As far as car audio set-up goes, this one takes the cake. I have auditioned literally hundreds of audio installations, and they generally fall into four main categories: looks ordinary, sounds less than ordinary; looks ordinary, sounds great; looks great, sounds average at best; and the one that every ICE aficionado wants – has the looks and the sonic performance to match.
This white Honda Accord wagon definitely belongs to the last category, and probably at the top of that stack, no less.
Designed by Wize Electronics, and installed and tuned by King’s Way Sound Garage, the car is the daily drive of Wize’s general manager, Terence. And most of the components come from the folds distributed by Wize themselves.
Headlining the set-up is a three-way active front comprising a set of Rainbow CS 360.30 Reference speakers costing in the region of $20,000! Installed flush into the sides of the dash and the doors, and accentuated with customised transparent vinyl covers, they stylishly contrast against the black dash.
The head unit chosen is the highly regarded Alpine F1 Status DVI-9990E, which found fame with many of the world’s top installers and is commonly employed in competitions. Features such as all-aluminium front panel, gorgeous BioLite display, lightning-fast Ionbus data transmission, 24-bit digital filter, four-layer power circuit board, and highest-quality D/A converters ensure that the source signals are the best that they can be.
Some may call this set-up “selfish”, as it caters purely to the driver. But when you need to drive 1,800km to Bangkok to participate in one of the region’s top professional competitions, as Terence did a couple of months ago, you’d want a set-up that really pampers the driver.
This competition featured two famous organisations in the car audio industry – IASCA and EMMA. The criteria not only revolved around sound quality but also placed emphasis on the level of workmanship. Practicality also contributed to the scoring.
Terence’s Accord positively aced the areas of workmanship and practicality. The installation is clean and well thought out – especially the boot design, where a four-inch-high customised compartment conceals four Sinfoni amps, one Alpine F1 Status PXI-H990 Multimedia Manager, one 12-inch Rainbow Vanadium subwoofer, one Sinfoni Power Block and metres upon metres of Phoenix Gold interconnects, speaker cables and power cable.
Adding a nice effect at night are the numerous LEDs that light up the frames of the Perspex covers protecting all the components.
Unlike the Thai and Malaysian competitors, who had a much shorter distance to drive to the completion venue, the entire set-up endured the two-day journey without any problems. And when he arrived, the judges were instantly blown away by his set-up – like I was.
I popped in a few CDs, including one 42-track compilation provided by IASCA. This is the reference CD used by both tuners and judges. Entitled I Will Find You There by Michael Ruff, a consummate singer, songwriter and keyboardist, it features him performing the lead vocals and playing the piano, accompanied by two back-up singers, a guitarist and a drummer.
This track was chosen because it will not only test the musicality of the installation but, more importantly, it will severely assess its staging and imaging, which are the key features separating a well-tuned set-up from a truly great one. In the car, if I had closed my eyes, I could have sworn that Ruff and his entourage were performing “live” in front of me.
Terence estimated that the entire set-up costs somewhere in the region of $50,000, which may sound like a lot of money, but this is hardly the most expensive set-up in town.
However, even the best equipment in the world would have counted for zilch if something was not done right at any one of the three important stages – planning, tuning and installation.
This, though, is where the Accord shines. There were experts at every step of the way, and coupled with the best that Alpine, Rainbow, Sinfoni and Phoenix Gold had to offer, it had every chance of hitting all the right notes.
THE LIST
+ HEAD UNIT/PROCESSOR
Alpine F1 Status DVI-9990E
Alpine F1 Status PXI-H990
+ SPEAKERS
Rainbow CS 360.30 Reference
+ SUBWOOFER
Rainbow 12-inch Vanadium
+ AMPLIFIER
2 x Sinfoni Amplitude 90.2
2 x Sinfoni Amplitude 150.2x
+ ACCESSORIES
4 x Phoenix Gold 1-Farad Capacitor
Sinfoni Power Block
Sinfoni Interconnects
Phoenix Gold 0 AWG main power cable, 12 AWG front speaker cable
10 AWG subwoofer cable, power and ground distribution cable, battery clamp, KF gold-plated fuse
