No, we never got into competitions. We were the local Clarion dealer and service center but also carried a few other brands. The Clarion gear was a dream to service; so nicely designed with service in mind. I hated working on Alpine. They had one of the best reputations but if something went wrong they were a nightmare to disassemble and diagnose. Kenwood too. Pioneer was nicely designed and easier to service.
I recall very few people going with subs in our area. Most common were 3 way 6x9's in the back. Closest thing to a competition car was my 1989 Ford probe (a hatch back). Clarion at one time had the Audia line, which was their highest end series. I had their best head unit which was pre-out only, had twin FM tuners and a tape unit with Dolby C support (before CD players were common). I ran that into a 10 band 4-channel Clarion EQ which I used to drive 2-ways in the doors and back hatch. I had Audia 2-ways in the back and two Audia 8" subs. They were mounted in the deck lid so that I could use a jack and plug to disconnect the speakers and remove the lid when needed. The EQ had a subwoofer output to drive a separate amp for the subs. I also did not want to cut the door panels on a relatively new car, so I went with 5 1/4" speakers behind the factory grills.
That system did not have gobs of power. The EQ was 4x25W and the sub amp was 2x50W. It was extremely well balanced though. I recorded CDs to cassette with Dolby C which produced near CD quality sound. The Audio 2-ways were designed to take into account the reflections from all of the glass which yielded a more neutral sound. I had a recording of Supertramp's Crime of the Century that sounded absolutely fabulous in that car. Best system I owned but not enough SPL to go into competitions, at least by modern standards. Which seems silly because inside the car it was plenty loud.
I still have a Clarion AM/FM/CD from over 20 years ago- probably works, but the display has problems.
TBH, I don't see a point to the SPL portion of the competitions- it's not safe to be exposed to 135+dB and it exceeds all noise ordinances. If someone wants to blast it away from everyone else, fine but well, ya know.....
I 'inherited' a customer who had a '73 Pontiac Grand Prix with the red French whorehouse interior- sculpted velour with Fleur de lis pattrn. The system that had been installed before I started working for that place was done by the installation manager, who knew almost nothing about audio/sound/music/installation of audio systems, but he talked a good game for himself.
The system I installed:
Alpine AM/FM/Cassette
Alpine CD only player
Audio Control 12 band stereo EQ
Audio Control 4XS 4-way crossover with resistor packs that could be customized to hit the needed frequencies
1 pr Alpine 6-1/2" mid-bass in the from door panels
1 pr Boston Acoustics 4" 2-way separates- mids in the dash and tweeters in the upper front of the door panels
1 pr Boston Acoustics 5-1/4" separates in the rear deck, where the 4x10 OEM speakers had been
4) Boston Acoustis Pro 10" woofers in one enclosure, firing through the rear seat backrest
IIRC, an ADS amp for each pair of separates with X-over set above the mid-bass bandpass, an amp for the mid-bass and two power amps for the subs, but I don't remember the brand or model.
I probably used some kind of sound-deadening material.
When I fired it up and did the initial EQ setup, the AudioControl 3050a RTA showed a straight line from 25Hz-125 Hz, stepped down 1 row to the next bandpass which showed a straight line from 140-250, a single row step down to the next band to the upper end of the midrange, a singe row step to the tweeter, showing a straight line. At the step, the ends of each band futtered, which means that it wasn't a hard step, they were blended about as well as possible with the RTA's big, round LEDs for the display. The display on that RTA was very crude, but it was the first one that was easily available with a SCART connection for a starwheel printer.
The guy was extatic and on a Saturday, he stopped in to say that he was going to Illinois for the IASCA competition. I told him that I hadn't had a chance to really tweak it, but he said that he was only going for the fun of it. Came back the next day we were open with a 3' tall trophy for taking second in the 501-1000 Watt class, which was always the group with the most entrants. I really liked the sound of that system- it wasn't like a big, loud car stereo, it just sounded like music.
In contrast, I installed a system for someone who had no money for a big system in a mid-'80s Camaro. Little Majestic power amp, nothing special for the speakers, amp or head unit and some kind of equalizer and IIRC, a single MTX sub in the well at the rear. I'm not a fan of cranking the input level controls on amplifiers because that only leads to blown speakers and bad sound, so I set it and explained that it wasn't going to be super loud, but that's not a bad thing if he wants to save his hearing. I really enjoyed the sound of that one, too. Ran into that guy at Guitar Center years later, when I had gone to see a couple of friends who worked there and he still had the car & system, still loved it. That's part of what drove me to do that kind of work- it was never about sheer output.
