Phil Hughes has been around car audio for some time, climbing the industry ranks from installer, to store manager, to one of the top three salesmen at an audio distribution company. Soon after achieving this, Hughes met Landy Adcock and proceeded to form OSM Marketing in Texas, where he is currently a senior partner. As part of his love for the industry and continuing initiative to bring OSM to the forefront, Hughes chose to turn his 2004 Corvette C-5 coupe into a canvas to display OSM's commitment to excellence.
Setting The Stage
Taking a brand new C-5 off of the lot and stripping it to its bare bones sounds downright malicious. But Hughes had a mission-and confidence in the abilities of the OSM team as well as the installers at Rigid Customs of Baton Rouge, LA. They prepped the vehicle for 400' of R-Blox damping material and three gallons of R-Blox spray dampener. With the ultimate goal to provide product demonstrations as well as compete in sound quality competitions across the nation, the Corvette would need lots of power to perform successfully. To fulfill this requirement, the install team installed Odyssey batteries in the front and rear of the car using custom aluminum battery trays with acrylic covers. The car was also strung with an assortment of power cables, speaker wire and interconnects from X-Scorpion Pro Line. With the canvas primed, creating the masterpiece could begin.
Video Production
The install crew replaced unwanted factory accessories with A/V equipment, such as the Planet Audio P900DVD. It provides navigation capabilities and A/V source controls for the entire system. The passenger airbag was replaced with a Planet Audio P7IR 7-inch monitor mounted flush in a custom fiberglass mold. Since the install in the back blocks the rear view mirror, the team installed a back-up camera whose feed is displayed on the P900DVD's flip-down screen.
Speed Of Sound
Providing height and width to the soundstage, tweeters from a Zapco component set sound from the A-pillar locations. Using balsa wood, the installers shaped the perfect contour for the enclosures. After achieving the desired look, they used fiberglass mat and reinforced body filler to strengthen the balsa wood and make a seamless transition to the factory A-pillar panel. To add strength while reducing resonance (in conjunction with R-Blox damping material), they used chopped fiberglass mat with polyresin inside the pods.
The component set's 6 1/2" midbass drivers sit in kick panel enclosures constructed out of balsa wood. Since Adcock is not a fan of center channel speakers, angle positioning of the midbass drivers was critical to obtain an accurate center image. Adcock lined the inside of the enclosures with non-hardening clay to eliminate resonant frequencies and ported the drivers to the outside of the car giving them the needed air to produce acoustical impact. The installers took care in the finish of the kick panels to ensure a seamless presentation and integration into the existing interior.
To The Bridge
For a smooth transition between the front and rear of the system, the installers integrated a continuous fiberglass mold that flows from the dash to the rear hatch. The cascading console is embedded with a remote control, stereo Zapco EQ30 equalizers and a Tru Technologies crossover. As the console reaches past the crossover, it squeezes between two Nitrous Express bottles and spills into the hatch, where it is engulfed by a sea of red molded fiberglass.
Taking advantage of the Corvette's fiberglass body, the team molded the fiberglass insert in the hatch direct from the exterior of the car as a single continuous piece. The concept continues a constant flow between the exterior details and the interior design. The crew decided to bi-amp the 4-channel Planet Audio amplifier system because they did not want to rely on additional equipment along the signal chain to correct acoustical problems. "We simply build by the K.I.S.S. system," Hughes comments, "and if any problems come up we don't use Band-Aids, we use old-school technology and brain power to solve them."