fouldsy.com

Well, the car still hasn’t blown up or worse, caught fire. Sitting in traffic trying to get to work on a morning is so much more fun when you can just turn the bass up and annoy all the other drivers stuck in their cars listening to Classical FM or Radio 4. Doesn’t even have to be loud, the bass just rumbles through anything like a knife through hot butter. Love it.

Anyways, maybe all the in-car audio made me old brain go all funny, but I’ve also agreed to have a bit of jam tomorrow afternoon with a couple of friends that have been trying to get a band going. Not sure it’s my kinda music (they wanna try playing Paranoid by Black Sabbath so I’ve dug out the tabs for it, is pretty easy) so this could be an experience…

So, distortion pedal at the ready and hope their neighbours realise how loud my guitar amp goes. Think I’m starting to develop an obession with noise pollution.

What happens when you get bored and throw money at a sound system that has the clarity to rival that new opera thingy built by the dirty river running through Newcastle that’s also loud enough to wake the dead and have the burbery-cap totting boy-racers down the Arnison Centre shaking whilst sat in their car due to bass pumping out as you drive past? Click images for larger photo (still as crap quality though…):
Well, you start off by trying to tie yourself into the drivers seat. This was good fun. I didn’t mind this bit, and was pretty straightforward. I nearly forgot to run the audio bus for the cd changer, but I ended up with cd changer control, cd changer bus audio left + right, amp remote power on, amp audio left + right, and front components audio left + right cables running around the place. Not that many really.

After that, it was just a case of plugging it all into the back of the head unit and sliding back in. Suprisingly, this all worked straight away and didn’t require and cursing or hitting. Dissappointed in a way, but at least I got to sit looking at the pretty movies running through on the head unit itself. Reckon an indash 6.5″ screen is next.

After a right royal cutting of fingers and kicking and cursing, obviously making up for the ease at which all the audio and control cables installed, the amp cable wound it’s way down from the battery into the boot. How people manage 0-gauge power cable running through the door sills of a Focus I don’t know. This 4-gauge was thick enough. Once connected into the battery and fuse installed, the amp powered straight up and the sub kicked in. Literally.

The components were installed next. Off came the door panels, into the bin went the old 5×7′s and in went shiny JBL components. Easy peasy. No trouble whatsoever, and the clarity is impressive. May end up running these through a separate amp, but the head unit seems more than capable of handling them at the moment.

And as I took the car down to the industrial estate to actually sound test this mass of equipment (I’m very glad the system comes with a wireless remote so I could get out of the car whilst trying to find out how loud it goes before distorting (very loud, if you’re wondering…)), the way the sun caught things brought a tear to my eye. Not really, but as I’m not much of an artist, this is as good as it gets!

Also, a nice little monologue that took place whilst installing the amp cable was:
Dad: “How big is that fuse?”
Me: “30amp, why?”
Dad: “You do realise electric oven’s run off less than that, you’ll blow yourself up!”
Me: “Probably. Will sound good though”

If I don’t know what I’m doing with electrics, then may I die some horrible death via a bizzare electrocutioning accident…

Joy of joys, back at work
Surprisingly, none of the servers caught fire (although in fairness the fact that the building is colder inside that outside would have meant any fires would have extinguished themselves and the flames probably would have caught frostbite…) and nothing seems to have broken itself. Suppose the challenge comes tomorrow when the mob returns.
But, as a new year game, let’s see which member of staff will be the first to forget their password. Already had two entries in the security logs for incorrect logon names, but in fairness (one of them after 4 attempts mind you), they realised the error of their ways…