If you read the magazine on a regular basis then you will have an idea of how difficult it was to choose the vehicles and products for this issue. This past year, we featured more products than we have in some time. Likewise, the number of car features was also substantial. But once we sat down to look over the last 12 issues, it became clear which ones were really representative of the Best of... Clearly, Alpine and the Stinger/Hifonics vehicles stood out as the two best vehicles (along with a personal favorite, the Kicker Metropolitan), just in terms of sheer creativity and the extreme nature of the installs. Steve Brown, Mike Vu, Sean Young and Brian Mobley set the bar so high that it's going to be difficult to top the X5 and Magnum in '06. Just as impressive were the shop and consumer vehicles. The fact that "regular" guys without the support of a big company behind them were able to pull off some incredible custom rides is a testament to their passion and skill. Instead of selecting just a few examples for the Best of... we decided to include as many vehicles, as well as products, as we could. Frankly, they all deserve this type of recognition. On the product side we had a rather difficult time choosing the speakers, amps and head units... It's certainly made easier by the fact, though, that we have points totals that summarize the results of most of the tests. Nonetheless, it was still no cakewalk with the number of amazing products we had to review in '05. We make a concerted effort to feature the best gear around; and I think you'll find that anything that we reviewed in a positive way in '05 will be a wise consumer purchase. At the very least, this survey is worth a second look. Enjoy.
A magazine's recommendations or awards (for example, Motor Trend's) may not always correspond with day-to-day livability as much as they depend on performance measures. We've been lucky to have some of the industry's best with respect to providing readers with an overall perspective. To these people we give great credit: Vance Dickason is a master of crossover networks, speaker and overall system design. His work can be heard in older MB Quart components and more recently in M&K, Niles and Atlantic Technologies products. Pat Turnmire has over 800 speakers brought to market and eight design and engineering awards; and he is responsible for the leading speaker-engineering program, SpeaD. Bob Norvelle has engineered products for Kicker and Orion, among others. His specialty has become electronics, mainly amplifiers. Eric Holdaway owns SpeakerWorks, which has one of the best track records in sound competition. Eric tuned nearly all of their winning vehicles. Bob Morrow worked in professional music for some 31 years and has worked in the product departments for some of the best manufacturers in the business. Chris Yato worked at Alpine as director for the demo/corporate cars, four of which obtained Best of Show at CES, and helped with the conceptual development of the highly regarded F#1 Status product. This year we considered pulling names from a hat because of all the high value, quality products we put through the wringer in the last 12 issues. Rejecting that, we thought we'd provide a list of favorites from our experts. Vance Dickason: Cerwin Vega Stroker Pro. Pat Turnmire: Focal Utopia BE. Bob Norvelle: MB Quart amp. Eric Holdaway: Panasonic monitor, CV Stroker Pro, Zapco Components. Bob Morrow: Polk components. Chris Yato: Rockford T210. Casey Thorson: SEAS components.