Caraudio.com Member Spotlight Fi Audio

[Johnny Drama 5,000+ posts]

This derives from the SSA threads where each month we will have a valuable member of the car audio community that members will be able to ask questions to.

Our first member is Scott of Fi Audio. Please ask him any questions you have pertaining to car audio, home audio, or audio in general.

Do not whore, spam, or flame in here. Keep it on topic. You have been warned.

Click to read more...

 

[Johnny Drama 5,000+ posts]

Scott, What made you want to be in the car audio industry? Where did you get your start?

 

[danteBirosel 5,000+ posts]

Scott, When will you have prices for competitors? I have a project car ready, and will be prepping it up for next season's dbdrag.

So far i have one sponsor. (showrides //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif )

 

[Fi Car Audio 10+ year member]

Thanks Justin... If you dont feel like being bored... please feel free to skip down past this post.

I got my start in the car audio industry 18 years ago. Having friends that were older than me by a couple of years, I got a little head start in installing stereos and speakers for them when I was 15... Not sure exactly how that happened, but I figured I could do it and already knew my way around a multimeter and oscilloscope. Its only 12 volts... how hard could it be?

By the time I got my first car I had big plans already (or so I thought were big plans). Working at a skate shop in San Diego was fun, but I really enjoyed car audio. So I got a job installing at a shop when I was 17. From there it simply snowballed. I competed in IASCA 89-91 and did fairly well. Of course things were different then... you could have some kid in a beater 1968 station wagon that his grandma gave him with some ragged looking install take first simple because he followed the rules (fused properly, correct size wires for power, blah blah...) and it actually sounded great. About the time I ran out of time to compete, things started to change and more points were being awarded for "creativity" than sound. You all know how things have ended up with that //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

Working at shops I started collecting all sorts of blown and screwed up speakers... lots of freebies (and Im ashamed to say, dumpster diving). From all these speakers Id pull apart what I could and make "good" speakers out of them. "Good" is definitely subjective, but they worked. Getting more inquisitive I learned how to derive TS params using a multimeter and a frequency generator. At that point a whole new world opened up. I could be somewhat scientific about things and try different parts in the same motor. See what changed with respect to the motor being the "control constant" and I learned alot from that. I tried to find parts suppliers, but without the internet of today, it was MUCH tougher via snail mail and communicating with China was comical at best.

Fast forward a couple years and install shops later... I took an interest in home audio since my old Infinitys had seen better days. I kept the boxes, and bought some Vifas from Madisound and designed some crossovers by formula. They came out decent... more a testament to how easy the older Vifa drivers were to work with than my crossover designing ability. Then I wanted a monster sub...

Tired of using what I felt were inferior subs for what I wanted, I focused on getting parts to build my own subs. After a couple trials and samples I came up with a solid design. After friends heard it, they all wanted their own... and I started to go the direction of a mini home audio sub manufacturer. That grew and grew by word of mouth and somehow got a call from a small car audio company that wanted to know where I got these drivers. They ended up being my first OEM client. After that I picked up USD Audio... I had met Eric on several occasions over the years competing and always admired Speaker Works/USD. From there things grew and I picked up more accounts. Along the way I befriended Mark Chao at King Audio. They became my regular OEM supplier and I helped them with driver design. After Mark left the company, we remained friends and kept in contact. Along the way I ran into supply issues and Mark was getting tired of the company he had started and we decided to combine forces to start DeStijl (an OEM buildhouse). (Somewhere in there about a year before Mark and I teamed up I started some little company called Resonant Engineering... I have never been good with names) With some of my larger LA based clients moving production over to China, we felt it was a good time for a change. Moved to Las Vegas and set up camp. RE grew from my original premise into a company taking its own direction and life. Another 4 years from there and I decided it was time for a change. Wanting another child and feeling the need to spend more time with family, I decided to pack it in and sell my half of DeStijl and RE.

As of today, I am running a new car audio company and doing lots of consulting work for the home audio industry... we will see what kind of future this next car audio venture has in the next couple of months //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

So, with that BS life story behind... lets talk about some actual interesting stuff //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[CJL 10+ year member]

interesting story //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/thumbsup.gif.3287b36ca96645a13a43aff531f37f02.gif

 

[bamaboy 5,000+ posts]

i enjoyed that read //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

i envy you just ot let you know //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

did you attend college to learn speaker engineering? or just somehting you picked up?

 

[Fi Car Audio 10+ year member]

LivinLife... hate to say it, but I highly doubt we will have any special competitor pricing. Im trying to get back to my original idea of what I wanted RE to be... before it took off on its own. Simply trying to offer very competitive and somewhat unique products/services at the best prices we can.

I have seen too many kids turn away from competitions because they cant afford the $$$ to get into the game now. With the big guys getting even bigger (after paying years of dues fronted with their own cash) now through sponsorships, it really makes it tough on the kids that is working a minimum wage job trying to build a comp vehicle. So, in offering the same prices to everyone, I dont have to mark things up to make up for the loss of profit in hadning out free products or deeply discounted products to competitors. It seemed to work when RE started as competitors still bought them... but times have changed and we will see if it still works today.

Might be bullet #3 to the foot... we will see //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[bamaboy 5,000+ posts]

also how many bullets do you have?

 

[Showrides]

interesting story //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/thumbsup.gif.3287b36ca96645a13a43aff531f37f02.gif

Agreed.

Just don't run off to Chile like wiggins

 

[Slo_Ride 5,000+ posts]

What can I compare the spl of the BTL to, L7,DD,??

 

[andar 10+ year member]

Scott, you inspire the hell out of me.

 

[azbass 5,000+ posts]

scott i have this big boil on my back, what would you recomend doing?

just kidding all jokes aside. welcome to the ca forum, also ssa. i look foward to reading your info, maby i can learn some more.

 

[revrider1 5,000+ posts]

Very interesting....

 

[Showrides]

What can I compare the spl of the BTL to, L7,DD,??

I do have a question actually. It sounds like you are all into the SPL contests, and that you are trying to get competitors SPL products at good prices. Are your drivers mainly used for SPL installs? Or are you trying to attrack the SQ and SQL people as well?

Appreciate your time

Ben

 

[bamaboy 5,000+ posts]

What can I compare the spl of the BTL to, L7,DD,??

a BTL

dont bring all this stuff in here, keep it informative:naughty: