Upon arriving in the country music capitol of the world, Nashville, Tennessee, for this year's dB Drag Finals, we were greeted with a major downpouring of rain. The weather however did not seem to dampen the spirit of competition. I was out wandering the streets after the rain stopped to see who was rolling in late and/or performing last minute miracle preparations for yet another run at the trophies. And while competitors were busy gearing up, manufacturers were busy on their side. XM SatRad, Audiobahn, MA Audio, Kenwood, Bassmekanik.com, Circuit City, Lighting Audio, Pioneer, Rockford Fosgate, MMats and MECP were the headline sponsors for this year's event.
The show floor set up worked fairly well. Manufacturers were on one side, the competitors on the other and a huge stage was erected in the middle which served as the focal point. You had DJ Billy E of bassmekanik.com performing in front of the massive trophies while flanking both sides of the stage were the dB Drag lanes. Hanging overhead of each lane were projection screens that you could see from across the hall. Spectators could check out the action from almost anywhere, and watch competitors from both sides. A major amount of work went into this process, but it was well worth it for the guys back home, sitting in front of the computer, because Wayne Harris had the show broadcast live to his termpro.com Web site.
In the competitor lanes there was quite a bit of discussion regarding the scores and problems with the microphones (feared by many, ruler of all - and corrupted by numbers). I say corrupted by the numbers, but really it's the limitations of the microphones. It's a limitation that is not easily resolved, as better mikes are vastly more expensive. But everyone did the best that they could and for the most part things worked out well. Two or three years ago no one thought we would be seeing the numbers we are seeing today, much less pushing the microphone and equipment the way competitors are currently doing. Here is the direct link to the thread where Wayne talks about it: http://www.termpro.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f= 4&t=003774.
Wayne has and continues to spend countless hours in research in order to seek better test equipment. The next couple of years should result in a further advance of dB Drag competition and its testing procedures. All the while competitors search to go louder. And it looks like there's no stopping them. Go to www.termpro.com/dbdrag/events/finals01/ and click on "Event Results" for the complete list.
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