I just bought a 2k Accord coupe ex. I haven't put the empeg mkII in yet. I figure I have 2 ways to go:

1: pull out the factory stereo and speakers, and put my mbquarts and PPI stuff in my new car. The only thing I would hate doing this is that on the EX's there is a steering wheel radio control (up, down, station switch) which would be sitting there useless - It would irritate me to death having something, even intentionally, "broken", in my new car. I kinda remember seeing some sort of adapters for aftermarket stereo's to be controlled by OEM steering wheel controls, has anyone heard of these?

2: figure out some way to input the empeg into the factory system via some sort of aftermarket cd changer interface.
I have the double din cd player in mine, so I would either have to get a single din tape player, or get an honda OEM under dash kit like they use for the add on tape player.

I'm obviously going to go with 1, but I'd love it if anyone had any info to share, either on 98-01 accord installs, or especially on integrating aftermarket units with the factory steering wheel audio controls.

Thanks!

Ben

Found it!!

http://www.tune-town.com/Cars/stuff/steering_wheel.htm

Sweet! and of course it will work with kenwoods, so it should work with the empeg - Now I only wish for the option to program the remote key functions in emplode.

ben

Edited by grymm on 12/8/00 03:56 AM.

The only thing I would hate doing this is that on the EX's there is a steering wheel radio control (up, down, station switch) which would be sitting there useless

Check out our FAQ on the subject here. If you can isolate the Honda button leads, you can use a variation on the stalk interface to go directly to the Empeg's serial port. I'll look at the link you supplied in the follow-up message and see if it's worth adding to the FAQ, too.

figure out some way to input the empeg into the factory system via some sort of aftermarket cd changer interface.

Or just buy an aftermarket CD player with a line-in and put the two in the dash together like dionysus did in his Honda. Or have only the empeg like I do in my Honda.

You're going to get the best sound if you use an amp and your own speakers in the Honda. I will warn you that running the cables to the trunk is tricky, but the cleanliness of the resulting job is worth it.

___________
Tony Fabris

http://www.tune-town.com/Cars/stuff/steering_wheel.htm

Hmm, couldn't get that link to work for me. Even the parent tune-town.com gives me an error.

___________
Tony Fabris

tony,

thanks for the response! looks like tunetown has some reverse DNS problems on their server - try this link to the manu's old decrepit web site:

http://www.go2pac.com/news.htm

www.autotoys.com has the sw-3 for something like 68.00. It sounds like that is going to do the trick.

I wish there was room under the seats for an amp, I really don't want to make an amp rack for the trunk, and with the fold down back seats, there really is no place to put an amp besides the floor, and that will be in the way and an eyesore.

I'm fairly an "old hand" at car stereo installs, and already have 4 mb quart 6.5 coax's and a couple PPI art series amp. I just checked your empeg install. The single din compartment below your empeg, is that a honda OEM pocket? Did you drill holes in your sled for mounting holes?

ahhh, just reread the FAQ - They actually mention the PAC interface and give the link iI guess that's where I remember seeing something about interfacing with the factory steering controls. I read so many FAQ's and web news pages a day that they all run together after a while!

Ben

I wish there was room under the seats for an amp, I really don't want to make an amp rack for the trunk, and with the fold down back seats, there really is no place to put an amp besides the floor, and that will be in the way and an eyesore.

I dunno what your Coupe's trunk is like, but in my Sedan, there was a perfect spot for my amps on the side. A little plastic utility pocket:



The single din compartment below your empeg, is that a honda OEM pocket? Did you drill holes in your sled for mounting holes?

Yes, and Yes. I really like having that little pocket under the stereo. As you can see, Dionysus opted for a single drill-hole in the back of his sled instead of four on the sides like mine. If you look closely in the photo at my web site, you can see the screws.

If you opt to drill the sides, make sure you get very low-clearance screws. Mine bumped the drive-mount screws on the sides of the Empeg a tiny bit, and I had to trade the Empeg's drive-tray-mount screws for low-clearance ones to make it all work right.

___________
Tony Fabris

What kind of amp do you have? I'm afraid my amps are going to be the wrong shape for that pocket to do me any good "as-is". I really need to just crawl in the trunk and give it a good look around - Just got the car yesterday!

I guess I'm gonna see if the dealership would get me a single din pocket and mount like the one you have, that looks much sweeter than the metra kits floating around!

Ben

What kind of amp do you have? I'm afraid my amps are going to be the wrong shape for that pocket to do me any good "as-is".

Actually, I have three. Two you can see in the photo, and the third is mounted to the back side of that subwoofer. You're right: the amps have to be pretty small to fit in those pockets. Both of the amps are over 10 years old, so digging them out to read the model numbers would probably be pointless.

But what most installers do is to cut a custom board on which to mount the amps. It would go in the same region as those pockets and would be carpeted the same color as the rest of the trunk. The amp could optionally be mounted in a "stealth" fashion so that the board concealed it. You might want to talk to a professional installer and see what their quote would be.

I guess I'm gonna see if the dealership would get me a single din pocket and mount like the one you have

That's only if you want just the empeg in your dash. Personally, I'm very happy having it be just the empeg, but some folks like to have a CD player as well. I kinda like the way Di's turned out.

You probably would only need the pocket part and not any extra mounts. I think the mounting frame (as seen in Dionysus' photos) is already in the car.

If you want to scrounge the pocket yourself, you can order it from Majestic Honda. I was pretty happy with their online catalog which allowed me to look at sketches of the parts before I ordered them. In fact, I got better help from these guys than I did from my own dealership.

See, I wanted to use one of the blank switch locations on the left side of the dash for a custom garage-door-opener switch. I asked the dealership to just order me any old switch that would go there, and they kinda gave me a funny look, and wanted to charge me $60.00 for a new Cruise Control switch.

Instead, I logged onto Majestic Honda and browsed the "Switches" for my year/make of car. I saw that the EX models have a switch there for the sunroof. So I ordered a $10.00 sunroof switch, and it worked perfectly. It was even a temporary-contact switch, which is exactly what I needed.

I just hacked into my garage door opener and removed the guts, then wired its main switch to this new switch I got.

Now I've got a sunroof switch (lighted, even, so it lights up when the dash lights are on) even though my car doesn't have a sunroof. When I press any of the three buttons on this switch, my garage door opens and closes.

___________
Tony Fabris

tony,

I was more curious about your big black amp because of the size of the heatsink on it, more than wanting a model number to buy it. As I said, I've done a few (dozen) car audio installs myself - My old system in my G20 was a fairly decent system, but more complicated than I wanted. I also don't want to go back with 3 subs (JL audio 8w6's). I'll probably do a small box similiar to yours. I'm already doing measurements for the rack - I was just hoping (fruitlessly) for something clean, quick, and above all simple. A CD player feels hopelessly inadequate to me in my post-empeg state, and running the empeg through a pioneer's (or whatever)would seem pretty redundant, as well as putting more electronics between me and the music. (though I know some people do enjoy their cds still!).

The link to Majestic Honda looks like just what I need! I really appreciate that - Are there any other Honda-must-visit links you'd like to share?

Besides having a sunroof switch, the EX honda's actually already have a homelink controller built in, to operate most of the garage door systems - that wouldn't work on yours?

ben

I was more curious about your big black amp because of the size of the heatsink on it, more than wanting a model number to buy it.

It's a very old Yamaha amp. It's two channels, and I forget the exact RMS wattage, but it's pretty powerful.

The link to Majestic Honda looks like just what I need! I really appreciate that - Are there any other Honda-must-visit links you'd like to share?

Nah, I just made sure to share that with you because it took me a while to find it myself. It's the only online parts store with a genuine full parts catalog online that you can browse and see the sketches.

Besides having a sunroof switch, the EX honda's actually already have a homelink controller built in, to operate most of the garage door systems - that wouldn't work on yours?

Say, what? Is there a button somewhere on your Honda that opens your garage door for you? I had no idea about this. You'd think the guy at the dealership would have mentioned it to me when I asked about it- I told him how I was going to hack a garage-door button.

___________
Tony Fabris

Look in your owner's manual on page 83

"Homelink Universal Transmitter"

here's a link: www.homelink.jci.com (Just tried it- its dead - that was the link given in the 2k accord owner's manual.)

The buttons are right in front of the sunglasses holder at the front of the roof.
It only came on the EXV6 model's however - I didn't see it listed on the majestic page either.

I also didn't see the center pocket below your empeg listed either - I emailed the contact for majestic - maybe they can source me one. I hate asking the dealership for anything, especially if I can get it on the net.

tony,

where did you run the Power wire from your battery through the firewall? I looked and didn't really see any good candidates.

My amp will fit on that plastic panel as well. I think I may just double sided tape it up, until I build a rack for it.

Are you using 6.5's or 6x9's for your rear deck speakers? I have 2 pair mb quart kns-160 coax separates, which are 6.5 speakers, but they are some weird euro shape, and don' actually mount like the majority of 6.5's.

Ben

where did you run the Power wire from your battery through the firewall? I looked and didn't really see any good candidates.

Good question. On the driver's side, up high, there was a rubber gromit, which a fairly large cabling bundle went through. I originally wanted to sneak the power wire through the gromit along with the cabling bundle. After about 30 minutes of trying I gave up and punched a small hole in the gromit. Even after doing that, it took a bit of work to get the wire through. Then I tie-wrapped the wire around the back edge of the engine compartment (there were some areas in the frame that worked perfectly for this), along the right edge of the engine compartment, then up to the battery, where a 20-amp waterproof fuse block finishes the job. Looks very professional, if I do say so myself.

But by far, the hardest part was getting the wire from there to the trunk. The sticking points were the B-pillar base and the area between the back seat and the trunk. Very tricky to string the wire through those places. I think I still have the scars.

Are you using 6.5's or 6x9's for your rear deck speakers?

I happened to have a pair of nice pioneer three-way 6x9's that sound great. They dropped right in. That was the easy part of the installation.

I have 2 pair mb quart kns-160 coax separates, which are 6.5 speakers, but they are some weird euro shape, and don' actually mount like the majority of 6.5's.

Hmm. Have you looked into creating a 6x9 plate/board that will drop into that location? Or have you considered those for the front door positions? I dunno if they'll fit, I think the door positions are shallow 6".

Also, a tip: if you're working on the door speakers, don't try to get to them through the grilles. You can't. You literally have to disassemble the entire door to get to them safely. There are some secrets to getting the door panels off. If you can get one of Crutchfield's master sheets for the job, it's worth its weight in gold.

___________
Tony Fabris

I saw that grommet hole earlier (actually saw 2 -the upper one looked to go to the wiper motor)- I'll probably use it - I was hoping that you would have found something I didn't! (that was easier) I'm going to be using 4 gauge wire ( I bet you were using 8?), so my install may be a little tougher.

I actually have 2 pair of the 6.5 coax separate mb quarts. I just looked at crutchfields speaker guide, and I see the depth is 1 15/16 for the front doors - good lord that IS shallow! I'm probably going to have to make a baffle to fit these 6.5 quarts in anyway - as I said they are some weird euro 6.5 size (something like 6.5A or S). Did you notice if there was any room between the door and the grille for a baffle to raise my mounting depth?

I was already planning on having to make a baffle for the rears, I suppose if it will fit making one for the fronts won't be that much trouble.

www.autotoys.com has a great guide for the 98-01 accords in their DIY section, you should check it out. No amp install guide however :(.

I saw something on the other accord post where you were talking about your imaging being a little off. You really should consider cutting your highs to those rear deck 6x9's - high's coming from behind you totally screw with your imaging. Rears should be used for rear fill only (or bass). I was in the same situation in my 92 infiniti G20- I was running the 2 pair of those 6.5 coax separates, front and rear full range. My soundstage was totally screwed. Finally I just unhooked the tweeters from my rears and that really tightened things up. Of course for you to unhook your tweeter on those 6x9, you would probably have to cut a wire!
I appreciate you letting me pick your brain - having some info before an install really helps in preparing for those little difficulties that always seem to arise!

Eh, time for bed - gotta take the GMAT tommorrow!

Ben

one more thing: did you check in your owner's manual for the mention of the homelink garage door opener system?


Ben

I'm going to be using 4 gauge wire ( I bet you were using 8?), so my install may be a little tougher.

Good luck getting that through the kick panel tunnels along with the RCA cables and everything else. Space is tight.

I'm hating myself because I didn't think far enough ahead, and I've had to dig into those tunnels more than once already to add more wiring that I didn't put in the first trip through. For example, I was all proud of myself when I'd run the RCA cables and power, then I realized, "D'oh! I didn't run the amp remote wire!". And after that was in, I began working on getting rid of some serious alternator whine, and I had to run a ground wire to the trunk. And now, if I want to eventually use those dash speaker locations, I'll have to run more speaker wire.

I see the depth is 1 15/16 for the front doors - good lord that IS shallow!

Yeah, but part of that limitation is a plastic drip shield that you could probably cut out to get more space. Provided you back the speaker with your own weatherproofing, of course- these cars have a wet-door design like most other modern cars, and when it rains it DOES get wet in there. You can get foam backings for the speakers from stereo shops...

I recommend disassembling the doors (carefully!) and finding out how much depth is really available when the plastic drip shields are removed and the windows get rolled down.

Did you notice if there was any room between the door and the grille for a baffle to raise my mounting depth?

Yes, but not much. I have some pioneer 3-way 5's that I want to use in those locations, and the only reason I haven't done it yet is because I'm too lazy to cut the spacer to make 'em fit. I measured, and it looks like I could raise the mountings by the thickness of 1/4" plywood (for my spacer) and still make it under the grilles.

I saw something on the other accord post where you were talking about your imaging being a little off. You really should consider cutting your highs to those rear deck 6x9's - high's coming from behind you totally screw with your imaging.

I'm totally aware of that, thanks. However, my complaint wasn't with the stereo imaging so much as the fact that all of the sound seems to come from the speakers at my feet. There are several factors involved, and yes, one of them is the fact that my rear tweeters are fully active.

However, at the moment, those are the only decent tweeters in the whole car. My door speakers are still the factory ones, so they're all midrange. And they're not tonally transparent, either: You end up hearing the speakers rather than the music. Damn, I gotta get those Pioneer's in the doors.

But even after I do that, simply cutting the highs to the rear speakers won't raise the soundstage. It'll improve the stereo image, but it'll be a nice stereo image centered around my knees. The only way I can really raise the soundstage is to put tweeters in the dash corners, and that's a lot of work for my car. Still, I want to do it and I have two amp channels free, just waiting for the opportunity.

one more thing: did you check in your owner's manual for the mention of the homelink garage door opener system?

Not yet. The manual's in the car and I never think of it when I'm in the car.

___________
Tony Fabris

I'm going to be using 4 gauge wire

How many amps are you figuring to pull, here, Grymm?

One of my pet peeves is this idea people have that amplifiers somehow work better when they have cabling eight or ten times bigger than required. Look in the IASCA book and there's a chart showing minimum required wire gages for given amp sizes and cable runs. At my last competition I lost points because I only had 8 gage wire going to my amps -- separate wiring runs to each amp, one of them 50 watts, the other one 100. I could have run 18 gage wire and been perfectly all right.

Anyway, don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to run welding cable to your amps. Check it out, and you may save yourself a lot of trouble.

tanstaafl.



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

2 amps:

PPI art series A600 = 600 watts bridged mono 2x150 stereo

it pulls a LOT of current

PPI art series a204 25watts x 4 - doesn't sound like a lot, but its plenty loud...

I don't know what iasca recommends, I haven't been actively doing the car stereo thing for a few years now, but I'd normally use 8 gauge for up to about up to 250 watts.

Hmmm... let's see, about 700 watts, let's assume 75% efficience (PPI is pretty good for efficiency) we're looking at 933 watts actual draw, or about 72 amps at 13 volts.

Y'know what? You're not far out of line with 4 gage wire -- that would be good for a 24 foot run. Assuming your amplifiers are in your trunk, you're probably looking at a 15 foot run, which would require 6 gage wire to have less than a 1/2 volt drop.

My wimpy little 100 watt system, on the other hand, with its short cable run (about 10 feet), could actually get by with 24 gage wire. So my 8-gage wire is serious overkill! It's not loud, but very few cars have ever out-scored me in sound quality.

My apologies -- you're doing it right.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

let's see, about 700 watts, let's assume 75% efficience (PPI is pretty good for efficiency) we're looking at 933 watts actual draw


Doug / others, how does this car stuff compare to home stereo equipment?

At home I use 2 x 300 watts (continuous rms into 8 ohms). These sit in a massive big amp (70 kilos; 150 lbs). At full load these draw up to 8 amps at 230V, which is about 1.8kW gross (AC). At 12v this would into unreal numbers.

For the empeg in the car I use a Rockford 240.4, which claims 30 wats rms into 4 channels.
At home I never ever drive anything at full load. Actually, the pre-amp limiter is set to 65dB (max is 92dB)
Why would we need hundreds of watts in a car? Or are we talking different watts?



Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

Hi, Henno --

...how does this car stuff compare to home stereo equipment?

Pretty much the same, except, of course, the lower voltages yield higher amperages (as you well know, Mr. Ohm pretty well laid down the law on that one...) which in turn require heavier cabling.

The home setup you describe, if moved to a car, would require (according to the chart on page 88 of the IASCA rulebook) 4 gage cabling for a 12 foot run, assuming that the actual power draw was 1800 watts. (This doesn't take into account the efficiency of the amplifier -- i.e., 100% efficient would draw 1800 watts to put out 1800 watts; 50% efficiency would, of course, require 3600 watts input for the 1800 watt output. But you knew that.)

The IASCA chart actually lists cabling requirements for amplifiers as high as 750 amps. (Requires 0 gage cabling for a six foot run!)

Why would we need hundreds of watts in a car?

Hundreds of watts? Try thousands of watts. Try tens of thousands of watts. The lunatic that runs the stereo shop that I patronize has a big Chevrolet dualie truck with enough amplifiers that he puts out 18,000 watts of power. He uses a 50 watt amplifier just as a pre-amplifier to feed the six 3,000 watt amplifiers that run the speakers. (3,000 watt amps are actually 750 watts each at 4 ohm, but he's running them half-ohm mono. He can only run them for 5--10 seconds at a time, else all the smoke leaks out of them and they quit working.)

Now, clearly, sound quality is not high on his list. If I remember correctly, his entire sound stage consists of twelve 15" subwoofers. He's had to replace all the glass with 1/2" thick lexan, and reinforce the door latches. He has reached 169 decibels in unofficial testing, and 164 decibels in actual competition.

I'll betcha your stereo can't do that!

tanstaafl.





"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

But Doug, you didn't really answer his question: "Why would you want more wattage in your car than in your house?"

My answer is that your home stereo doesn't have to compete with engine and road noise.

Also, when you're driving alone in your car, you tend to listen to the music louder than you would at home because your spouse/child/neighbors aren't present.

Question: Do home speakers have a different load (in ohms) than car speakers?

___________
Tony Fabris

the majority of home speakers are 8 ohm

the majority of car speakers are 4 ohm (subs being a pretty big exception - you'll see 6 ohm DVC, and some 8 ohm as well)

I originally had the A600 bridged running into 3 jl audio 8w6 (DVC 6 ohm speakers) - running the 3 in a parallel-series config yields about a 3 ohm load .

I'm only gonna be putting one jl audio 8w6 back in my new car. Is the A600 overkill for one 8" sub? Probably, but:

1, I already have the amp
2, I'd rather have power sitting in reserve than not enough, which would overdrive my amp causing harmful distortion
3, according to jl's web page the 8w6 can handle 250 watts per voice coil so maybe it'll do just fine - we'll see.

Road noise is a major enemy to car stereo's.

Tony, I don't see how you would have enough room to mount a center channel speaker up near the sunglasses holder.

Ben

Tony, I don't see how you would have enough room to mount a center channel speaker up near the sunglasses holder.

Not near. In place of.

I'd remove the sunglasses holder and replace it with a handmade grille. Beneath that entire plastic assembly would be a 5" center channel speaker. Right now, the only thing that's up there is the sunglasses holder and two map lights. The map lights would stay, the sunglasses holder would go. It would take a lot of custom mounting to do it, but it would totally rock if I could pull it off. If done carefully, it could be reversible when I sell the car.

My only question is what would the imaging be like if I did that. I'd hate to go to all that trouble and have it sound like crap. It's very near the driver/passenger's heads, and would fill the driver's right ear pretty seriously.

Another option would be to drill a rosette pattern in the "ceiling" of the center knicknack bay in front of the gear shift. Actually, that would be a lot easier to do, and there's more room for a speaker in there. The only problem is that this option wouldn't raise the soundstage, I'd still have a soundstage at my knees. So I'd have to combine that with figuring out how to get dash speakers in.

___________
Tony Fabris

the majority of home speakers are 8 ohm the majority of car speakers are 4 ohm

Thanks, Ben, that helps explaining the apparent differences, if the following makes sense:

1) With car speakers at half resistance, amps yield double output (in an ideal world)
2) We're all adding left/right/rear/sub outputs, which is not really meaningful: two speakers (to drive L+R stereo) do not sound twice as loud as a single one. (That may also be the reaon that tanstaafl's friend drives his speakers in mono)
3) We shoud forget about the wattage for subs: they are just to make it all sound richer.

Thus: although my 240.4 delivers suggests that it delivers 240W, the fine print says that this is 2-channel bridged into a 2 ohm load; 30 watts for each of the channels into 4 ohms, max is more meaningful.
To drive 8 ohm home speakers, one would need twice the capacity: 60 watts.
I have no real feel for dB scales, but the 65dB limit (out of 92) on my home system could well be similar to the (theoretical) 60 watts (at 8 ohms) of the car system. QED

Also, car systems are probably significantly more efficient as there's no AC/DC conversion and they probably cut a few corners in cleaning the current; have fewer power supplies; drive lesser loads. Or is this offset by DC inefficiencies??



BTW: going over the manual for my home amp: at a speaker impedance of 2 ohms, the thing is warned to take 25 amps (at 230V). That probably explains why all the lights in the house dim when the bugger is switched on . May be I should get myself a dedicated, high current AC line as the manual suggests . . .

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

...you didn't really answer his question

Sorry... I thought the answer was implicit in my reply. The reason people put ridiculous amounts of power in their car is to (a) impress people, and (b) win SPL contests.

I can discern no reason for more than 300 watts of power in a car from the point of view of sound quality. Myself, I only run 150 watts. The bigger sound quality systems are better than mine in that the transients are quicker, cleaner: bass drum beats go pomp pomp pomp instead of poom poom poom (how's that for technical talk!) but the differences are so slight that you have to really be listening for them.

Stereos that achieve listenable volumes with the gain controls set at 15% of maximum will sound better than stereos that (like mine) are working at about 80% to get the same volume levels. IMHO, once you're past 300 watts in a car stereo you have passed the point of diminishing returns, unless your goal is to be able to pump out more than 140 decibels in an SPL competition..

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Another point to consider which was already touched on is that most car stereo systems are actively crossed over at least two-way's and bi-amped: Sub and mid/high's. Some are even crossed over 4 ways actively. Bi-amping like this can make a system rack up watts pretty quickly as well. Also, low frequency road noise does contribute to the fact that most people have to use much larger sub amps than in a comparable home system - there is a lot of competition in a moving car on the lower end of the freq. spectrum.

And as I think more on it, my yamaha rx-x2095 puts out 100w/channel or so x 5 channels = 500w RMS + a sub if I had one - Home systems wattage really isn't THAT much different than a car's, in the average cases. I would venture that in most cases anyone with a Dolby Digital setup with a amp'd sub would be pushing a minimum of 400 to 600 watts, which I'm sure would be higher than the average 4 speaker + sub setup of the car audio enthusiast.

Just thinking out loud:

Ben

BTW: going over the manual for my home amp: at a speaker impedance of 2 ohms, the thing is warned to take 25 amps (at 230V).

Ummmm, have you replaced your fuses with nails? All my circuit breakers are 15A. Don't turn the stereo up, you might burn the house down.

Further lunacy...

I visited the stereo shop yesterday,Dave has updated his truck somewhat.

He now is down to a single amplifier. It measures about 18 inches high by about four feet wide, not sure how deep it is -- couple of feet, at least. It is purpose-built for SPL competition, and is rated at 5,000 watts at 1 ohm. It is so efficient that it doubles up in a quite linear fashion, right down to a 1/8 ohm load which is what he is running -- sixteen 2-ohm 15" subwoofers, run in parallel to get the 1/8 ohm load, where he generates (are you ready for this?) 40,000 watts.

Some idiot persuaded Dave to let him sit in the truck while the stereo was run. Knocked him unconscious, and could actually have killed him had Dave cranked it all the way up.

The amplifier is called a "Drag Queen" and is manufactured by Harrison Industries.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"