When it comes to the automotive hobbyist industry as a whole, encompassing everything from rodders and tuners to restorations and show cars, there is a lot of animosity on the inside. Cruise a muscle car through a group of old-school hot rodders or tuner cars and you will get griped at. Don’t even think about trying to park a Honda between to a ’69 Camaro and ’71 Challenger, it might not be drivable when you come back. But is it necessary? Of course, it isn’t, but this is the difference between fans and fanatics.

Back in the early ‘90s, when I got my start in car audio, things were a little more crazy than they are these days. If you had Rockford Fosgate, Alpine or Phoenix Gold gear, you hung out with guys that had the same gear. You certainly didn’t mix and match your gear. Today, everything is jumbled up and there is a lot less hatin’ going on in the parking lot.

Most of the time, I would say that being a fanatic is a bad thing. Religious fanatics, political fanatics, they really just cause trouble for the rest of us normals. Being a car audio fanatic doesn’t hurt anybody, as a matter of fact, it is actually helpful. Being a car audio fanatic means buying more gear. Spreading the word about building better car audio systems, impromptu sound-offs in parking lots and at stoplights. Being a car audio fanatic is more than just dropping some subs in your trunk, it is a lifestyle, one that you have to be proud of and display to everyone.

I am not saying that you should cruise around neighborhoods at 11pm with the bass booming, waking everyone within 3 miles, that just give the rest of us a bad name. Instead, take it to the high-school parking lot, the cruise nights and the football games. Find a car audio competition and enter. Get involved and show them that you are true fanatic. Oh, and toss that iPod and buy some real CDs, they sound better (had to say it!)

It is obvious that I am not a fan of the iPod, never have been. Maybe it is my fear of certain types of change or just the fact that I didn’t come up with it, but to me, the iPod represents something evil in modern marketing. It is forced down your throat and you have no choice but to accept it. But then again, maybe that’s just my inner “crotchety old man” talking.*

What the iPod is likely to become in the next few years will be a serious intrusion into your life. We are already too linked in. I’m currently driving around in a Dodge Grand Caravan with mobile WiFi. Even when I am driving around, I am at work. Not that I don’t like being at work, I love what I do, but come on, when does it become too much?

Personally, I absolutely love technology. The new 1 terabyte SD cards are going to revolutionize media storage. Which is why I predicted iPods will be available in terabyte flash memory soon, within the next few years. Additionally, I see the iPod moving away from the media storage device and toward the pocket-PC (sorry Mac lovers) realm, with a mobile Mac OS and an infrared keyboard. You will be able to be in the office while you are on the subway.

While I was researching this post, I stumbled across an article posted yesterday (Aug 7, 2009) about Apple’s rumored new tablet. The big iPod is scarily similar to what I envision for the pocket version. It is just a matter of time before all of these capabilities are rolled into one portable hand-held device.

While I prefer to listen to my digital music via a Samsung P2 player (just like an iPod Touch, but without a few key features and all that iTunes crap), we may all soon be required to use the newest gadgets from Apple, because it is tied to your 4-year contract with AT&T mobile, your DirectTV satellite provider and is also the keys to your iCar (available in 2-door, 4-door and iEntry).

*Now get off my lawn, ya’ dang whippersnapper.

I grew up using Apple computers. In 1985, when the Mac came out, my parents bought one. I loved the Mac, even though all of the games I wanted to play were IBM-based. So when the iPod came out you would think I would love it, right? Incorrect-amundo my friends, I hated it. I called it back in 2001, when it hit the market- iPod will kill the car audio industry. Flash forward to 2008, the car audio industry as a whole held a 12-volt summit to discuss what the hell happened to car audio. I was there and when that mic was passed around, I was the first to grab it and I proclaimed “It’s all our own damn fault!”

There were MP3 players before 2001. I had one, it was a Creative Labs Nomad HDD player. It was cool, I didn’t have to worry about skipping or scratched CDs, but I didn’t use it in the car. I had a competition system and I was not going to play crappy MP3s through it. That is paramount to buying a Formula 1 car and trying to tow a trailer with it, it just doesn’t make sense. I knew it was all over the day I saw Alpine come out with an iPod adapter for your car- the industry killed itself in one fell swoop, giving up its precious market share to a $200 device. Now iPods are a billion dollar industry by themselves. That used to be car audio money.

The problem is that the industry saw the iPod as the next big thing, which it was, but we lost sight of what built this industry- good audio, not integration of an iPod. When you plug an iPod (iPods in particular) to a car audio system, it is the equivalent of playing a tape through an FM radio station. You are taking compressed audio (even if you use FLAC or other lossless codecs), playing it through a small device that was designed to output to .25” ear bud speakers into the radio. iPods castrate music. The software in the unit cuts out the low frequencies so that the earbuds don’t pop. This kills bass output when you plug it into your car.

When I listen to my Samsung P2 while mowing the lawn, exercising or whatever, I use Skull Candy full-size headphones with the built-in bass shakers. This emulates the feeling of bass frequency output. I really like the headphones. Occasionally I will plug my P2 into the wife’s minivan while on a road trip, the stereo is bone stock and sounds like crap anyway. Plug an iPod into a high-end car audio system and you quickly become aware of the differences. Try this- play a song through you iPod and then play the same song through a real CD (not a burned MP3) the difference will likely amaze you, even on a stock system.

By kowtowing to the iPod generation, the car audio industry forgot how to market quality sound to today’s youth, the bread and butter of car audio. We exchanged quality audio for a few tie-in sales of adapters. The manufacturers have started to realize this and are now trying to show what car audio is all about- QUALITY SOUND. Too many young kids have never heard a really impressive car audio system. Their friends don’t buy amps and subs, the local shops are not out there with demo vehicles and flash rides trying to get kids to hear what audio SHOULD sound like. That leaves the rest of us, the last generation of true audiophiles to teach the younger kids what their music could and should sound like.

So what are you gonna do? Crank it up til your ears bleed or plug that iPod back into to your dash and listen to Englebert Humberdink while you grow old and your soul dies?