ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Free Information Policy
I provide the info at this site free of charge as I believe that its the way it should be. I have been fortunate enough to actually meet and Quiz some of the smartest people in the car audio world at various trade nights, and these people shared the knowledge they had gained over many years with me freely. I intend to update this site with more info about car audio as I get the time, but at the moment I am still putting the finishing touches to my system and getting that finished is very time consuming (as many of you will be aware).
Background
I am 30(something) years old and born and bred in Melbourne. My interest in car audio started at a very young age, when I used to sit in my Dad's FC Holden listening to AM radio when I was about 5 Y.O. Later on my dad would give me broken radio's (to "fix") and I'd dismantle them into a thousand pieces, never to be a complete unit again. I mounted a pair of speakers into my bedhead, that I had sucsessfully liberated from radio's I was "fixing", that I had running off a "Tranny". Later on I upgraded this to an AM/FM clockradio which was still in mono. In my teenage years I got into CB radio, and it was during this period that I considered getting my Ham radio license and learnt a fair bit about basic electronic's. I never sat the ham radio test but the study gave me a good grounding.
In my late teens my big brother got a high quality home system and had a huge L.P. collection, so I spent Hundreds of hours listening to his records and making tapes. I was hooked on high end sound. Once you spend a lot of time listening to a good system (car or home) you cant go back to being happy with "so-so" sound. My brother then put a "component" PIONEER system in Mum's car, it had a separate tape deck, tuner and amplifier, and at the time it was considered "cutting edge" stuff.
My first car
My first car was a 74 MAZDA 4 door RX4 which looked like a 929 but went a tad quicker. I had learnt from travelling a fair bit in a mates car that it doesn't pay to have a fast looking car as it just draws attention from the boys in blue, not one of my ambitions.So I didn't bother with mags. I did a few "go fast" things like electronic ignition etc but was quite happy having the second fastest car on the block and wasn't prepared to spend the thousands required to make it any faster, trying to be the quickest. I also found the car was capable of doing 225kmh(130mph)* indicated, with four guys in the car and four surfboards on the roof and a boot(trunk) full of gear, which seemed fast enough to me, and it still had 500 rpm before redline. * while traveling in N.T (Northern Teritory) where it is legal ,of course, because I would never engage in, or incourage in anyway, or admit to, anything illegal. :)
First "sound off " in Australia ???
It was in this car I put my first system in.I had previously fitted my mates cars but all they cared about was the bottom line not sound quality. So with my car I was going for it (wihthin very limited budgetary constraints of course). I started out with a PIONEER KE8000 tape deck, it was top of the range unit and it took a while to get a good deal on one, but eventually I did. To this I added a set of ALPINE 6380 8" 3 way speakers, a brand I had never heard of at the time, but one listen and I had to have them. I then got some pioneer 6" 3ways(co-axial) for upfront. Later I added a booster/Eq to give it a bit of grunt and my first system was complete.This first system was not that expensive considering the results.NB I may have participated in one of the first "sound off''s" in Australia, it was New years eve(early 80's)and we went to Portsea.On arrival at the car park, a guy had his panel van parked, back doors open and stereo blasting(distorting) with a whole bunch of people partying round it. I had a listen and started talking to the guy about his system.Turns out, he had shelled out big bucks for his system and when he told me how much, I couldn't help remark that I had spent heaps less and I thought my system sounded better and was louder, so he said Crank it up and well see. I did and not only did he agree with me but so did the rest of the car park and the rest of the night the party was moved to my open boot. Every one had a really good night and we all met a whole bunch of cool people, and I ended up chaseing and catching a pretty young girl from their crew.
17years later...
I have since that period(17years later) got more and more into car audio. I have spent the last three years working in one of Melbourne's better specialist stores, as well as becoming a judge in IASCA for both Sound Quality and Installation. I have completed an ALPINE G.A.I.T. installation course, as well as attending many trade nights for brands such as ALPINE, MTX, & PHOENIX GOLD.
I do nearly all the work on my car myself, but would like to thank Keith Angell, Danny Madecki,Tim C, Jerry V, & Sam P for all the help and advice they have given me.
Music
I am currently listening to stuff like 2 Pac, Public Enemy, Monica etc as well as a bit of R&B like Blackstreet, I also like Regurgitator and a lot of local indie stuff and too much stuff to list here
Radio
If listening to the radio I tend to jump round between Triple J(Australia wide), Triple R and PBS(Melbourne Stations) and not bothering with commercial radio, as there still playing the shit I grew out of fifteen years ago, ie: The Angels, Cold Chisel and Aussie Crawl etc, just to keep local content up, when everybody knows weve got a ton of talented bands playing around who can't get airplay for love or payola. NB one station has an ex AFL (Australian Rules) footballer doing the programing,Gimmie a break. I also hate Ads on commercial radio as no effort seems to go into most of them (some are just the audio from the TVad).
About the Name Cyberpunky
I use the alias so no one can look me up in a phonebook, and come and relieve me of my hard earned system. I also don't mention the type of car for much the same reasons. My alias isnt meant to denote that I'm some sort of hacker or anything, its simply comes from a combination of my nickname of punky which derives from Punky Brewster (a U.S. kids sitcom) and my name being Bruce, and that I have hit cyberspace.
PEACE
Cyberpunky