Why is Car Audio and this forum dead?
 

Could it be people getting sick of being banned?

Could it be the expensive vendor fees?

This place use to great for info and help but now its dead. I think the site could be sucessful again but there needs to be major changes.

Anyone else have some input?

I've closed my forum (french) in september because of the lack of post... People get bored of the same thing everyday, they want new, this site will eventually close and another one will take over. Also, this place is operated as a business and the community feeling is gone IMO

Not being able to reply In classifieds is on kick.

Lymen

Doesn't stop here, the number of competitors showing up for shows was dismal.

very true....the whole car audio scene is dead

Our weather doesn't help; we get maybe 4 nice months a year here- who wants to bump and meet up in the frigging winter? Canada is a tough place for a hobby like this. Places like SMD forums are FULL of new posts because places like the US can do it comfortably all year.
My $.02

unfortunately, the prime time of car audio is over. There just isn't enough interest at the basic consumer level to drive the enthusiast market like it did before. Don't get me wrong, there will always be enthusiasts like us, but the novelty and excitement of car audio really started mid 80's and ended probably early 2000's (if that late). What we're experiencing now is the slow drop off. Eventually it'll be mostly enthusiasts and hard core car audio guys that'll still be into it. Add to that the oem systems are way better than they used to be, much harder to change, and most "normal" consumers can't see any real benefit to changing their systems anymore. What we have now is the typical evolution of specialty products. Home audio went through a similar evolution, lucky for them that home theatre became a big thing. Maybe sometime in the future some new technology will boost car audio up a bit, but I doubt it'll ever be what it was. Sadly..nothing lasts forever!

it also doesnt help when sanctioning fees are through the roof no shops can afford to pay those fees so they dont even look at doing shows

I wouldn't call $50 for a 1x fee through the roof but regardless of the fees if only a handfull of competitors show up that leaves a bad taste about doing it again ...

ya for an iasca show , who in all of canada honestly can afford to drive all the way to florida its just to far , and im talking about the prices for 2x and 3x shows just way to much money , when competitors are trying to make finals you cant get their just off 5 or so single point shows

money. lack of money keeps ppl away from this expensive hobby. i found that even im my area thumping cars are become rare compared to last year. and even worst than the year before.. F U dam recesion

that and the average person is scared their going to get their butts handed to them by a pro with 10 plus , if wayne brought in the power classes this wouldnt be an issue , thats whats nice about usaci and iasca both are very fair you go against people with the same power or cone area which is fantastic

money money money!!!

how do you participate in a so called "sport" without dropping at least 5 bills for the bare minimums... think about the first systems we all had.. old speakers and subs in makeshift boxes, hand me down decks ect.. not to mention the 90 mercury topaz it went in!

or atleast thats what i started with i dunno about the rest of you.

to do anything you need money... and with how many other things people need to do with their lives it just isnt realistic to be putting your hobbies first. because car audio in my opinion is a business and a hobby. not a sport period. I have played high level competitve hockey and lacrosse all across canada since ive been 6 years old and know what a " sport " entitles. It has always pissed me off that people have the nerve to call any aspect of audio a sport. just because you have a competition doesn't mean its a sport - ex. a spelling bee is also a competition

thats just it , I to played high level lacrosse hockey and the amount ive spent on one amp or sub is more then what all my gear cost to play those sports , theese days to be even competitive in the lanes you need at minimum a single 16k or an american bass 1100.1 , its very hard to be competitive against cars crammed full of dd or soundigital , but at the same time its not that hard to peice together a stereo if you start before the season starts say around now buy 1 item at a time when the season starts you will have the stereo needed to be competitive

Lol johnny, it was a '91 Ford Tempo, get it right=-

Lymen

well thats exactly why audio had dwindled due to the fact it takes that time and money to actually be competitive.

lol my bad.

which is why usaci and iasca in my oppinion are the way of the future for audio take a look at how iasca runs each class is based on cone area and experiance everyone is placed in a class were they are against somone with the same cone area and same experiance as them its very competitive and the rookie classes are great as far as bringing in new competitors , usaci has trunk classes which in my oppinion needs to be put into db drag

Do sites need competitors do be sucessful?

Easier accessable classes to new people, means more people to cruise the sites. A noob goes to a show and see's nothing but gutted walled suv's and 20k SQ purposed cars its discourging. Realistic rookie classes to get them hooked, then take there money as they move up in classes, and can get past the cost alone.

Lymen

its already done in usaci and iasca it wont happen in db drag because no one cares

It's Yuli's fault.

Lymen, you are right.
If you look at Asia and Europe, the car audio scene is actually gaining momentum. We should look at what they are up to. I heard they actually use the money value of your system to determine classes for competition! It keeps innovative DIY'ers who put a lot of elbow grease into their systems credit vs some douche who just writes a blank cheque to a shop and goes into a pro-am or pro class.
The competition just adds another aspect to this hobby and makes it more fun. Keeping it competitive and drawing in new interest is the trick. Some countries fill small arenas with cars and have SPL and SQ judged on a big display in real time, so spectators watch the points go up!! We have to be innovative to make our sound-offs more appealing to others. Having a bunch of competitors milling around while judges sit quietly in the cars and wait all day to find out the scores at the end may be boring to a lot of people.

go to you tube and check out emma 2009 2008 2010 ect. lots of excitment. now thats how a show should be run.

From what i can see. All the posts are coming from Out West. All the east guys got ban or just dont care to come on. I will post my builds to help others like a step by step if they ever wanted to do so but i think im gonna stop soon. I get no respect for it. Im tryin to keep this thing alive we all started here. Thats my 2 cents.

It's a forum, people need to get over it. If they break the rules they need to move on.

Why would vendor fees decrease all the other users participation?
Doesnt seem to make much sense.

Other than that, no one makes a vendor pay, its optional. Dont pay, dont promote your products or service, its that simple. All shops are allowed to participate for free like you and I, it just cant be in a commercial capacity.

*shrugs*. I guess dead to you is different than dead to us.
According to our analytics, traffic remains the same despite what people want to believe.

Bills to pay, of course it has to be ran as a business.

The site will never close, it will just change with the times. I cant say though that a few years back I didnt consider following the previous owners bath and just shutting it down. Some members here like to cause grief for the staff, we have started weeding them out as of last year.

There have been numerous spin offs, they generally end up all the same, dead and or a few posts with builds and a ton of posts complaing about me and CCA.

I found the shows to be very noob unfriendly, especially when I first started coming out. The core group of competitors here were unwelcoming, rude etc. Never mind you fast forward some years later they cheat and even steal from eachother. Is it any wonder the community is hurt.

But you expect CCA to carry the whole scene on its back? Don't think so.
We allow you guys to promote your shows for free, you cry. We charge, you cry. We do giveaways, people cry. Honestly, far too many whiners in this hobby (not all, jus a ton)

And there are tons more people out there participating than here.
Also note that as far as car audio chat goes, CCA is ok. I am not sure why people confuse the competition sector with every day car audio. CCA has never been about just competition.

Perfect example. :thumbsup:

If that is the case, then it seems shops cant afford to do much at all. Their business model is flawed and they should either turn it into a hobby or close the doors. It gets tiring hearing the 'woe is me' from some of these 'shops'. But, doesn't bother me, I wouldn't leave my car with half of them anyways.

Get used to it. People complain about everything. Even when they get a show they complain about the trophies or the parking or the lack of outlets etc. I got tired of doing the giveaways for that very same reason and in the future when they do happen they will always be for site supporters.

Peoples time isn't free. Now I would argue that a shop putting on a show shouldn't charge at all as its great marketing for them and promo but when the turn out is 5 cars with the same people they know there's no sales coming. So, time is money, they need to charge to cover costs of trophies, plaques and permits etc.

agreed. the cost of competing is so great that it has distanced itself from the average person.

Nope. Sites need traffic.

Troll, you get banned, no exceptions. Spam, get banned. Tide has changed, seems the west runs things here now, not the east. If people from the east have opted to go elsewhere to cry about CCA (which i gaurantee they are doing) then so be it. Numbers havent changed here. Maybe a few less posts but the site is certainly more welcoming to new users.

Menace, as for yours posts. In my experience running forums people tend to post and gripe quicker than positive feedback. I dont know why, people just do it. I assure you that any post with pictures and text outlining what you do is appreciated and encourages other users to participate in the audio competitions or at least inspires them to make a sick build. I wish more people were friendly but this happens on all forums.

Some may not like the bluntness of the following response, be warned.

The entire problem with car audio today begins with the consumer not wanting to pay for quality product. This drove most companies to start downgrading quality control, lowering building costs to match what consumers thought they should pay. This movement severely lowered peoples standards as to what good sound is. Ask 90% of people out there, Listening to MP3 off a pair of ipod headphones sounds really good, their epitome of high end sound is the Bose junk in a box setup their uncle has...

This lead to more and more people not upgrading, bad sounding OEm systems. Which slowly shrunk the market and forced manufacturers to make things cheaper and cheaper so as to be appealing.

10 or so years ago a flip out DVD screen was in the $3K prince range and had a huge control box with it. Nav add-on was $1200+ XM add on $350+ when it came out.

Now.. fully Loaded double din Head unit, with SD, USB, Ipod interface, Bluetooth, Nav, aux in, Dual zone video control is about $900 from reputable manufacturers. Far more features for 1/3 the price and the image quality on the older screens was WAY better than the stuff that's there today.

5-6 years ago, go on any car audio forum and People were raving about how fantastic their Infinity Kappa 3 ways sounded. There was no shortage of people with the exact same product backing them up because they have it and it's awesome. Which lead to another downfall. The people pumping a product with half decent performance into "high end" levels. People listening to these speakers, badly installed in their older cousins car etc thought that it was awesome.

True high end now has become very specialized equipment, and even "high end" manufacturers have had to cut costs so as not to have to price their products out of grasp of the common man. Many have gone to China for manufacturing and as a result has ended them up with mass amounts of copy cat products out on the market.

Another major factor is that compared to days of old, people didn't have an ipod, an iphone, an ipad, a PS3, an Xbox, Cable TV, and the internet sucking money out of their pockets leaving folk with less spending cash available and far more fixed monthly fees.

Couple that with the generation gap of the baby boomers and their kids. The market shrunk in the late 80's through late 90's as the population of people in the consumer age bracket declined.

NOW... add this to the newer age parenting techniques that told parents to set the bar low and give kids only achievable goals. This caused a generation of kids to use every cheat on every video game and get a false sense of winning. Now into the real world, where it takes hard work and skill to gain exceptional achievements it's just too much work and the threat of losing at competitions is enough to get them not to try.

Add to that, a lot of new vehicles have the head units integrated highly into the vehicle. either through the cars computer networks, or the panel is also the heater controls, airbag module..etc.

Which in turn goes back to peoples highly skewed sense of what good sound is, having them happily smiling along with a sound system I would leave permanently turned off if it were in my car to prevent my ears from crying in agony.

Cheers
Donald

Bigger profit margins lead to cheaper products being made IMO, not a consumers unwillingness to pay a large sum for a product.
This is why everyone has moved their manufacturing to China.

Cept CCA, we still Canadian / American made and ran. lol

Bigger profit margins lead to more time to develop product. I visited Focal/JM Labs in St Ettienne france a few years back and their facilities were incredible. They had fake cars of 3 different sizes set up in their development section with pods to allow for multiple speaker locations for use in developing new speakers. And a big bin next to them of what they were not happy with so they could constantly change parameters in house to make a product that works great all around.

Aside from Hybrid now and a few others most product is slightly modified/rebadged Home theater and DIY kit speakers slapped together (A la CDT) and marketed as high end. It's also not just manufacturers it's local shops. They have overhead to pay, cost of tools, staff, wear and tear on tools, Cost of lost/dead inventory. So those guys have to make money too.

But going back to peoples skewed sense of what good sound is. Many will slap a "high end" speaker in their door with 2 screws, rip out their vapor barrier, slap the doors back on and go telling everyone it sounds awesome.

Over the many years I've been installing I have had tons of people come in, saying they bought all the best equipment it should sound much better etc.etc.etc... read an Internet DIY so they are SURE their install is great.

a pair of baffles and wiring the damn things in polarity later... "Woah OMG it sounds so much better now". Then their "high end" according to the DIY internet, "my gear is the best stuff ever because "I" have it" Crowd's standard of awesome is Shattered once they hear a professionally built car with what is regarded as lesser equipment sounding 10X better than their own stuff.

Menace, You keep up the good work bro. I cant speak for everyone, but I appreciate seeing others put effort into showing off builds and doing step-by-step for noobs. If you help even one or a few people, I give u a big thumbs up!
Mad respect 4 u bro!
When my build is done I will do the same.

Honestly Donald, your analysis rings true.

Gald to hear it bro. Looking forward to seeing your pics.

menace you suck!!!!!!!! lmao.:smokin:

dont make me take this to the beef section son!

Donald, I like what you had to say, most of it very true.
As a small retailer in a small town, with the average age of 60, my demigraphic is quite small. Rear view cameras and back up sensors are where its at. Unfortunatly its going to get worse, before it gets better. Profits always dictate where a manufactuer spends his time and money, and what ever country can produce it cheaper wins...consumers are losing, because having a i phone is more important than a great sounding stereo. In my day if you were a home audio guy, you were not a car audio guy and visa versa. Everyone had a specialty hobbie, now for 500 bucks, you can have home theater in a box, a lap top, and a new deck for the car because its "good enough" and because we feel we need those things.

I opened my own shop 2 years ago. I've built SQ cars that have won and won and won.. because I do things oldschool. Don't quit till it's done right. I love the industry, I love car audio. But I'll be damned it's tough to feed a family on a car audio dollar these days.

for my fellow competitors in other states and countrys we all show hope to travel more plus you need more shows in more locations like i am from philadelphia but i compete in nj de ny md camden and soon to be ncand sc would love o make a canada show as well we need a better scdhule and more events thats how you get people interested no silly a rules

ic the tnespl is very big down in pa seems to be a legit org theese days , ageee with bill and donald theese days its very tough to stay afloat , you have to have the right companys in your shop , companys that have a solid rep and companys that have solid markup thats very hard to find these days

Although the problem with having the right product, is that if it is worth selling some sales guy gives it to some online company and enough said...Where is the loyalty??? Companies that gave loyalty are now struggling, because the consumer uses the internet to determine the percieved value of products. Most online companies sell @ independent dealer cost, now the consumer thinks the product is worth $0.00 to the independent dealer, who throws the shows, who educates the consumer, who deals with the complaints when something goes wrong...
Thanks Luke now you got me ranting...I need a hug...