The SoundQ Garage
Tech talk for the DIY car audio enthusiast that cares about sound quality
The SoundQ Garage
Hey Carson, Your Stereo Has A Nice Car!
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
A subwoofer sparks the obsession, but what happens when curiosity turns into craft and then into a career? Carson Steigerwalt is part of the newer generation of car audio enthusiasts who didn’t grow up in the traditional competition pipeline. He learns the hard way through early Jeep installs, bad noise issues, and the moment every beginner hits: realizing you don’t actually know what gain, crossover settings, or system design mean until something goes wrong.We trace the jump from chasing SPL loudness to pursuing real sound quality (SQ) and soundstage, including why a system can feel “night and day different” even before it’s fully dialed in. Then we get honest about what truly moves the needle in car audio: controlling resonance, building a solid install, and doing DSP tuning that locks in a center image instead of just boosting treble and calling it detail. Carson explains what remote tuning looks like in the real world, why it’s often the only option for people far from a trusted tuner, and how customer feedback can make or break the process.Finally, we go deep on his Porsche Macan build and the compromises that come with a daily-driven, OEM-looking competition car: reflections, enclosure rigidity, rattles that never end, and the constant chase for more stage width. If you care about SQ vs SPL, DSP tuning, and building a system that’s loud and accurate, you’ll leave with a clearer path forward. Subscribe, share this with a friend building their first system, and leave a review with your biggest tuning or install challenge.
Meet Carson And The Big Goal
SPEAKER_02So my next guest has a really unique story. He's part of the newer generation of car audio enthusiasts. He didn't grow up competing in Iaska or Mecca. He got into the hobby through YouTube, social media, and simply wanting better sound on his own vehicle. Just a few years, he went from installing his first system in a Jeep to becoming part of the Resonx team and building a sound cue Porsche McCann. Is it Porsche McCann or Makan?
SPEAKER_00McCann, I think.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. I call it McConn. It's kind of like Pecan versus Pecan. Yeah. So everybody, let's welcome Carson to the show. Uh, how do I pronounce your last name, Carson? I don't want to tear it up. Stegerwall. Stegerwall? Yep. Is that is that uh how you got the Steg audio? Yep. That's that's how that's awesome, man. So uh I wanted to go through your journey from hobbyist to working at Resin X, and uh um that's kind of why I wanted you on the podcast. Another reason I wanted you on the podcast is because you you you're not like the rest of us. Um there's a few of you guys, you Braden, and a few of you, you you young whippersnappers out here, because mostly this is like an older person's hobby. So um I think the the red episode would resonate with beginners and experience builders alike. It shows how quickly somebody can grow their passion and willing to learn. So um, how did you get into car audio?
First Subwoofer And Early Mistakes
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so back in 2020, one of my buddies had a sub in his car, and I thought it was the coolest thing. So that's kind of how it all started there with bass. I think that's kind of how it starts for everybody, right? You hear a subwoofer and you want it, and then you go out and buy one and put it into your car.
SPEAKER_02And I think that's how all of us started. Uh what got you interested in car owning in general? Was it just the bass? Was it, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, being a young teenager, I've always wanted to have bass in my car. I wanted it to be loud. I wanted people to hear me down the street. That's kind of what started it. That's funny.
SPEAKER_02What equipment did you start off with?
SPEAKER_00So in the beginning, uh, one of the guys at my work had some kicker 12s. I don't know the exact model. And I just purchased a 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Um, one of the guys at my work put it in for me, and that's kind of how it started. Um, and at that time, I I knew nothing. I didn't know what a crossover was, I didn't know what gain was, I knew nothing. So I had somebody put it in for me. There was a lot of issues, engine noise, putting in and out. So at that point, I realized that I had to learn how to do it myself, and I realized that there was a lot of things that were done wrong. So that's kind of where it first started.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I think that's kind of how the rabbit hole that we all go down, and you start getting like uh altered inner noise. And with me, it kind of started with I got in somebody's car, I realized how good like SQ could be. What got you uh started with the SQ path?
Chasing Loud SPL Then Discovering SQ
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I you know I built a few systems, I built one in that 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and that was pretty basic. It just had kicker speakers all around, you know, an amplifier for the door speakers and a subamp, no DSP. And then I moved to a 2001 Jeep Cherokee XJ and built a few systems in that, a simple one at first, and then I really went down that SPL route of wanting my car to be as loud as possible, which it was was pretty loud. And then I had I think I had eight def bounce mid-ranges in the doors up front for super tweeters. There was probably like 1500 watts up front for the mids and highs, and then I had three kicker comp Q12s in a ported box that was actually built by MB Enclosures. I don't know if you ever heard of him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. They make nice stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he uh he made the box, shipped it to me from Atlanta to PA, and uh yeah, that was that was a game changer. Definitely he definitely knows what he's doing when it comes to building boxes. It was so loud, and the subs, I mean, they weren't even moving. I put them on a salt, I think it was a 3K, salt 3k, tore that car apart. I mean, the back hatch was cracked, things were starting to fall apart in that car, but I was ever happy with how it sounded. So I was always trying to improve it. You know, you see how some of these guys tune cars. First thing was, you know, they put the microphone on the seat, well, like on the headrest. I was trying that out for a little bit, but I could never get the same measurement. I'd always put the microphone in there, and even like changing the microphone just slightly, the measurements were completely different. So I was like, I didn't really understand what was going on, and I knew it couldn't be right. Um, and then that's kind of when I stumbled upon one of Peter's videos. I was scrolling on YouTube for a long time, and one of the videos that I found was a video on I think it was about amplifiers. Do you need new amplifiers or what makes amplifier great? I forget what it was called exactly, but I found that, and I could just tell from his passion, the way he was talking, that he knew what he was talking about. And then I checked out his channel and I was kind of blown away. And this was right after I kind of just put a new system in that Jeep. Spent a ton of money on putting that all together, tons of time, and I think it didn't even last two weeks, and I pulled it all out.
SPEAKER_02That's a lot of effort, labor, labor, and money to just yank it out after a few weeks, huh?
SPEAKER_00Yep, that's just kind of how it is. I feel like in this hobby, I think a lot of people do that, especially in the beginning when you don't really know what you're doing.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, yeah. I think we've all made those mistakes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I I think in the beginning too, like I didn't really know much about SQ, obviously, but when I would see people with these small tweeters or these small drivers, I didn't even bet an eye. I didn't look at it or even draw interest into it because I didn't really think that there was I didn't think it was gonna be loud, I didn't think it was gonna sound good. I thought it was just like whatever. I want to put the loud the biggest speaker I can in my car, make it sound as loud as possible, it's still gonna sound good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's kind of wild too, because um I think we've all done that. We go from like rattling our trunks apart and then I don't know if uh if you had heard have you did you get to demo an SQ system before you went after you did the SPL and then went that route? Or you just no curious. I never heard one.
SPEAKER_00You never heard one? Nope, I never heard one. Peter's videos were convincing enough for me to go down that that rabbit hole and try it. What I ended up doing was I got I think it was a Zapco AP four channel amplifier, and I had the stag MSS3s, and I got some Moondorf tweeters, and I put stereo integrity six and a halves in the firewall in IB. I kept the same subwoofer setup on Assault 3K and the three kicker comp Q12s in that ported box. Um, and even without tuning it, it sounded significantly different. Yeah, it was it was really really quite the difference, and it was still pretty loud, too. I was still able to enjoy it at loud volumes, and obviously I had tons of headroom on the subs, so it was a firm for sure.
SPEAKER_02So it was kind of like a SQL setup, yeah, kind of.
SPEAKER_00The weak link that system was the mid-bass, just because obviously integrating six and a half to three 12-inch subwoofers and a ported enclosures, uh not super easy to do. You know, you cross them higher, and you know, you the system was able to get pretty loud. The stag MSS3s could take a ton of power. They were in smaller pods that had a lot of gain, a lot of headroom in there. And same with the kicks. I was really, really surprised with the difference with mid-base performance from going from the doors, basically not even really having mid-base drivers, to IB kicks. Sounded so much better. Um, and the Moondorf tweeters that I was using, they were the home version that they had, they were huge. Uh they could take like 100 watts or something. It wasn't like the ones that everyone's using now, those smaller ones. They were like the big AMTs, a ton of headroom.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've seen those before. They uh how in the world did you fit those?
SPEAKER_00Because those are it didn't it it didn't look great, and the pillars on that Jeep are quite small, so it was tricky, but I made it work and it sounded pretty good, I think, for what it was. Obviously, the car had a lot of limitations, which I found out later on. Who tuned it? Nick ended up tuning it. Oh, Nick
Social Media Growth And Helping Beginners
SPEAKER_00ended up tuning it.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I tuned it, and I was having like some weird reflection issues on the left side, and I joined Peter's Facebook group, and he messaged me because I kind of wrote a post like saying, like, hey, like what could be the issue here? And he recommended that I go to Nick to get it tuned, and he said he was only a few hours away. So I ended up booking that, drove down to to New York, and uh had Nick tune it, and he was pretty impressed with the system. There was definitely some issues with tuning, and uh, once he got it all squared away, I mean it sounded even better, and I was I was really, really happy with with those results. Nick's quite the tuner.
SPEAKER_02So you're three hours away from Nick, right? You said I'm about like two. It was like two, two and a half. So basically, I'm assuming you work remote for Nick?
SPEAKER_00Yep, so that that's awesome. Yeah, he he liked the system that I put in there, the the work that I did in the car, and then we kind of stayed in contact, and shortly after he kind of just randomly hit me up and was like, Hey, you want to work for me? And it's like, of course. And that's kind of how that started. I started making posts just kind of like for fun on social media, right before Nick hired me. I don't know, I liked my system, I thought it looked cool. I I just wanted to post about it, and it ended up taking off, and I didn't really expect that to happen. That kind of led me to get a different car and to build an even crazier SQ setup. So you got a lot of followers on Instagram, right? Yeah, Instagram. I I kind of just take what I post on TikTok and post it over there, and it ended up doing pretty well. I think in the past year I gained like 50,000 followers, somewhere around there. What's your total count for followers? I think there's I think it's like 49k on Instagram and then TikTok's around like 240k. Oh wow, that's really good.
SPEAKER_02And that's just from posting your videos, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Just posting, just posting videos. I I realized pretty quick that it's pretty easy to get people upset in the car audio community uh when you start posting about S SQ things, and so a lot of younger people on the app too.
SPEAKER_02Oh god, I I so I follow you on Instagram and I love reading the comments, man. They crack me up. Uh, one of the ones that cracked me up was um, I think you used it as a post is uh your stereo has a nice car.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I kind of use that in every post.
SPEAKER_02No, it works, so I just keep doing it. That's freaking hilarious. So, you know what cracks me up about people? Uh, one of the posts that you posted too, I think it was Big John. You posted Big John, and you know that song's like Big John, rah with the with the with the heavy bass, and um it's a really good test for mid-bass and sub-bass. A lot of people don't realize that. One of the people posted people that are not truly into SQ and they don't understand the whole thing behind SQ. So one of the one of the people posted up and said, Oh, this song is designed to sound good in any stereo, that's why it sounds like that. And I'm like, No. Uh, yeah, it will sound good in a stock stereo or even a cheap little JBL Bluetooth speaker. You can also say the same thing about Pirelli racing tires on a Corolla. Those high performance tires are gonna are gonna perform really good on a Toyota, but they're gonna perform really good on a Porsche. Don't you agree? People don't understand that about these SQ songs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, there's songs that I certainly don't listen to every day. Uh, I don't think any of those songs that I post I listen to, to be honest. But it's what gets the views, right? It's people don't want to hear songs they hear every day, so I just play things that they have no idea what they even are. They watch the video, they comment about it, they're mad about it.
SPEAKER_02In the internet world, uh even bad news, like they say, is or uh bad publicity is good publicity. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, there's there's a lot of people that follow me, and um, I've helped a ton of people and kept them from you know making the mistakes that I did in the beginning when I first started. Uh, because shortly after that, I I wanted to do something. I was like, I have a lot of followers here. Like, what can I do to help others? And I started doing consultations for people, usually all under the age of 20, you know, younger guys that are just getting started in this. You know, they have some money, they want to put something in their car. And usually they all have no idea what they're doing, and I stopped them from making some pretty bad decisions and saving them money in the end.
SPEAKER_02I think that's one of the things that one of the mistakes that the older crowd made is they had to live and learn and burn their hand, you know, touch the touch the flame, burn their hand and and switch components out like we were changing socks until we realized, you know, it's not all about switching components. Tuning is is probably you know, half the fight, half the battle, and controlling resonances. And I think choosing components is probably the last, you know, it's uh I chose components based on size and and preference and whatnot and sound signature, but it's not all pick a brand and stick with it and just run with it and you know tune the hell out of the car and get it to not resonate, and you'll have a pretty damn good system.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if the install is done properly, it's designed properly too and tuned well, it uh it should perform well.
Joining Resonix And Remote Tuning Reality
SPEAKER_02So, how did you end up joining the Resin X team? Like, how did that come about? I know you said that.
SPEAKER_00And we stayed in touch for a little bit. Um, and he mentioned it to me, you know, a few months after, like, hey, yeah, maybe at some point, you know, you could work for me, like part-time or something. And then things started taking off for him, and just kind of out of nowhere, he just asked me if I wanted to work full-time for him. So I said, Yeah, absolutely. What I currently do now for him is I do the technical support, the consultations, and the remote tunes. Oh, sweet. So you tune remotely yourself, or you just book the uh Yep, I do it for Nick through Rosnik. I do the remote tuning and and the consultations.
SPEAKER_02And how did you learn how to do the tuning remotely like that?
SPEAKER_00Um from Nick. Um yeah, so after I saw him do it, I went home and I started doing it and practicing on on my Jeep, just making different presets. Eventually, when I got my new car, the Porsche, started tuning in that, which funny enough, Nick actually says that's one of the hardest cars he's ever had to tune. Really? Yeah, there's a lot of issues in that car.
SPEAKER_02Due to the reflections or the size?
SPEAKER_00I mean, reflections, just the car, the size of the cabin, just what's going on in there. It's it's really, really tricky. A lot of reflections with the tweeters, few issues with the mid-range, mid-bass and the subs. It's tricky. It's very, very tricky in that car. Even, you know, right now with all the equipment that's in it, even a quarter of a dB change here and there can make it go from way too much to not enough. It's a very tricky car to tune.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've noticed every car is different. You get in some cars and it's got phenomenal base, some cars have phenomenal mids, you know, you name it, right? Whatever, and you you get in and you're like, Man, I wish I wish my car had a dash like this, or I wish my car had trunk space like this one. And and I noticed that every single car is a compromise. Yeah. So, you know, anybody out there that's thinking of building a car, there's no perfect car.
SPEAKER_00No, it's usually what car can hide the issues the best. And yeah, there's cars that do certain things way better than others. Some cars have fantastic mid-bases, some don't, but their mids and highs are phenomenal. It's hard to get to get all of those in a car.
SPEAKER_02Definitely. So you work full-time for Nick now?
SPEAKER_00Yep. Yep, I work full-time for him. Um, I enjoy it. It's fun. I get to work from home. Yeah, I'm I'm loving it.
SPEAKER_02So, did you ever imagine your hobby becoming your career?
SPEAKER_00No, not at all. I kind of find it crazy how just a few years ago I was just getting into this, had no idea what I was doing. None whatsoever. And just kind of said, I'm gonna figure this out, figure it out, and here I am.
SPEAKER_02So when you're doing a remote tune, like um, say you're doing a remote tune on uh, you know, on a Toyota Cami, for example, you're doing it remotely, and then let's say you're doing that same tune, but somebody's local to you. What does it come out nearly the same? Is there some small improvements or that can be you know polished in person versus a remote tune?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's always better to do it in person. The problem is obviously there's people that get remote tunes from us, you know, all the way in California, right? And in those areas, it's hard to find a local shop that's gonna tune it. Um, I don't think I've done a remote tune for somebody that had a half-decent tune just based off of measuring what the car's doing. Um, usually I if people do have a previous tune on their car, I'll measure it before we start just to see what it looks like. And usually it's horrific. Um, and and they're coming to us because they know the tune's not done properly. So yeah, we get our customers are very happy at the end. Yeah, night and day difference. It is always better to do it in person because you can hear what's actually going on. When you're doing the remote tune, you are relying on the customer to give you that feedback of what's happening in the system, which can be tricky when things are wired out of polarity and you kind of have to sit there, do a bunch of measurements to figure out what's going on, and you kind of have to rely on them for what they're hearing too.
SPEAKER_02I imagine that could be tricky because they might be saying something that it sounds too hot or something, and it gets and they're thinking it's the tweets when it's really the mid-range reason, right?
SPEAKER_00Right, which in the end at the end of the day, it's their their system. We're gonna make it sound how they want, but really, you know, dialing in the center image can be tricky for some people that have never even heard a center image before. So don't even know what they don't know what's going on, and you're kind of relying on them to put certain test tracks to give you that feedback.
SPEAKER_02What's one of the most common mistakes people make when doing their installations on their own cars?
SPEAKER_00It's usually resonance, I would say, is the one one thing. Not that I can tell that from a remote tune, but I mean, I usually hear it from people like, oh, my door is actually rattling like crazy. Or, you know, you take a measurement of a mid-based driver in the door and you measure it again and it doesn't follow what you did. That's one sign. Um, you know, sometimes I go into these remote tunes and I even the mid-range, you know, I measure the mid-range, put the EQ on it, measure it again, and it's not really close to that line of where it needs to be. And that's usually from resonance. I would say that's number one thing that people have issues with.
SPEAKER_02I I would agree. I think uh it gets frustrating too when you're when you're pushing some wattage behind a mid-based speaker and you're rat and it it might not even be something rattling, it could be something plastic inside the door. I feel like the doors are made so cheap these days that like even sometimes I had a um a car that the the door handle was rattling. We couldn't narrow it down, couldn't narrow it down resonance behind there, tried every trick in the book, and at the end of the day, it was the door handle. I literally had to replace the door handle.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's tricky. It's really tricky to know where all these rattles are going or coming from because you you fix one and now you hear another. Uh, even in my car, I took my whole trunk apart, sound treated everything I possibly could, and even at some some volumes there with the rear sub, there's rattles that happen, and at this point I don't really know what I can do. Um, but I do feel like there's a level at which, you know, when you're playing your subs extremely loud, things are just gonna start in a car coming alive.
SPEAKER_02So how old are you now? I'm
The Cost Barrier And SQ Learning Curve
SPEAKER_0225. 25. So yeah. You're younger than my son. Oh yeah. My son's 28. What do you think? Why do you think um like the young the young crowd isn't as uh enamored with like SQ uh versus SPL, you know, in this day and age? Like what what do you think we can do to bring the youngsters over?
SPEAKER_00I don't really know. I think well actually in the beginning when I first started, got my car, I went up to SVR for the first time. I think this was back in 2023. I just went up there to check it out. I didn't see anyone under the age of 30, I don't think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, that was kind of the first time that I realized. I was like, wait, am I like the youngest one doing this? Like, where is it where's everybody else at? Um but yeah, I think what it really comes down to is the money. It's really expensive. These kids want people, for whatever reason, to be able to hear their car from across the block. You know, they look at a speaker, a three-inch mid-range driver. They're not they're gonna pick the three-inch mid-range driver or the six and a half that says it can do 400 watts and it's cheaper than that three-inch mid-range. So I think one, it's definitely the money. Two, they want to be extremely loud and they want bass. So I I don't think people are really into this SQ thing, but what I learned through it is your car can still be extremely loud when the install's done properly. You got the right equipment, it can still be loud and sound good.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, you could throw enough money at a car back in the day. It kind of had the same same thing. We had we had the you know, the base heads and the SPL guys versus the SQ guys, and then you had some guys in the middle that had the SQL, so to speak. And it was the same thing back then too. Like uh amps were expensive, they were a dollar a watt back in the day. You know, the good amps, the badass amps back in the day were all the American-made amps like PPI, Rockford, Orion. I mean, I could go on and on. That was like the heyday of the of the audio, but yeah, back then it was pretty expensive too. It wasn't cheap. I would say it was relatively speaking, maybe even more expensive because back back then, you know, like people didn't make as much money. I mean, now it's wicked expensive. I've seen some some cars that cost as much as a house. It's it's just kind of a strange some people go with the SQ route, and some some people start with the SPL route, like you did, and then go down the SQ hole, which is like easily more expensive. You went to SVR this year, right? I went to what was that? The SVR? Uh yes. Yes, I did. Yeah, yeah. Uh Richard Clark was there. And uh back in the day he had a quote that impressing somebody with a loud stereo is like impressing a nuclear physicist with a firecracker. Because it's it's easy to make a car loud, you know, but it's difficult to make it sound to make it stage correctly and make it sound good.
SPEAKER_00It's it's very tricky. And I think that's another problem too with this younger generation getting into it. Right? You spend all the money on the equipment and now you have to install it. A lot of people don't know what they're doing when it comes to putting together a proper SQ system. So it's it's definitely challenging. You know, I think my car I'm already at over 400 hours into it and it's still not to where I want it to be. Uh it's close. I know it can be better. And yeah it's just it's very time consuming. You have to know what you're doing. And I don't even fully know everything, right? There's still things for me to learn and I learned those along the
Building The Porsche Macan SQ System
SPEAKER_00way.
SPEAKER_02Speaking of the Porsche Macon so why did you choose the Porsche Macon? Tell us about the current system in there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah so I I chose it mainly because of how it looked I like SUVs and when I came across that I thought it was one of the best looking SUVs out there other than the one that Ferrari makes I like that one too but it's like 600,000 so not going to do that.
SPEAKER_02Is that it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah it's crazy. But yeah I like the way the car looked the interior was super nice. The dash is relatively flat so I figured you know it would be a good platform to put a system in um looking at it now probably not the best car to build in it still sounds pretty good. It's gone through a few iterations in the beginning I had Zapco amplifiers the Stag MSS3s up front and then obviously when I started working for Nick we put the Ocutons in the micro precision amps the Brax DSP currently it has the Gus 10 inch front sub and 15 in the rear which is just a prototype we don't recommend using that in IB we're just it had a stiffer suspension so we put it back there just to you know for fun to test it out. I have the diamond accutons up front along with the um accuton automotive three and a half in the dash and the six and a halves in the sealed kicks.
SPEAKER_02And those things are pretty damn expensive too right those they are acquitted yeah the Accuton Automotive line is it's pricey.
SPEAKER_00But they're the best speakers that I've heard on the market for sure.
SPEAKER_02So I always tell people I'm like you know because people are like oh I would never spend that on this or I would never spend some people like oh he you know you're crazy for spending that on a and I'm like well everybody has a vice some people love to spend money on wine some people love to spend money on on on women booze whatever cars uh whatever their hobby is everyone has a vice everyone has a weak spot whether it be food um right I don't I don't I don't begrudge people like if somebody's got you know a a marble counter and I'm like oh that's snake oil snake oil it's like well he could do the same thing with a wood counter that he can with a marble counter there's levels to this stuff right so if you can afford diamond tweeters or or you know accuton speakers or if you can afford focal micro precision whatever more power to that person like I would not begrudge somebody for whatever they if you can make your system sound good with you know with with Rockford Fosgate and kicker so be it you know not everybody can afford that's why they have different prices for everything and you can make entry level system that sounds really good don't I I tell people don't think don't don't uh always think that you need the um top of the line speakers just to sound good you can you can make a that's one of the things how DIY MA website got started everybody back in the day was like basically going through the Maddasound catalog and picking speakers out and trying to get really good sound with with uh low cost. So I always tell people hey man that if you can afford it as your income grows so does your your hobby.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I mean I've heard cars that have a simple Helix V8 ultimate with some Helix speakers in it relatively inexpensive system and it sounds really really good. So it's definitely possible without spending a ton of money and obviously the the platform of the vehicle helps too installs done well tunes done correctly it can sound really really good. So with your Porsche what was the biggest challenge that you had um the biggest challenge was probably taking the dash apart. Taking the dash apart yeah when I first got the car i it was in great shape it still isn't great shape you know driving the car around for a week or two and realizing that I was going to cut cut the car apart and cut the dash the pumper I was like oh do I really want to do this but I ended up doing it anyway. Yeah I would say the dash was the most difficult part. I've done it probably five to six times now so now it's easy for me to do I can do it in a few hours but doing it for the first time not wanting to damage anything on the car I would say that was probably the trickiest part of the installation followed by probably the sealed mid-base and the kicks. Yeah was there a lot of electronics behind there or was just really thick hard um there actually wasn't there was already a hole there for the um door harness to go through so we kind of just made that bigger Matt Kim from Audio and Reach helped me with that and I took the car up to Nick's shop and he was there and he scanned the kicks he 3D printed me an adapter that just fit right onto the metal. So it wasn't too difficult. The tricky part with it was definitely cutting that metal it was it was pretty difficult to cut. We didn't have to cut much but it was it was tricky. The most difficult part was sealing that entire enclosure there was actually a metal plate that we found above where the mid-base was going so we decided to try to seal that off and use it as a sealed enclosure. The other option was cutting that one wall that would lead into the wheel well to make an IB but I didn't really want to do that. I didn't want to cut more metal I didn't want it exposed outside I wanted it to be sealed so I spent a long time putting buty rope up there mega sealed and I got it as good as I could it's not perfect. We've you know we tested it and it does leak a little bit here and there but there's nothing you can really do to make it perfect but it sounds pretty good.
SPEAKER_02So how do you keep your car so clean? Because when I stepped in that car I was like oh my god this thing looks like you could perform surgery is is that your daily driver or do you wow yeah it's my daily and the crazy part about that is before I worked for Nick I did get that car and I was working at a metal fab shop.
SPEAKER_00It was about as dirty as it gets and I kept it as clean as I could that was tricky and now obviously working from home I don't drive it as much I'm also not dirty. You're not rolling around in the dirt yeah not covered in metal shavings or sand so that helps not working there anymore.
SPEAKER_02Yeah I don't know I I try keeping my car as clean as I I can yeah no I would when I got in it I was like wow this thing looks like it's hermetically sealed I was like Jesus so clean.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I was surprised it was in that good of shape when I bought it too for being a 2016 day the owner kept it in really really good shape. And there were some years that I saw on the logs that they didn't even drive it for some years.
SPEAKER_02Taken care of when you see cars like that it's previous owner probably had three or four cars. Right. Because I I work in the car business and I've noticed you know sometimes when we're buying cars from people I saw like an Acura last week it was like a 2016 gorgeous and it had it was literally immaculate just like yours you could eat off the floor and uh it had 26000 miles. I asked the guy he was an older guy too so that's I've learned like if you're gonna buy a used car buy it from an older person now. Yep yep but I asked him I said hey what's what's with the low mileage he's like uh I I like to drive my Toyota pickup truck. He's like I much prefer that one but and some and like I said some people have two three four cars so they barely put mileage on them but yeah yeah my neighbor she has uh like a Honda I forget what it's called the exact model maybe it's a CRV in 2017 they got it brand new 2026 they have like 12 000 miles on it like oh wow brand new condition it kills me when people sell a car like that too like it's like why are you selling it it's got so low miles so is the build finished or are you are you planning any any upgrades on it?
SPEAKER_00No it's never finished hopefully we get to the point that it's done there's a few things that need to be done. Nick's coming out with his IV subs eventually so that'll get replaced for the rear sub wanna make a new amp rack one that's a little bit more serviceable looks a little bit nicer my OCDs now my OCD is kind of freaking me out because the amps are are a little bit on a slant. I don't like that so I'm gonna we're gonna try to make something a little bit nicer for back there. I also want the micro precision amps to flip up and then the goal is to put the RX2 amp underneath it with the bracks so everything's easy to to service and I kind of want all the equipment on one rack so it could be removed if needed. Not that I ever would but that's kind of the plan there with the trunk up front we're going to make new A pillars for the Accuton automotive diamonds. We're going to move the mid-range out on the dash closer to the pillars so we can get a little bit more of a wider stage we can move them about like a driver over if we cut into the A pillars. So that's the plan there and then a new front sub enclosure just because the current one resonates a little bit especially with going with that gus up there it can move some serious some serious air and needs a a more rigid enclosure and um yeah I think that's kind of it and then obviously chasing down the endless rattles. Those are never ending yeah yep what's the timeline for for the for the infinite baffle line of the gut or uh what's he's calling those a different name right um Odin I think I think that's what he's calling yeah yeah Odin Odin but yeah I don't know exactly when we're coming out with those I don't think they've even started the prototypes for those so it's probably gonna be a little bit yet if we get those out.
Competition Results And Fixing Stage Width
SPEAKER_02So you got a behind the scenes look with the whole Nick rolling out the gust line how was that like that that must have been the first when uh you start first started taking orders was that pretty crazy or was it better than expected way better than expected.
SPEAKER_00I thought it was going to do really well on launch day he didn't think it was going to do as well as it did and we sold a ton of them um and I think that we're gonna sell even more once people get them in their hands and people start hearing them I think that it's gonna go even crazier the first month they come out or maybe a month after once a lot of people get to hear them and everyone I think is going to want one.
SPEAKER_02Once you get uh them out in the street and in the public people are going to start reviewing them and yeah throwing in their two cents yeah that'll be exciting with the 15 that you threw in the back what'd you have before acoustic elegance yeah acoustic elegance for infinite baffle it was a 15 or 18? 15. 15 how does I know the one that you guys got back there the Gus 15 isn't I know it's a prototype it's not designed for infinite baffle but how does it compare to the acoustic elegance in the the way that you guys have it now it's different.
SPEAKER_00It feels like there's a lot more body on the low end but there's a lot more moving mass compared to the acoustic elegance which unfortunately results in a lot of things coming alive and rattling so the whole amp rack just rattles especially with the micro precision amps with their acrylics the acrylic tops they started vibrating pretty bad once that rear sub was going so yeah with all that moving mass it just caused everything to come alive back there which is kind of a bummer but it definitely does something different. You know I felt with like with the acoustic elegance the low end was there but there was just no body with it with this they just felt like there was more impact on the very low notes.
SPEAKER_02So did you compete with with the gus at H VR this this last season? At SVR I did. SVR that's right I'm sorry I know you didn't have the gus at at HBR right no no no no okay at SBR what what what did you get?
SPEAKER_00Didn't you get like ninth placed yeah ninth same as last year but the competition this year was definitely much better a lot of good cars there this year so I was pretty happy with with that even with known issues and Emma Master Unlimited I think I got third place which unfortunately when they did listen to that car um it was like first thing in the morning on Saturday we didn't listen to the car and for whatever reason the rear sub was like 45 degrees out of phase with the front sub we think once that sub kind of broke in a little bit it changed something and we still got third place so I didn't think I was going to place in that after hearing what it sounded like but yeah the competition I mean it does get stiffer and stiffer every year.
SPEAKER_02You got people nipping at you know the old guard's heels and then you got the old guard also you know they don't sleep on their systems you know they don't put it away for the winter and then not do anything to it. But yeah it's a dog eat dog world. What did the judges say that you know what what weaknesses or what what did they say about the Porsche like what areas of improvement that you could do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I think the biggest improvement that I can make is the width. The width it's a limit yeah the width of the soundstage I think that's the biggest limitation in that car um as of right now so I think you know moving those mid-range drivers out further on the dash will help with that and maybe you know that even a few points in that category can move you from ninth to you know third uh because the spread between the places from ninth and first aren't that aren't that much. But I would say that's definitely one of them. Possibly putting the tweeters in a better location is another I think that'll help a lot. Definitely when I rebuild the front sub enclosure that'll help because of all the resonance that is coming from that enclosure. I think that I maybe I would say once I get the Odin sub too I think that's going to help a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah it is tough because I kind of have the same issue with stage width. I have a really solid center and tonality is really good but my dash isn't very wide so I'm kind of limited to where I have the speakers placed and without getting to major surgery it's tough because at the end of the day physics is physics.
SPEAKER_00The wider dash you have the wider of a sound stage you can perceive in a car and sometimes it's all about those compromises you know what I mean like I can't tell you how many times I get in somebody's car like for example like a like a challenger has a really large dash the camries have a really wide dash some pickup trucks have really wide dashes but and then you get in there and you're like oh man I wish my dash was that wide or you know what I could do I could rip apart the dash and maybe take the windshield out and make some holes there and then it's like and then in the and my other the other side of my brain is going ch ching ching ch ching making it look good too right if it's your daily driver it's you know there's gonna be a compromise there. If you don't care about how it looks you can put the speakers in optimal locations it's just gonna look a little it can look a little goofy. So there there's always a compromise with that.
SPEAKER_02I'm the type of guy where like I'm not big on making the car look not look like a car. You know I give big respect to some of the these guys that have like completely redone the dashes and and but you get in there and you're like this does not look factory. Right and and it bothers the hell out of me. I don't know about you but if if it doesn't look OEM even right now I have um pillars my my mids are in the pillars and I I don't like it. I I don't have factory locations in my dash.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I don't I'm not necessarily happy with the way mine looks right now either just because it doesn't look OEM to me. Care about that in the beginning yeah and now that I've been doing it for a little bit I realize that you know making it look factory and making it blend in is definitely the route that I that I would prefer having bulky mid-range pods on there or you know tweeters bulking pillars yeah definitely making it look OEM is is my preferred way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah that's definitely one of the what one of the things that bothers me is it doesn't look OEM in my car either and I would love to kind of go back and I mean you know this probably in the next couple of years I'll attack that if I still have the car that is and try to tackle that because it does it it does bother me but it's like because you can get really great sound with not so optimal locations too you know I mean with DSP DSA's I'm hoping to fix that in the next couple years that or maybe go with another car I don't know yet this hobby gets expensive and it never ends it certainly does. So let's
Next Upgrades And Where To Follow
SPEAKER_02see here. So so where can everyone follow you drop your links and stuff like that. You're on Instagram TikTok yeah it's just stag's audio on Instagram and and TikTok. So what's next for you?
SPEAKER_00Any upcoming builds or projects or no I'm just gonna keep working on that car I think the Porsche for now might put something in my brother's car here. I did get equipment for it but it's just finding the time to to put something in it. You know it's a lot of work and I'm still working on my car. That'd probably be the next thing after my car is what kind of car does your brother have he has a Lexus no that's a good platform actually it is yeah it's a pretty good platform. So we're gonna it has four inch dash locations build something for the for the tweeters on the eight pillars midbasing the doors get a sealed enclosure for the rear and with a DSP amplifier and an amplifier for the sub and call it a day. You go with infinite baffle or sealed sealed around you sealed yeah probably put a gust back there maybe a 15 or two 15 since he likes base. That's awesome man and the doors have eight inch right the front doors I think they're six and a halves oh there's yeah this is an older car it's I think it's a 20 2013 I think it is 13 oh okay 2013 it's a little bit older but very quiet on the road oh yeah it's awesome like Lexus is uh I don't know if this is true I heard that Lexus used to put sand between the firewall uh in the spaces yeah it's a because sand is a really good sound absorber um yeah I think it's the quietest car I've ever been in actually it's a hybrid too so that helps but yeah it's a very quiet car.
SPEAKER_02So won't you guys have a little bit of uh is there difficulty with with the with the system in those I know that some hybrid cars are tricky.
SPEAKER_00I don't think it's too difficult. The battery's actually in the rear of the car a 12 volt battery back there so it should be pretty simple to plug everything up to that and just build an amp rack for the trunk and hook everything up there we're not going to use the OEM head unit so just be probably using perfect stream from the V8 ultimate or something and and call it day there or the Bluetooth.
SPEAKER_02That's awesome man well I look forward to that build and uh hope hopefully you post it up on your on your social media so Carson thank you for coming out on the SoundCube podcast I know we had some uh some difficulties uh when was it the day before yesterday yeah yeah so to the audience out there my my roadcaster took uh took a dive to the great electronic beyond and uh Carson was really patient I really thank him just tells you what basically I need to have a backup for my backup but uh roadcaster you're getting a freaking email from me so uh yeah thank you Carson