An Open Letter to the Car Stereo Competitive Community,

Ever since Robert Harley, Editor-in-Chief, of the absolute sound® magazine, described the Magic Bus as “The world’s best car stereo” in 2008, car stereo competitors became angered. They described the “world’s best” claim as both meaningless and insulting – a claim bestowed upon me by a reviewer who has never heard other competition-winning cars and had no awareness of competitive judging criteria. This, combined with my unwillingness to compete, further increased their animosity toward me.  

Car stereo competitors contend that the only way to validate the “world’s best” claim is to compete and settle the matter once and for all. When I responded with unwillingness to subject the Magic Bus to scoring systems with which I disagreed, the vitriolic attacks began. Competitors responded with slanderous and libelous attacks too numerous and vile to mention. Competitors also claimed that (a) autographs from musicians of whom they’ve never heard were worthless, and (b) I’m a shameless self-promoter who spams forums with irrelevant and uninteresting activities, and (c) I don’t have the courage to compete against, or exhibit alongside, legitimate championship winning cars. 

I’ve contacted Paul Papadeas (President, IASCA) and Steve Stern (President, MECA) and expressed my concerns about the malicious conduct of competitors, which I feel is unwarranted, unsportsmanlike, and unprofessional. Neither president condones this behavior, and both encouraged me to try to ignore the vitriol and keep doing what I’m doing. Admittedly, it’s difficult when one has sponsors and conducts business in the 12-volt industry. Sponsors expect me to promote their products, and my personal mission is to sell goods and services with the highest value-added integrity and passion. 

Out of curiosity, I statistically examined one set of competitive results, and produced what will likely be a ground-breaking paper entitled, An Examination of Judge Reliability at a Major United States Car Stereo Competition. I employed an unbiased third-party consultant to validate and augment my calculations and conclusions. Unfortunately, the results do not bode well for judges or competitors. It essentially invalidated one set of competitive results. I’m discouraged by my objective and irrefutable findings. 

Consequently, I’m offering my services to competitive organizations to improve the performance of judges and increase the meaningfulness of competitive results. In the meantime, I would urge competitors to acknowledge my view that there are a multitude of ways to validate mobile audio systems, besides competitive results, and stop the senseless vitriol once and for all. 

Respectfully yours,