# Craziest thing you ever did for a customer?



## Zardnok (Feb 21, 2019)

Howdy folks. I had dinner with my son last night and we were reminiscing about all of the crazy things customers had us do for them "back in the day". It was a fun discussion remembering the glory days of car audio and I thought I would share one of my funniest installs.

We are going back, way back, to the 80s when I first started out in the audio industry. I was an Electrical Engineering student and worked at a local stereo shop building speaker cabinets and doing audio installs. Back in those days, Subwoofers were rare, but 6X9s, man 6X9s could get loud!! I had a customer come in with an old school 70 something Caddy and he wanted to know how many 6X9s we could fit into the back of it. I measured out the rear deck and decided if we cut out the majority of the deck and rebuilt it out of plywood we could align the speakers vertically and fit 8 of them across. He dropped off his car and I attacked it with a nibbler to get most of the metal out of the way. I removed the old cardboard rear deck and transferred it to a 1/2 plywood sheet. I cut the deck out and lined up my speaker grills and cut the holes for the 6X9s. I threw some black trunk liner on it and mounted 8 Pioneer 3-way 6X9s across the back. We wired it up to a Pyramid amp and marvelled in the glorious engine noise. A quick PAC ground loop isolator install later and it got really really loud. The customer loved it and cruised all over town showing off his system with 8 6X9s.

We appreciated the free advertising, but then his buddy came in and told us he wanted more than 8 6X9s in his caddy. There was physically no additional space and 8 was squeezed about as tight as it could get. I wasn't going to turn away a big sale and custom labor, that was beer and pizza money! I did some quick thinking and decided we could do 16 6X9s if we did isobaric in a clam-shell design. The customer was super excited, so we special ordered 8 pairs of Pioneer 6X9s without any tweeters. I then made the same 1/2 plywood panel and cut out some 6X9 spacer rings to mount the speakers clam-shell. The customer wanted to "hear the words" as well, so we installed 4 tweeters down each A-pillar to go with some Pioneer 3's in the dash. When it fired up, the bass was actually quite impressive and the tweeters up front could be heard for blocks! Another happy customer and another fun filled foray into Old School audio.

What fun systems or installs or just outright crazy stuff have customers asked you to do for them?


----------



## SkizeR (Apr 19, 2011)

how about the craziest things weve done for people who claim theyre going to be customers, then ghost the second they get the info they want out of you? If we can do that, i can bump this thread every other day :laugh:


----------



## The Tube Doctor (Nov 24, 2009)

Had several exotic dancers as clients. 
Crazy stuff involved large sheets of plastic, gallons of vegetable oil, a gorilla mask, trapeze, chihuahuas and a blender. 
I still have nightmares thinking about that blender..............


----------



## nyquistrate (Apr 17, 2011)

SkizeR said:


> how about the craziest things weve done for people who claim theyre going to be customers, then ghost the second they get the info they want out of you? If we can do that, i can bump this thread every other day :laugh:


So . . . you turn _potential_ customers into ghosts?


----------



## SkizeR (Apr 19, 2011)

nyquistrate said:


> So . . . you turn _potential_ customers into ghosts?


Dont tell the police plz

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk


----------



## DavidRam (Nov 2, 2014)

I can't say exactly what I did... she came by the shop asking about a 3way in her suv and I took it the wrong way!


----------



## diy.phil (May 23, 2011)

David!!


----------



## diy.phil (May 23, 2011)

Aren't you supposed to be designing some magic state of the art enclosure/system with that new Merc sub?? 

Edit: Transparent or sheer box please lol


----------



## Lanson (Jan 9, 2007)

DavidRam said:


> I can't say exactly what I did... she came by the shop asking about a 3way in her suv and I took it the wrong way!



Sig checks out, lol


----------



## DavidRam (Nov 2, 2014)

diy.phil said:


> Aren't you supposed to be designing some magic state of the art enclosure/system with that new Merc sub??
> 
> Edit: Transparent or sheer box please lol


Yep, I got side tracked... 



fourthmeal said:


> Sig checks out, lol


Lol. I couldn't resist... I mean the joke... not the 3way... I would NEVER do a 3way... in an suv... maybe in van... if I was younger.


----------

