounds good.
Speaker 2:That's 95% of people. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not going to tell you, man, you know you got too much base or it's too, you know it's, it's, the basis is in the back. I can, you know, I can locate the subwoofer. They're not going to, they're going to say, yeah, it sounds good, you know. And and then the people, and then some people don't have the technical know-how, like the judges, to tell you, like Miguel, yeah, you're a little high at 8,000 hertz. It's like how do you know that? Because his ears are well-tuned machines, you know he's a tuner. For those of you that don't, know, Miguel, what is it?
Speaker 2:total tuning no, he's going to slap you when he hears that.
Speaker 1:I'll edit that out, Miguel.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, it's a way for way for tuning. Okay, yeah, I'm yeah, because I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't use tuners, I use dirac, I cheat yeah, so but um, sorry, miguel, waveform tuning for those of you that are wondering. But yeah, miguel, you know he's like yeah, you're, you're, you're, you're hot around 8,000 Hertz, 16,000 Hertz, it's like. I didn't know that. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like I knew I was hot somewhere, but I didn't know exactly what frequency and a judge can tell you that, like crazy, like that, like I, their ears are uh and Howard, uh, I trust a from askew or like people that can really really identify specific issues. Uh, that's a gift like to me. Oh, because, like you're, you're, it's so refreshing to hear how you viewed competition. Um, which is almost like we. We have mine coming up here in Maine, which is exactly what I want it to be. It's exactly what HVR is about.
Speaker 2:It is not like the competition and who places what is a very secondary piece to how HVR was kind of built and structured. Because you kind of have this money around where everybody gets to go against everybody, because you kind of have this money around where everybody gets to go against everybody, but we separate kind of what we would consider pro or elite people that have been around for a long time and folks that are new to it and that go into the amateur division, and it's specifically targeted around having a little bit of fun in the competition. But it's exactly what you're getting to. Is that feedback? Is that? That is the number one experience we want people to come away with, and this year at hvr, the weather was probably our biggest killer, because it was literally torrential downpours for what like eight hours of the day.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I thought no zark was gonna swing by and pick us up because that was, uh, that was. I've never seen it rain that much, and in one day it was as it would let up. For about a minute we'd get all happy, we're like, oh, it wasn't that bad, and then it would start monsooning all over again.
Speaker 2:It was crazy yeah, but it was like the point I was making with that was more of the. It hampered the ability. I think the judges still tried to do their absolute best at spending time with each competitor to give them that verbal feedback as they came out of the car, because sometimes reading a judge's handwriting or hey, you don't look at score sheets until three or four days later and you're HBR is like we set up a certain amount of cars to allow to make sure 15 to 20 minutes per judge per car and allowing them time to genuinely listen, which is, as a judge, is not at all five to seven minute experience generally and then having a good five, seven minutes with the competitor to talk with them and give them real actionable feedback so they can make their systems better. And I think HVR is just kind of doing a really good job of helping the local area of people, because usually the folks in the amateur division are generally folks that live closer, that aren't traveling to the big shows division are generally folks that live closer, that aren't traveling to the big shows.
Speaker 2:Not always, true, but but I think it's.
Speaker 2:It's improving the region as a whole.
Speaker 2:It's saturating the the region with better sounding cars, which is good for the hobby, it's good for growth of understanding what good cars should sound like, and I think that's exactly what mike set out to do and I think it's really nailing that on the head and I hope that we continue that uh, going forward and make it even bigger as we can to to to have people kind of travel up here, uh as a true destination show, like like the svrs and and the aggies and these kind of real notable shows who want hvr to be kind of that, that pinnacle in the northeast for for folks to come um and and have a good time and introduce people to competition, uh at a very approachable way.
Speaker 2:Uh, whereas, like svr, I think you kind of got to go on with a completely different mindset than you do at a show like hvr, where people are really not that people aren't willing to help you. At svr, uh, there's just so much going on comparatively that hvr is designed to like introduce people to competition even though it's a big show, like we want people to come back again and enjoy it and and or approach it like you do is where, hey, uh, I don't know how I feel about my car, but like I'm not, I don't care where it places, but having somebody tell me how to make it better is super valuable.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's priceless it's priceless that that alone is worth the cost of entry. You know, whatever the cost is to compete, it doesn't matter if you come in 10th place. You get that. You get that feedback. Now you can make your, your car a lot better right now. Those few tweaks that I did, I did exactly what. You know what they, what they told me to do, and the car sounds literally like like 50 better like yeah, it's night and day.
Speaker 1:It was like, oh wow, that made a huge difference. But speaking of events, you got an event coming up soon too, right, can you? Tell people about that, Maybe share some links or websites or social media yeah best thing to do is go onto my social media.
Speaker 2:So I'm rwsoundworks, the letters R-W and then the word soundworks, all one word lowercase. You can find me on YouTube with that. Instagram is a great place. Facebook best thing to me is to is go to my business page, the rwsoundworks on Instagram. There's a link right in my description. That's got links to all of my socials, but up at the top there's an event that I'm hosting up in Brunswick, maine, on August 9th, so next weekend.
Speaker 2:This is a little unusual for the time of year. Usually I've always done a spring and fall event, but we're doing the first competition. It's always been a meetup, only it is still a meetup for culture. Comp is a very optional experience, similar to kind of how I want HVR to approach. Feedback is how I want people to dip their toes in at this event. So we are hosting IASCA. It's a 3X show. We got Travis, who's the president of IASCA. He's actually flying from California and he's doing a family trip with his entire family here up on the East Coast and he's coming a family trip with his entire family here up on the East Coast and he's coming to judge the IASCA and it's going to be a 3X show which is pretty usually reserved for huge shows, but he wants people to come from the Northeast get your points. It's a good time if you're thinking about going to finals and you're in the area. But again, travis is a great judge. He's experienced and he wants to get feedback and he wants to see the area and see what kind of cars that the Northeast are offering. So he's coming to do that. Then we got Mike Buonato is going to be doing the MassCue judging.
Speaker 2:I doubt that I'll split it. I'm a MassCue judge as well, but I'm going to be focused on kind of running the event because I want people to. Usually we have anywhere from I don't know we've seen it up to almost 40 cars one spring, but we're usually floating in 20 to 40 cars. And yeah, August 9th we're going to have that comp, but we also do it as a meetup. So just come and hang out. Usually I get a bunch of food, whether it's like we got a couple of really good local pizza parlors. Then I go over to Wild Oats and I get some really nice sides from there and give you guys breakfast and coffee and stuff like that and try to make it kind of a comfortable environment for people to want to hang out all day. We're fortunate to have a warehouse so we can stay out of the sun especially. It's gonna be august, uh, it's gonna be hot, but uh. So we have a good place to pull cars in to do judging, a good place to stand around so we don't get too beat up, but we also have a nice parking lot. We're tucked away from everybody. So I think that next year I won't do it in August, but I hope to keep. We'll see how the comp does.
Speaker 2:If the comp isn't as successful as I want, we'll go right back up to meetups and I think to me it it's still uh, I love seeing people come. We had Chris Pierce come from Ohio just to come to my meetup last fall. Like I don't know 16 hours or something he drove to get here at Carson, come from Pennsylvania with this Porsche at the time. Um, it was really.
Speaker 2:It's really cool to see people like come treat your meetup and I think, like Ian, consistency and people desire to go to their meetups. They'll travel literally across the country to go to them because of that great meetup culture and I think that I think we have that up in the northeast is like. I think it's more the timing is key. I love doing it as a spring event because I think having the like late april show is gets people uh to like blow off the cobwebs from the winter and get their builds together in march and April and then and then we all come out of the gate really strong for the year in April and then sometimes we can hang out in the fall. But I think I'll probably next year switch it back to like a late April, early May show, cause I just I think it's a great time of the year for people to like kick off the year in a really good way up in the Northeast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is. It's people come out of hibernation and they just get that, that spring fever, and they want to. You know, like you said, dust off the cobwebs and start building their cars or start honing in. You know, dialing in their cars. But so one of the things that I wanted to ask you right, the show theme, the philosophy of building a sound cue car, there's like a two-part question is uh, when you look at a car as a blank canvas, uh, what are your first considerations when starting a build from scratch, what's what's really important in your eyes?
Speaker 2:so I think there is a, there's a correlation between car audio people and car people and I would say that in the venn diagram of those two populations there's a ton of overlap where I would I would say most of us car audio people are car people. Oh, definitely as a as a whole they kind of go hand in hand, exactly as I think there's as much modifications outside the audio.
Speaker 2:Well, there's more modifications outside the audio system in a car. So I think that before I even think about audio on a personal level and to a client uh, unless they are that outside of that common denominator of both being car audio and a car person and they're just car audio yeah, you can make some way bigger sacrifices in enjoying driving the car. Uh, like is the car? Uh like, is the car exciting to you visually? Do you? Do you enjoy being spending time in it? Uh, can you do long trips with it? I think to me, the first thing I look at is do I actually enjoy this vehicle? Am I in love with this vehicle? Um, like to me, like I've.
Speaker 2:I've owned trucks for the past 15 years. I came into this truck really as an exit strategy out of my old previous job If I were buying something new again. I'm not buying a truck as an SQ platform or as a car that I love, but I do enjoy the practicality of it and I think it's a great-looking truck from a visual standpoint. But I think everybody, when I have them, look at a vehicle. I think you need to really actually like the vehicle outside of the audio system. I think to me, you're not going to enjoy the experience as a whole unless you enjoy the sum of the parts of what you're driving.
Speaker 2:Like me, I want an Audi A6 all road because visually I think they're stunning.
Speaker 2:It's super practical for how I operate as a person in my life.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's an awesome platform for audio and so like checks, all those boxes, but audio is just a part of that. So I think when I look at kind of what's really important for me, I gotta love the car, uh, first and foremost, and then, uh, audio I do consider as a very heavy weighting factor in that, but I think to me is there at the core of it. You still need to really like the car, be proud of it, uh, enjoy it, um, and I think that's a, that's a relationship you need to have with your vehicle. If you're going to go to kind of the crazy levels of SQ that we are is I think you're making a commitment, because most of us here are not rotating through cars every year or two and investing tens of thousands of dollars in sound quality just to move on to the next vehicle over two years. Most of us that are plunging this deep into whether dollar value or hours invested are owning these vehicles a minimum of five years, so I think you really need to again enjoy the vehicle that you're in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that that that's definitely a good consideration, because if you're not enjoying the ride, you're not going to enjoy the music. You know, if you're in there and you're like man, this, this, this thing is bumpy or whatever, uncomfortable, I don't fit in this car really well. You know, if you're in there and you're like man, this thing is bumpy or whatever, uncomfortable, I don't fit in this car really well. You know, if you're tall or whatever you know stature, maybe you're a little husky, whatever the case may be, if you're not comfortable in the car, you know some. You know I got a buddy. He's a rather large fella. He's probably not going to enjoy riding around in a prius or a civic with a sound system and then he probably won't be able to enjoy it as much because his leg is blocking the speaker. You know he's a big guy where a guy like that may enjoy a pickup truck like yours and he's going to enjoy the music a lot more. So yeah, that's something to take into consideration.
Speaker 1:Is, you know what type of vehicle you have? Is this SQ friendly? Is the car a rattle trap? Is it quiet? Is it, you know, easy to build upon that foundation, because some cars don't lend well to SQ cars. Trust me, I've had some, some cars that are just rattle traps and no matter what, what. How much sound that anything, how much money and and you throw at them, they're just never going to be an sq car totally, and that's like superoo as a platform is.
Speaker 2:It's difficult, uh, it's one of those things that you probably are spending more in sound deadening than you are in the system itself, if you're approaching that platform correctly. Um, but, and then you go to a porsche or a volvo that uses completely different mounting systems for their door panels, uh, or whatever. An s-class mercedes that has basically mass loaded vinyl, uh, and different levels of foam that we will never, as sound quality installers, get better treatment than what those cars are coming from the factory with. And, yeah, there's certain advantages, certainly to where you're starting to target kind of importance when it comes to sound quality. So I think that if I'm, if I put my let's put my foil hat for sound quality and I look at a vehicle and, okay, I like this vehicle, first thing I'm looking at is, uh, speaker locations, because I think to me, it's one of those things that physics or physics, or physics or physics, uh, you, you're, you're going to get better performance natively out of certain locations, especially like whatever, both relative to where you're sitting, uh, and how the cabin is shaped, and like. To me, that's why wagons, uh sedans, they have a lot of really good native advantages because of how generally the cabin is shaped, dash depthness uh, how far the dash and generally mid-ranges are from you, how far even door mounted mid-base may be in front of you. That create this like kind of native depth that a lot of cars struggle to get. Um, and so I look at locations as my number one factor. Obviously, if it's got native three-way locations, that's best case. Because I think to me, like my one of my prevailing like code of values, code of ethics when it comes to car audio is using the smallest and least amount of equipment as possible to get to your like, to get to your end game goal. So if I can do that with a three-way, a helix v8 and a custom box in the back and one monoblock, and that hits your goal and it blows your hair back. And we've only invested X amount of like whatever $5,000 of equipment. That is going to be my mantra.
Speaker 2:It is not about the big names, the big flashy stuff. To me there's certain cars like the Toyota Camry I know you and Ryan talked a lot about. There's a reason why it's super popular because the OEM locations are super friendly to work with. They're in great places. The car lends itself easily to modification. It sucks for integration. That's the only thing that Toyota's continually having issues with me as a installer for. But aside from that, like the platform just works and you don't have to fight it from an install, you don't have to create new locations because they're just there. Um, you got whatever 80 pillars, yeah, yeah, you can just replace over and over again and cut them up and try them up screw up and just buy another set, just buy a, just buy a case of them in case you true.
Speaker 1:What's funny is that what people don't, you know? I know some people are out there like I'm not buying a car based on the audio considerations. Well, you know what? This is the type of stuff that sq nerds do. Okay, we go to a dealership and we're not looking at a car and thinking, hey, what kind of miles per gallon does this get? How much leg you know? How much uh room does this have for my kids in the back, or whatever. No, we're looking at, you know, audio locations. We're looking at the dash. Is it going to reflect?
Speaker 1:I know it's crazy, but you're going to save a lot of money in your sq build because you're not fighting the car you know, I've seen cars where the car came without mids and I've seen them take off the windshield and make, you know, drill holes in the dash to make the car a three-way. Well, guess what? That's not cheap and that's not easy to do and make it look OEM. So that person is spending a lot of money when they could have just bought a car that had those locations already. You know they could have saved a boatload of money.
Speaker 2:You're describing my weekend because that's a little I'm pulling the. This is my weekend where I'm a little I'm pulling the. This is my weekend where I'm pulling the dash out of the jeep and drilling four inch holes in the corners to put mid-ranges there. Yeah, there you go, and yeah it's. And I budgeted 25 hours and a fair amount of sound treatment materials while I was in there. So like, yeah, you, to me it's I do. I do think people do not think about that as a dollars and cents transaction when they look at these vehicles Like I look at Volvo is an excellent OEM platform.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a three-way. It's got nice locations, plenty of room.
Speaker 2:And people are like, okay, maybe they were comparing this against a vehicle that I don't know Nissan, alt, ultima, honda like pick your poison of something that is not in the same. Call it, I don't. It's a 20 premium to buy the volvo, uh. And. But they know that when they're coming out of whatever vehicle they're buying, they're either building a system. So it's either they're investing a ton of sweat equity and building them a system themselves or they're reaching out to a shop and hopefully a shop that to me, is worth their while is charging the correct amount of hours for what it takes to do the build. You're going to have a bunch of value savings on the other side of it, choosing a vehicle, like you said, that you're not fighting the install with, that has great native locations, that has flexibility for mounting and putting amps and fitting equipment easily without major modifications. And when you start to take those considerations in, like those are like to me, when I look at the g build is like I treated the doors crazy but I didn't have to create a new mid-base location in this case. But like my truck's a great example I'm using my dash sort of mid-range OEM location. Besides that, I'm not using a single OEM location in that truck. The amount of freaking hours to do that is like insane and nobody in their right mind is generally paying for the amount of labor it takes to take a truck, which is a crap platform for sq. Generally. It has its advantages in some ways, but generally if you're trying to build an sq like elite level vehicle, you're not buying a truck and and there's there's plethora of reasons why that but OEM locations are. Besides, usually dashed corners are usually terrible in a truck and really not conducive to good SQ. Where a lot of these other vehicles Porsche is a good history I totally agree is that if you're in that W212 era of Mercedes vehicles with firewall-mounted mid-base, mid-range, high in the door, some have sail-mounted tweeters, some have door-mounted tweeters and you can basically do plug-and-play systems that are going to dump all over people who put tens of thousands of dollars in custom systems but never move the speaker in the vehicle uh, but they put focal utopias and thousands of dollars of an amp. But it's a crap location where you're never going to get successful sonic results from where somebody could put in a 50 speaker in in the correct location and it will sound a million times better because physics are physics and there's certain things that cars or cars locations are going to do much better than others. And yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 2:You have to look at that time value proposition when you're considering a vehicle.
Speaker 2:Is that, um, what is, what is this platform allowing you to do relative to what your goals are?
Speaker 2:Um, I think, like some people have the big, big competitions and you start to understand and build kind of top tier cars, uh, where you know how to set the bar. A lot of people don't even understand what good cars are kind of supposed to sound like, either because they've never heard a good car or they don't have reference outside of car audio of whether it's good home audio a really nice pair of good headphones that have reference outside of car audio, whether it's good home audio, a really nice pair of good headphones that are reference kind of level stuff where they can establish in their brain what is good. And so people tend to go to and listen and not understand how to set goals with their own vehicle. So that's why car audio to me is I have a very small group of people that I truly trust in here, because I think even at the installer level people don't understand that. What good cars and what they should sound like, how they should perform. Oh, that's right, I don't have.
Speaker 1:Yeah I've seen, you know, installers that were just top level installers but they didn't. They couldn't tune, they couldn't tune a fork, you know. So on with with. On that note, what do you think some people obsess over that really isn't important? I know some people obsess over wires or they obsess over sound deadening, they obsess over certain things. Some, some of these things it's okay to obsess over, but some of it is wasted money, wrong focus, trendy parts or whatever the forum boner is. You know, uh, what do you think? Give me some examples of, uh, things that people obsess over that that really aren't important I, I definitely think that people they obsess sometimes over so in this kind of way.
Speaker 2:So wire and RCA's will definitely put you there is that, I think, having like to me, those two things are about reliability and serviceability, things that last well, do well in a car audio environment in terms of humidity, vibration, swings in temperature. Like to me that when it comes to wire and RCAs, as long as it doesn't introduce noise and it's not affected by the other factors I just said.
Speaker 1:So you're saying that the triple virgin, oxygen-free OFC RCAs with the twisted ends aren't needed?
Speaker 2:the turn off. I know that people that or the audio quest carbon crazy talk like like we're spending five like six hundred dollars on a three meter interconnect for coaxial makes monster cable, monster cable, exactly exactly it's like in home audio. I think there's a more of a place for cables. I'm still a huge skeptic in that like regard too, but I think like power conditioning and things like that are way more of a thing in home audio and good quality equipment and cabling and interconnects do come into play more.
Speaker 2:Their car audio hell no yeah, I think reliability is more important than having a twisted pair of carbon fiber ofc rcas like there is so much noise rejection in modern day car audio equipment, even in like some of the 90s and 2000 stuff um, that like like the whole concept of having signal and power be in two different locations, on an amp rack or in a car.
Speaker 2:Those days are gone. I never lived in those days but I know that in modern-day shielding and noise rejection that exists in modern amp topology and how the DSP boards are built is a non-issue if you're using any sort of reputable piece of equipment. If you're using a Dayton 408 or an audio-controlled DSP, I can't help you. But if you're using any sort of reputable piece of equipment, if you're using a dayton 408 or an audio control dsp, I can't help you. But if you're staying out of those types of stuff where, like whatever helix arc, um, the new version of the, the minis and like stuff that has good quality components like that, that kind of stuff to me is people obsess over thinking that that's making a difference. It's not, uh at all, it's yeah.
Speaker 1:So they're wasting their time wasting money in in that when they could be using that to focus on something better, like sound treatment. That is something that's worth researching and stuff like that. What I know that you, uh, you sell resinex right and you're good friends with Nick and you're you're an official Resonix retailer. I am a I'm an affiliate.
Speaker 2:I like I, I dealer, like local to my region. I don't do like any like online sales or anything like that. I thought obviously you go go Nick's website directly. But yeah, I've been fortunate to be around Nick and, way beyond sound deadening, has been easily my biggest mentor from day one. Him and I are fellow Halo nerds, which is how we came to know each other. He's pretty much the reason why I'm in to ask you the way that I am.
Speaker 2:It was a question about it was on Dima. I saw him put a Helix director and a headliner of my truck and was like holy crap, that looks so good. And I messaged him and then he recognized my username from when I used to compete in halo. We used to play competitively as little 17, 18, 19, 20 year olds. And he calls me and he goes did you play halo 3? And I was like yeah, that's too funny. And literally after that like he, it was weird. He like kind of took me under his wing and like it took me like almost a year, year and a half, to like really translate like the truths that nick was telling me right out of the gate. But I was like no, I don't need a dsp uh I. I can just use ccf on the outside of my doors as sound treatment, peel and seal.
Speaker 1:Did you use some peel?
Speaker 2:and seal. No, I literally used like the quarter inch Dyna. It's not Dyna quartz, whatever the Dyna mat CCF. Just closed cell phone.
Speaker 1:Oh, I think it's called.
Speaker 2:Dyna liner, dyna liner, that's right, that's right and I literally slapped that on the outer skin of my metal doors. I used the one foot by one foot piece of Dyna Matte Extreme, the CLD, behind my Infinity 6x9.
Speaker 1:And I was like boom this is good, you had Infinity 6x9s.
Speaker 2:That was my first modification, like when my truck came into this, it was wow, I went I was like crutchfield uh, here's 1500, I want you to design me a system, yeah, and so it was an infinity six by nine, and a tweeter, uh, an audio control lc4 800, and then I put some Morel like hundred dollar coaxes in the back, uh, and yeah, I thought I was playing with fire at that point, um, and then, and then you're like I'm going to, I'm going to.
Speaker 2:SBR, yeah, basically. And I was like, and then I was like, okay, I wanted to like add a sub. And then I was like, okay, I went to look at how to add a sub. Like I had a system in high school but I was super about 17 years old, I had not touched car audio in like 13 or 14 years. So I'm like, okay, let me learn how to do this. So that's how I ended up on diy mobile audio and I found one of nick's posts about a similar truck he had did and that's like really what sparked my deep, deep, degenerate dive into sound quality. From there I was like learning from him.
Speaker 2:But sound treatment, as your sound deadening is, she would prefer me to refer it as uh. For seo purposes, uh is a um, highly, highly, highly misunderstood, undervalued, polarizing topic on sound quality. People do not spend enough money or time on it. If I could tell you that you could install this amp and you could lower the audible distortion out of your system by 10% to 15%, people would pay $100,000 for that car audio amp if it could make that sort of change in your system. But if you tell somebody that you got to spend three thousand dollars in sound deadening in their car. They look at you like you have nine heads, oh yeah and but, but that's the literal effect, if not more so than the percentage I I just stated. The difference in distortion and cleanliness of your sound and outside of audio, enjoying your vehicle driving down the road is and this is not a resonance promotion, this is a sound deadening concept. Promotion is that, um, I spend, I will not, on, like the jeep is probably a 300, three, I don't know, somewhere between 300 and 350 hour build. I will. I will have spent at least 100 of that on just sound deadening it. I didn't charge that much for sound deadening specifically, but it's just I don't know how to do it any other way, especially a build like that, where it's going to have tremendous amounts of power and output and expectation of like I want that card to get to obscene levels and be perfectly composed.
Speaker 2:Sound deadening is like, besides having really good quality equipment that can handle that level of power, um, sound deadening is the 100 other side of that coin. That, um, you need to focus on detail, detail, detail. It is not just slapping cld and fiber mat and calling it a day, it is the little pieces of tessa tape, it's the pieces of butyl rope, it's the um, the ccf, to decouple this panel from this, understanding what metal to metal, is plastic to metal, how do you decouple those properly? And it's the sum of the parts, just like sq as a whole. Sound deadening is is no different. Is that you need?
Speaker 2:And this is where, like nick, like people can say and understand how they want to treat resnix as a company and I know people get like treated for some reason as taboo at some points, which is just people generally that don't understand how sound deadening actually works. Um, that put that aside and just go look at Nick as a sound deadening resource, um, whether you're buying his product or not, going to his website, his buyer's guide, uh, and his new site that's coming that I've seen. It's going to make it even way easier to digest. There's so much good information about and this is free information about how to make your car significantly better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nick's got a lot of tips on his website. I've read some of them and, yeah, you're right, the information's on there and it could make your car better Anybody's car better. And Nick's, you're right, the information's on there and it could make your car better anybody's car better. And Nick's you know he's not charging for that information. He's not saying send me five bucks for these PDF forms or anything like that. It's all on his website and that says a lot about him. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Oh for sure I think Nick has a vested interest in making. He made a post about this just the other day that it was like social media, especially in car audio, is a blessing and a curse, because it is so easy to sound educated and so easy to copy and paste something you heard from somebody else and not actually understand what you're saying, something you heard from somebody else and not actually understand what you're saying. But nick is trying to like putting that information out there is trying to steer the industry and hobby as a whole into a more accurate understanding of a subject matter, and that is something that is really difficult these days. To feel like you're getting credible information with how much we get thrown at us daily, whether it's facebook or or forums. Trying to sift through what people are telling you and how to trust that information is incredibly difficult. It can be easily misleading. But I think that that's where, like nick, that's why nick and I have always got along, because it's just I've been able to kind of see, hear, feel his advice and really, whether it's cars that he's building or working alongside him, it's like I can understand. The proof is in the pudding and that's where I think I put a lot of credibility in Nick, and same with Matt Kim, same with Miguel, people that I've seen do this firsthand and produce the results. Is that that gives me the credibility?
Speaker 2:But it's really hard to understand that on social media, because you can have somebody putting out beautiful builds that could be again, again, the best fabricator in the world but have could be tone deaf when it comes to tuning or or they don't value sound deadening and as soon as you turn their system, uh, up to above 90 db, it falls apart. Uh, which is a huge majority of shop builds that I hear, yeah, and so, yeah, it's just, uh, it's. It's hard to sift through that information. So I think that, um, I always urge folks to take things with a grain of salt. Do your own research.
Speaker 2:I think it's why DIY or install is so important to do at least once, um, in some aspect of your car audio career, uh or tenure, and because it makes you understand and appreciate some of people who are just spewing just bullshit and people who are like, have done it, been in the trenches, they're speaking from experience when they're telling you something and again, that's like where we were talking about earlier. I feel like I've shortcut a lot of that poor wasted money. I've wasted plenty of money in this hobby, but I kind of got over that hump quickly to okay these people are good and I'm going to latch on to them and filter out everything else, because the results speak for themselves oh, definitely, because, like you said, there's, you know the internet pretty much.
Speaker 1:You know it's, it's, it's a free world there. So there, there, a lot of people regurgitate stuff that they've heard. You know, oh, these speakers sound this way and they never even heard them. But they heard somebody else say something on a Facebook group or on Dyma and they just regurgitate the same information and they've never even heard them. Or they say something about a certain dsp or a certain amplifier or certain you know, and it's like you know, have you been, have you been messed with that component? And they haven't. You know what I mean. But yet they're giving advice on something they they know nothing about or that they haven't even set their hands on. But that's the internet for you. You know what I mean. So sometimes you got to take, uh, what people say on the internet with a grain of salt and you actually got to trust your ears, you got to trust your eyes more.
Speaker 1:But speaking of trust, uh, with installer factor or the tuner factor right, finding a trustworthy installer, finding a trustworthy tuner factor? Right, finding a trustworthy installer or finding a trustworthy tuner what should people look for? What type of red flags to avoid Questions? A customer should ask that, like, good installer doesn't always equal good fabricator, and good fabricator doesn't always equal good installer. Why don't you tell people out there what what to look for? Because I know that you're a do-it-yourselfer that's how you started, but now people can actually pay you as an installer. I know you're kind of a boutique installer and you do limited amount of installs, but what should people look for when they're looking for a trustworthy installer, not just any installer?
Speaker 2:So I'll start how. It's a great question, because I think it is. It's as hard as deciphering internet sound quality advice is. It's just as difficult to decipher. Who am I going to hand over thousands of dollars to? To to build my SKU system To me? You put, you push aside audio for a second and you start to.
Speaker 2:I find that I think I'm a pretty good read of people from a character standpoint and, I think, getting some real honesty. It was really exactly how I ended up with the Jeep build in the first place. Chris, who I'm building the Jeep for, came to my meetup last year. I did not realize what he had invested into his build and I think he showed up with a certain expectation of, of coming to like blow people's socks off, and his build was not there. And so I met him for the first time and, um, he comes over to me and asks me to listen to his car and I listened to I don't know three or four songs, glaringly bad issues, and so we, we ended demo and I kind of look at him because I'm not the person anymore that goes, oh, sounds good like. I will just objectively ask people because some people like I can, can kind of read if I should ask this question or not is do you want me to be honest? And people usually know that that's generally something not great is coming on the other side of that comment. But I was really really honest with Chris about it because the fit and finish of his build was really really nice, but it just was so objectively incorrect from a tuning and resonance standpoint that when I, like a year later, found out how much he spent on it, I felt horrible for him because that was his experience in car audio spending globs of money on something that looked pretty good, that he thought was great, because the frame of reference for that shop was, yeah, this was good and they thought it was good when they delivered this product to chris, but it was dog shit, it was bad. It was like and and I told him straight up I was like this, this, this and this is wrong. And then I had not talked to Miguel. He went to Miguel right after Miguel listened to it and we literally said the same exact things to him and like fast forward, 10 months later, that blatant honesty was exactly like Miguel and Chris had started working a little bit together and Miguel and I got to do a little bit together and Miguel and I got to do a little bit of work on Miguel's car so he got to see my install experience firsthand. That same thing I had with Nick. I got to see the the firsthand how things actually would get put together. And then, a couple months later, chris was ready to do a build. He had been working with Miguel on some system design and Miguel put Chris and I together because she's from the Boston area and that's how I ended up with the Jeep build today.
Speaker 2:It was not like selling or like posting social media. It was this very, very honest conversation. So to me, spotting somebody who is being honest with you just from like how their body language is, their eye contact, they eye contact. I know some people are very good salesmen so it can be tough to spot that, but that's the first thing I look at is do I feel like this person is being truly genuine with me when it comes to the installer and what I'm looking for? If somebody who is rattling off tons of reasons if we get into some of these red flags, is starting to just justify whether it's we did this car, uh, or it's a brand name drop or it's a um x amount of dollar bill that I did for this person. When they have to tell you their resume during the sales process, it's usually a really big red flag to me. They're trying to distract you and trap you into trusting them, and sometimes they don't even know that they're doing that to you because they think they're still the cat's meow when it comes to building systems. But I don't. I like my work. If people want to go find it, they can. I think to me, the word of mouth is in the SQ world. If you're looking to do the types of builds I like to build these kind of one-off, really awesome bill like, like, awesome as a like a scale big, like we're going full bore with everything. The word of mouth um, advertising is the most important piece are are other people talking in that realm of builds? Are they having satisfactory experiences? Are their systems holding up? Uh, how was the feedback after? Uh, were they responsive? Uh, during, how is the communication?
Speaker 2:I think communication is a massive, massive thing in building these types of builds and I think it's one of my greatest strengths as an installer is my ability to communicate before and during the process. Um, because I want. I got nothing to hide about how I do my my installs. I'm trying not to give away everything that I do in terms of trade tips and tricks but, like, like I'm, if you want to see the inside of the the car when it's completely stripped and sound deadened, you're gonna see. Sure, I'll send you 25 photos a day. Uh, if that's what you'd like, or if it's something like hey look, I'm noticing this. I think we may need to shift our plan with this.
Speaker 2:People who are not willing to communicate openly with you. I know that is again very different as me as a kind of boutique, one-off installer, versus a shop that is trying to run a business and do production. That level of communication I can understand not being there there's only so many hours in a day but I still think that you should be able to clearly communicate with your customer based on their needs, and I think that just from those people that feel the need to justify why they should get the work are generally people that don't deserve it. Um, I think that it just if they're, if they're so desperate to get, to get your work, there's some other skeletons in the closet that are are going to show.
Speaker 2:Uh, like I said is you may not notice it day one, but then you start peeling things apart, or your car starts rattling apart because, okay, now I'm going to finally let it boogie and turn it up. And then, oh God, oh God, where's that rattle coming from? And then you begin to realize, wow, there were some significant corners cut in my build and I was not aware of that, and but it looks great. But everything behind the scenes was was rushed, uh, or there was not enough hours allocated to do the build correctly. And now you're in this really tough situation of do I go back to the same person and tell them to fix it? Do they even know how to fix it?
Speaker 2:Um, and then it's this perpetual cycle in car audio where so many shops again they, they lack this well-rounded approach.
Speaker 2:Um, or they've come up with this formula of how they do it and that's how they do it. Uh, the learning process has either stopped or greatly halted and now they're not willing to look at other shops of how they're doing things, or, um, or work with manufacturers to understand how their products are getting developed and how they can use them in a better way. And if you, if you, if you turn your brain off to the learning side of it. Um, that that to me will come out, I think, as you're getting these quotes and installs and if you're passionate about this. I think most people who are walking into getting a 10 or 20, 30, 40, 000 sq install have some realm of what it's about. And if you walk in and the and the shop is like starts telling you everything that no, don't do that, we do it this way. No, you don't do that, we do it this way, and just, and they start yelling at you that way, like they're not gonna yell at you, but it just some will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a shop owner in a good way like I can be, like I can understand nick being like okay, no, no, no, no. Like when somebody brings in whatever a lambo hurrican they probably haven't spent 5 000 hours on forums or doing it and understanding they're like hey, I saw this 20 000 utopia briefcase system, I want this in my car. And nick is going like no, that's, we're gonna put this in, that's better for the location and application. Yeah, like, that's like the rare situation, but you get the I don't. There. There's some again.
Speaker 1:This like feeling this desperation and justification of why you should get the work to me again, as always, in or out of car audio people who act like that, um, yeah, it's generally not going to lead to things there's shops out there that want to build your next system, but then there's shops out there, like you and nick, that want to build your next five cars. You know you, you want you to, you want the people to come back, you want them to send your family, you want them to send your kids. You know it just by word of mouth, because word of mouth travels fast. And, just using this as an an analogy, uh, car salesmen, you got cars, some slick car salesmen that you know they're trying to sell you your next car. But the trustworthy car salesman, they want to sell you your, your next five cars. You know so, the trustworthy car salesman, they don't even have to go after customers. They sit inside and customers come to them because you know, uh, he, the guy sending his, his, his coworkers, he's sending his daughter to him because they didn't get shafted by that guy. They didn't get. You know, uh, swindled, basically. Or when they told them, they promised them this but the end go, the end product was was not what they expected. It looks good on the outside but, like you said, when you peel things back, you take a door panel apart, or you or you look at the wiring and you see that was subpar and you paid all this money and they didn't really care about the small details that you know. That kind of leaves a sour taste in your mouth and you don't want to go back to that person.
Speaker 1:So then sometimes some people, like mike, said in the previous podcast he, he got a, his car built by a very reputable person uh, one of the top people in the us but he didn't get what he was expecting and he spent a lot of money and he was like you know, now that I'm, I've, uh, you know, gotten the means in his life at this point in his life to be able to afford you know his dream system, he didn't want to do it again because it's a lot of money, people pouring a lot of money and it's like they don't want to do it again to to possibly waste another large chunk of money, you know. So there's that trust and rapport that goes with this. But what advice do you have for, like, builders to do it yourself for and paying a pro? What advice would you give someone just starting out building an sq car? Like, how different is the approach for do-it-yourself versus someone hiring a shop? Is it possible to achieve great sound cue without spending a fortune to the second question.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I think there is sound quality and car audio as a whole is. Everybody has their own definition of diminishing returns.
Speaker 2:But generally there's a hugely steep curve in diminishing returns in car audio where you're either spending a baseline and I don't even necessarily mean in just actual dollar value. I think that there's a level of equipment, time, investment. Again, this kind of comes and you have to relate to how diminishing return and your goals, how do those align? Because if your goals are to be whatever, a top 10 competition car in the country, you are going to be so deep into diminishing returns you won't know what to do with your bank account because or the amount of time and, frankly, hundreds and hundreds of hours you're going to invest into getting there. That's your like the rarity in here you can spend fractions of that, that value and time, by just making some smart decisions.
Speaker 2:I think aligning, I think if you're going to get into this as a new DIYer, I think some of my greatest conversations I've had so I do most calls, unless somebody has like a really targeted thing that they already have I've had some people send me like four page info sheets that their agendas that they want to go through, which is honestly great. I appreciate that because we can kind of just checklist through a bunch of questions they're having. But some people just want to be like, hey, I got my car, where do I start? And I think it kind of goes a little bit against the grain of DIYers are doing your own research and spending money without seeing like physical return but a whatever. Doesn't matter who you're doing it with.
Speaker 2:There's plenty of people that do this Jeff does it, miguel does it, nick does it, I do it. Uh, there's definitely other people that do these kind of consulting services where it's just conversation and if you can get in a couple of those conversations and you're like this person's, like communicating with you well and like generally the people who are offering these consulting services that I know of in our industry are reliable People who have built several cars or they have tuned hundreds of cars. They've been around the hobby enough to inform people of what to do. In other words, they've already made the mistakes people.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's what Luke is truly saying.
Speaker 1:Luke've already made the mistakes. People, that's what luke is truly saying. Luke has already made the mistakes. He's already bought the infinities, the pulks, the uh the dynaliner, so he's giving you he and the other guys that are doing the consulting sage advice and that has exactly that that comes at a cost. So, yeah, you might gripe for a consulting session, but guess what? You're actually saving money, buddy yeah, exactly to me.
Speaker 2:That is like I've had from anybody folks that have experiences with install, uh, or they they're trying to target a specific issue in their vehicle. But I think me, if you're brand new to this and you want to get yourself kick-started in the right way, do one of those calls. Do a couple of those calls, like Nick does. He's super gentle the way that he structures it. You can spend $500 with him in consulting and he will literally credit. If you go to purchase something from him which, between all the Helix and MicroPrecision and his actual sound treatment products, it's easy to go justify buying something from his site to use in your build, and then he will credit you every penny back from the consultations into that purchase.
Speaker 1:Oh, there you go, so it's definitely worth it then Exactly ago, so it's definitely worth it.
Speaker 2:Then exactly, and you're getting like and the the again coming back to like. My own experiences in this hobby is that you're you. You get to not take baby steps in your progression. You're like you're taking these kind of large incremental steps forward in having success from the beginning.
Speaker 2:Uh, with a conversation like where somebody is not on a like again, there's credible people on Facebook and in the forums, but I will say that probably 95% of the population have never done it themselves or are an echo chamber from somebody else and where you're talking to these people. These are the 5% that are going to give you really like you said sage advice and save you a lot of mistakes in time. You learn really well from mistakes, don't get me wrong, but if you're walking into this and you're like, okay, I'm going to spend $2,500 and you're trying to build a budget system for $5,000, it's really easy to make a mistake that could cost you half your budget instantly. Uh, and buy an amp, set it up incorrectly, fry it, boom, there goes 30 of your budget because you thought you could do something that you couldn't. It's okay to not understand something, um where's that computer on the car?
Speaker 2:precisely it's like. Is is like, spend the 150 bucks or the 100 bucks to to have a conversation that is likely saving you thousands. Um, frankly, and and that's, I think, something that I would encourage people who are very new to this, or if they want to dive deep into a topic and they want to do this, I think that, um, people may view that as a transactional relationship.
Speaker 2:I, I think that you make it sound so like you make it sound so dirty I know I do, but it's like we I think we give out advice, plenty of places for people to absorb and we give ourselves, we give our all to this hobby.
Speaker 2:But I think if you I think it's only fair to, if you're going to get some of that kind of intimate knowledge, that, uh, I think people are entitled to, um, to get compensated for that, and I think that's completely fair and I think it honestly it puts a bigger value on the conversation. I think somebody who is investing the time to have that conversation is elevating it in their mind and they're making it more important and they're like really dialing into that conversation to get, it's like judge feedback. It's like, okay, this is. I don't get to do this often, so I'm really going to pay attention and really going to focus on what I'm getting out of this and I think if people kind of treat it that way I've never had somebody come out of the other side of the conversation be like, well, well, that was a giant waste of time. I very often have two or three follow-up calls with most people that I do it with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there you go. So they found some value in those phone calls or those text sessions with Luke. So, luke, we're going to wrap this up, but I want to say this was a great podcast, but I want to get some final thoughts from you. If, uh, if you could grab the younger version of yourself, the young buck luke, when he was about to hit click on the checkout box at crutchfield, uh, when he was buying those, those, uh infinities and that dynaliner, that quarter-inch thick Dynaliner that was going to just tame all the rattles in the vehicle that he was putting it in. What would you say to your past self with regards to building your first SQ car or truck?
Speaker 2:I would tell myself to stop and read um I think that put the mouse down it is very easy to get trapped in shiny uh words, speakers, things.
Speaker 2:Um, crutchfield is a great resource. Uh, I think it still has its place. But I think that if you're really passionate about music and listening to it as accurately as possible in a car environment, um, do your research, spend your time. It is way easier to to understand flipping through a book or using your mouse or thumb to scroll through not necessarily just like Facebook and forums like go read. Understand audio as a fundamental piece and it kind of makes you start to think for yourself.
Speaker 2:I think that I would have made a lot of decisions differently. I used to be trapped in the more expensive is more better part of SQ for the better part of 12 or 18 months, and that's a five-figure mistake in my life. And if I would have just stopped and read and begin to understand, take my goal and reverse engineer my goal into what steps I need to take to get there, and reverse engineer my goal into what steps I need to take to get there, I would have been such a stronger installer and DIYer had I just thought about it differently. And so, yeah, stop and read would be my advice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. I think I can speak for a lot of us that, yeah, we've made a lot of mistakes. We've learned from those mistakes. So it took a lot of trial and error to get here, but it also made us a lot more poorer to get to this point where you know you could give this advice now and you could save people a lot of aggravation, a lot of headache, but you can also save them a lot of money. So in the end it's, it's, it's worth it sometimes to go to a professional, to go to somebody to get a consultation, go to somebody to get a well planned sq system laid out, and, uh, I mean, you know, if you want to do it yourself, you're more than welcome. That that that's, that's fun too, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1:You know, you, you, you know, just get ready. Where that that could you know. We call it the rabbit hole. You're going to go down this rabbit hole where you're going to do a lot of trial and error. Not everybody gets it right. Some people get frustrated, people get lucky. It's a roll of the dice and they're like oh wow, this, this set of components that I picked out, turned out pretty good. Luke, thank you for being on the sq, the sound cue podcast. Uh, tell people one more time about your upcoming event I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:so first, thank you, ed, this was awesome. I like just looking down. We've talked for what? An hour and 45 minutes. Oh yeah, not surprising. But thank you again. But yes, so if you guys want to come up, find me on Instagram rwsoundworks. There's a link in my bio. There's an event in Brunswick, maine. It's called the Midcoast SQ Rally. It's on August 9th. Again, we're doing IASCA 3X and MassCue mobile audio sound quality, and then we're just having a great meetup where you throw me some money, I'll keep you fed and your belly full and your head full of music for the entire day. We start up at 8 am. We usually wrap around 6, 7 pm. A bunch of us usually go out to dinner, but again, rwsoundworks on Instagram, up in Maine, come find me, reach out to me.
Speaker 1:I'm here as a resource here and again. Thanks, ed for a great conversation. Thank you, luke. It's a wrap. Thank you, buddy. Everybody say bye to Luke. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.