Maestro Badenia Coming to the US!

By: Ben Vollmer, Car Audio Nationals/TeamSoundDomain

A new company is coming to the US, with a very familiar management and product set.  Maestro Badenia has announced that they will begin to do business in the U.S. mobile electronics and marine markets under the brand name German Maestro offering high quality, high performance amplifiers, speakers, component speaker systems and subwoofers.  (You can read a recent review of the speakers at this link.)

GermanMAESTRO is a premium audio brand founded by members of the management and leading employees of the German MB Quart Enterprise. GermanMAESTRO will continue the proud tradition of best-in-class loudspeaker design and manufacturing in our renowned Obrigheim, Germany facility.

Maestro Badenia is headquartered in Obrigheim, Germany comprised of industry experts who were the marketing, engineering, and manufacturing strength behind the original German-made MB Quart products when that brand enjoyed significant market share, great brand image and a loyal consumer following. Maestro Badenia occupies the original MB Quart manufacturing facility.

German Maestro expects to ship products in December 2008.

The products for Car, Marine and Home Audio can be viewed at their website at: www.german-maestro.de

Weekend Plans? Greg Welch Memorial Show

By: Ben Vollmer, Car Audio Nationals/Team SoundDomain

If you are anything like me, it is about three weeks from MECA Finals and you ALMOST have enough points to qualify. But not quite. So this Saturday, I am headed to North Georgia for the last non-State Finals event on the MECA Event Schedule. In addition to MECA being there, Tim and Alison Brown also have an IASCA 2x Event with Moe and Terry being there in hopes of iDBL World Records being broken.

The show starts at 1 PM and is one of the most affordable shows I have seen all season. It is $15.00 plus a toy to get into the show area, and then $10.00 for each event you want to compete in. So if you do IASCA and MECA Sound Quality, it would be $35.00 plus one toy as a donation to Toys for Tots. Which is what most shows charge for one class.

Mark Eldridge's Advanced SQ Seminar: Lone Star Edition

SQ Guru Mark Eldridge stopped by the SoundDomain forums last Friday to drop word that he'll be hosting another Advanced SQ Seminar in Dallas/Ft.Worth on October 25 and 26th. This is the same seminar that our own Team SoundDomain attended and covered in the blog during their Car Toys show coverage. And if you read what they had to say, you'll know the guys were pretty blown away by the seminar. (Who says you can't teach a bunch of old dogs new tricks?)

Hop into the forums to read Mark's post to get all the details for the event. This seminar is perfect for just about anyone, whether you're a car audio hobbyist like myself or a new or long-time competitor, this is definitely one to attend.

in the forums!

Update: 2008 USACi Finals Moving Locations

Posted by: Brian Murphy, SoundDomain Moderator

USACI announced today that the 2008 USACI World Finals and Tuner Jam will be re-locating to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas. Every effort is being made to keep the current dates. Event specifics including hotels will be updated frequently over the next week. Despite incredible efforts and input on behalf of the Omaha retailers and USACI, there were obstacles to the event in the Omaha market that could not be overcome.

USACI would like to thank Stereo West, Inphase Audio, Nebraska Furniture Mart, and Metro Audio for all their efforts. "While we at USACI are disappointed to be making a change so late in the season we welcome the opportunity to take USACI Finals back to Texas and develop a new venue" stated Ralph Randall, USACI's president. "We also have several forthcoming announcements coming about our new finals sponsors and the plans for our new venue!" he continued. These announcements can be expected over the next 5-7 days.

USACI has a very strong support base in the mid-south region that includes Texas and the move will undoubtedly increase not only competitor attendance but spectator turnout as well. Several manufacturers have already committed to support the event and we expect several more in the next two weeks. http://www.usaciworldfinals.com will be updated as contracts are secured. Please visit the site regularly.

in the forums!

The Loudness Wars Rage On! Is FLAC as Good as CD Sound Quality?

By: Robert Petty, Team SoundDomain

This question came up while discussing the poor recording practices used these days. I've posted before about what compressing music into MP3 format does to your recordings. I decided to take a song that I like and compare the original CD recording to a FLAC version of it. The song? Steve Winwood "Higher Love" It has a nice percussion intro, and some decent dynamics. Steve's voice is pretty "thin" sounding compared to some, but that makes it even harder for an ordinary system to produce it realistically. So here's the results.

Doing an A/B comparison between the FLAC recording and the original CD, I sat in the car with just these two discs and played them both several times without looking at which disc I was listening to. The volume seemed identical. The only thing I could pick out was one of them seemed to have a little better dynamics than the other. For those who have never heard that term before, it's basically the difference between the "soft" parts of a track and the "loud" parts of the track. One of the discs seemed to have a little more definition between the soft and loud parts of the song, and there were some very faint details that were more clear in the same disc. Before we discuss which was the better one, let's look at the analysis.

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