Jim Stingl

Gentlemen, start your stereo systems

By JIM STINGL

of the Journal Sentinel staff

Wednesday, July 18, 2001

When it comes to car stereos and young males, there's really only one question: How loud does it go?

The answer, my friend, was blowing out the windows at the United States Autosound Competition this past weekend at State Fair Park.

Loud and big, Ludwig. That describes the custom speakers and amps crammed into cars, trucks and vans for the auto-audio equivalent of drag racing.

Killer car stereos are not just for bothering the neighbors anymore. They can win you tall trophies and the admiration of a whole bunch of guys standing around with their baseball caps turned backward.

I'm saying guys because that's mostly who it is. There's something about the combination of a car, a stereo and a contest that mixes well with our testosterone. There were females there, too, but you had the feeling they were mostly hearing-impaired girlfriends of the earheads.

It's pretty simple. You pay an entry fee of 40 bucks and pull your vehicle into the North Exhibit Hall. The judges put a decibel meter inside and you pump up the volume as high as it goes.

Normal people drive cars with sound systems capable of hitting perhaps 100 decibels. The loudest entrants in this competition exceeded 160, which would drown out a jumbo jet on your front lawn.

"About 145 is going to start hurting your chest. If you're going to go over 150 decibels, you kinda wanna be out of the car. It's not only your hearing you're worried about. It's your whole central nervous system," said Ben Zuehlsdorf, installation manager at Kartunes auto sound and security in South Milwaukee, which sponsored the competition. These contests go on all over the country weekend after weekend.

As an autosound competition virgin (observer, not participant), here's what surprised me. The stereophiles are not cranking up Metallica or any music at all when they vie for volume. They compete with rapid burps of bass. You hear a quick, deep moan from inside the car and the scoreboard prints out a decibel level. You can't dance to this stuff.

Twenty-year-old college student Nate Scholten played a blast of 61 hertz pushed by 3,000 watts, a roar unlikely to be chosen as anyone's prom theme. He operated the radio remotely from outside his junky red 1989 Mazda 323 while friends pushed against the car doors to keep sound from escaping.