It's officially summer. And in the words of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, it's time for us to "adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast."
Summer is when testosterone-driven males come out of hibernation, blasting their car audio systems loudly enough to set off alarms, kill anyone with a pacemaker and communicate with deaf whales.
There is some kind of primeval male instinct at work here, a sort of my-club-is-bigger-than-your-club mentality that dates back to the caveman days. In Danville, for example, there is a road where car owners compete to see who has the best sound system.
This consists of head-to-head combat where each guy plays his music as loudly as his stereo can handle. The one who shatters his car windows first is the winner and gets to keep the other guy's audio equipment. Imagine what happens afterward:
Guy One: "Ha! I broke my windows first. I am victorious!"
Guy Two: (sad grunting noise)
Guy One: "Your sound system is now mine!"
Guy Two: (more sad grunts)
Fortunately for audiophiles (yes, this condition has been diagnosed as a medical disease), there are ways to show off your system without doing permanent damage to your car. One is to enter an organized "sound-off" competition, where sound systems can win different awards, including Coolest Looking, Coolest Sounding and the coveted Most Likely to Kill Whoever Is in the Car.
Last year I tagged along with two of my audiophile friends to a couple of sound-offs. Drivers line up in front of a tent and try to achieve the highest "decibel rating," a direct measurement of loudness.
My knowledgeable friends informed me that the car audio world record for loudness is 172 decibels, casually noting that 160 decibels causes instant perforation of the human eardrum. (Meanwhile, the sound of an airplane taking off reaches only 150 decibels.)
Some competitors will often exploit loopholes in the rules. For example, there is no rule limiting the number of speakers in a sound system, so one guy bought an old hearse and filled the trunk with 18 subwoofers. Another bought a van and filled it with even more.
These massive sound systems suck up enough energy to power the State of California and typically require at least five car batteries to make any noise at all. Maybe we can solve the California energy crisis by convincing all U.S. drivers to point their audio systems toward the West Coast to generate a huge sound wave.
Another loophole in the rules is the definition of what a car is. Cars entering the competition do not have to be drivable. In fact, the winning car in the loudness competition is NEVER drivable. The owner usually has to tow it to the competition by truck and then push it around by hand once he gets there.
The competition normally takes place in a large parking lot, far away from anything resembling civilization. You can watch the owners pushing their cars around and talking "car talk" with each other, often commenting on the amount of money they have invested in their sound systems.
Most of the competitors spend only a few thousand dollars, while some could have used the money spent on their cars to send themselves to a four-year college.
But at the heart of every sound-off is the loudness competition, when the cars form a line and each driver tries to make the loudest buzz. This makes each car sound like an oversized quacking duck, and really impresses the ladies.
The buzzing sound lasts about one second -anything longer than a short quack is likely to overload the sound system and blow out speakers.
A sizeable crowd gathers when the most impressive cars (the non-drivable ones) take their turn. When people in the crowd gasp like they're going into cardiac arrest, it means the car made a REALLY loud quacking sound.
Only in a country where people have too much money to spend will you find audiophiles with sound systems capable of killing humans. You can do America a favor next time you pull up to a stoplight and hear that incredibly annoying bass - just pull off the guy's ear protection and let his audio system do the rest.
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