Do you regret all the money you have spent on car audio?

A co-worker asked me for a copy of a Christmas Bass CD I have.

I asked him what he was planning to play it on because 75% of the musical information on the tracks of a bass CD occurs below 40 Hz. Most stock stereos, computer speakers and iPods can't play that. People then usually jack up thier tone control and volume settings to get the performance to hear less than half of that info. Even then, it's just a harmonic of the actual note that thier stereo is physically incapable of producing.

Well, we took it out to his Volkswagen which has a decent stock stereo and it sounded OK. The stereo performed better than I thought it would be he was really pushing it just to get the bass track audible. So I told him to grab the CD and head over to my truck so I could show him how much he was actually missing.

So we get in the truck, I started the engine so the amp would have enough power and not clip on the battery power alone. I immediatly clicked over to the heaviest track on the CD and let it play. The very first bass hit vibrated his shirt and started blowing his hair around. He was stunned to say the least, said it was too loud and got out. Stood in the parking lot right next to the truck and still said it was too loud.

So I shut it all down. We got out and I told him I'd make him a copy of the CD tonight if he still wanted me to. So he said yes and then he asked the question..."Why do you have that?" That started a discussion about my history with cars, electronics, stereos and so on and so forth. We got back into the office and a bunch of people were hanging around and we started discussing cost of the stereo and what I've spent over the years. My current stereo pales in cost comparison to the competition systems we set up before but they were still surprised at the price tag being over $4500. I think in total, over the past 14-15 years I've been **** around and the 3-4 years I competed, my expenditure has been about $25-40K. The total cost of all the projects and cars I worked on approaches 6 figures easily with all the setups for friends and such.

Of course, since they don't "get it", that is exhorbitant, wasteful and just plain stupid because that's enough money to buy a house. Then again, most of the cost came when I was in high school and college and a house was the farthest thing from my mind. Sure, it'd be nice to have that money now but I have no debt from those days, just spare equipment that I haven't desired to get rid of yet.

Do I regret it? No, not at all. I had a freaking blast doing it, learned valuable skills and picked up a small education in circuits, automotive electrical systems and loudspeaker design. I gained a keen interest in sound reproduction and the science behind it and met a ton of cool people and saw thousands of kick-**** rides.


So do you regret all the money you've dumped into your stereo?