# Old School AudioMobile



## Duggr

*Does anyone remember the "Original AudioMobil" and founder Paul Stary? Below Is my Biamp system from early 1980..I have the literature that shows the specs of all the components shown in the photo if anyone is interested*










Paul Stary's Experience

President/CEO
Virtual-E Corporation
October 2002 – Present (9 years 5 months) Costa Mesa, CA

Founder, designer and developer of all products related to VirtualGT, a $20k-$50k racing simulator sold to affluent motorsports enthusiasts and racers, corporations for marketing and promotion, and for commercial racing centers. See VirtualGT Racing Simulator.
Principal
Audio-Video Engineering
1985 – Present (27 years) Costa Mesa, CA

Consumer electronics consulting, design and engineering company specializing in the development and manufacturing of custom analog and digital electronics, computer control systems and loudspeaker systems.
President/Founder
AudioMobile
1975 – 1985 (10 years) Costa Mesa, CA

Founder and President of the high-end car audio electronics manufacturing company that pioneered many advances in mobile audio electronics, loudspeaker systems and installation techniques during the early days of this industry.

AudioMobile was the first company to showcase a car in their booth at the 1976 summer CES show, and was the first company to exhibit a high-powered car audio system at the Las Vegas winter CES show, outside between the Convention Center and Hilton Hotel. 

The car on display outside was the famous 1KW-VW, designed and built by Rich Coe. This VW "bug" had a 1000+ Watt sound system that could be heard on the LV Strip nearly a mile away!

While such a car audio system would barely get noticed today, this was the "first-of-its-kind" in 1978.

With contributions by employees and future industry notables such as Rich Coe, Mike Bennett, Larry Fredricks, Martin Willcocks and John Bishop, AudioMobile was the breeding ground for many of the ideas and people that created the industry as we know it today.


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## bigdwiz

I don't remember these back in the early 80's as I didn't hit the car audio scene until the mid 80's, but thanks for sharing...great info!

I picked up an Audiomobile SA 1600 last year, still haven't taken the time to see if it works as I'm missing the DIN input plug.


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## autofile

That was the original production "amp rack".
Did you have an SA2000 on it? Or a pair of SA1000's? To go along with the little SA400?
Nice stuff there! The Audiomobile, along with the original Spectron gear pretty much defined "cutting edge high end" in it's day. I've still got an SA2000 around here some place......


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## Duggr

bigdwiz

I remember that Amp when it came out New! This is either the last design by
the "Original AudioMobile" or what K40 electronics out of Elgin Ill. offered!
K40 purchased Audiomobile around 84 or 85 I believe! I went to a Car Audio
shop somewhere in Iowa just to see this system offered By Audiomobile..
The Audio shop (forget the name) Had a set-up inside somewhat like a car
with the complete system installed for you to listen to....(really Cool set-up)
If I remember right this system was different from the earlier Audiomobile Products offered...New Design with I believe with a 2 ohm capability!
It came as a package with Two 6x9 Poly woofers, A pair of larger Rear
satellites and a smaller pair of satellites for the front..It had a Din Input like the older AudioMobile Amps but thats where the similarity stops...It also had a subwoofer and fader control...What was so impressive about the system was 
that it sounded "Absolutely Big" and had only the single amp with 6 speakers.
The two 6x9 woofers were installed in the rear deck using the trunk as a box.
the rear satellites were installed on top of the rear deck facing the driver
and the front satts wer installed in the doors....The satts were really a nice
piece of work...They were a somewhat triangle shaped with a mounting rod that only needed around a 1/2 hole to be drilled to mount it...The speaker wires were routed threw the mounting rod for a clean looking system...
If you ever get a chance to get the rest of the system that goes to the amp.
I wouldn't hesitate...This systems capability's was ahead of it's time and not to many people now even remember AudioMobile.....But I sure Do!!


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## Duggr

autofile
My system consist of a Kenwood KRC 929
1-SA 2000
1-SA 1000
1-SA 400
1- CXE-2 crossover
1- SP 300 Preamp!
The complete system was removed from a BMW


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## autofile

Duggr:
Nice! Are they still working? As I recall, they were very sweet sounding amps for their time.
I used to love the SA2000 on front end satellites. Big headroom, smooth upper end.That sp300 was a very nice preamp as well. I used SA2000's on a/d/s mids and tweeters, another SA2000 on midbasses, and then a modified Sanyo PA6100 on subs back then.


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## Duggr

Autofile,
I just got the system in the mail not to long ago...Missing a few DIN cords..
I also want to regrease the amps and go through them before I hook them up!
They have been in storage for quite awhile...The CB's look as clean as the day
they were made.....I want to rewire everything to....The wiring in the back is a mess...I want to use newer Power and Ground Blocks along with a larger 4 gage power wire instead of the two ten gage they used.....There are some places that used 4 of those red crimp on connections in a lenght of around 8 inches.....What a mess!


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## Robb

set on ebay for sale

Old School Audiomobile SP300 SA1000 CXE-2 SA450 Vintage car audio not SA400 | eBay


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## legend94

I have owned the sa1600 and it was a very interesting amp..It turned on by using the rca input and was just really awesome clean power. I actually ran one of those at a 1/2 ohm load for 2 weeks without any issue. No tech guy but I never figured out how they were so strong by looking at the internals.


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## spydertune

Audiomobile developed the concept of 'system architecture', something that ADS expanded greatly upon in the 80's. Audiomobile's problem was they were too advanced for the market. What they offered was near science-fiction in the late 70's. Pioneers always take the arrows for those that come later. It's too bad that as the market began to expand and reach customers that wanted more than a deck and (4) speakers, Audiomobile was all done.


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## curbman

Check this out!


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## marklk

I had a friend in kansas that sold audiomobile . I had some stuff from him and one day I went in to a stereo store and asked the guy if he could get me something that I can not remember and his response was " where the ... did you get that " Said he only knew of one person in kansas that could get audiomobile and that was my friend who had lost his business. I bought some stuff from him that he still had at his house . don't remember any longer what it all was .I do still have a cx150 crossover . Anyone know anything about it ? Would like to sell it on ebay but have never found any info on them to decide what it is worth


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## marklk

I found my original manual for the cx-150 crossover. I am uploading it as pdf


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## caraudionovice

Hi, Guys. Just googled Audio Mobile SA1600 to see what was out there on this system, and found it on this site. Even better I was a member of this site, but hadn't visited lately. So I thought I'd add to the conversation!
Here's a little history, I acquired a SA1600 system in March 1986. The system included the following: Four 4.5-5" sub-woofers, 2 rear speakers & 2 front speakers, 12 speakers total, a balance network and a Concord HPL-532 AM/FM/Cassette head. The system was installed in a 1964 Corvette convertible which I purchase from a used car lot in Royal Oak Michigan. 
I still have the Vette & the SA1600, but neither has been used in 5-6 years. During the process of getting the Vette road worthy again, I thought, why not bring back the SA1600 with a new up to date head unit. 
On the amp below the AUDIOMOBILE name it says "MAKES THE GOING GREAT"!


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## spydertune

It's a shame so many pics are gone.


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## alylea

Long ago in a far away galaxy called the early 1970's, I was the first Audio Mobile dealer in the NY metro area, and one of the first 3 Fosgate dealers about a year later when they hit the market. The original AM was a small preamp with an on/off volume control and a separate bass & treble control. Everything was rotary. The amp was about 35 watts rms if I recall correctly. The speakers were a 6.5" woofer from Germany, brand unknown and the tweeters were Phillips mylar domes. I had one in my BWM 1800TII (look that one up, not the 1800TI). The AM was driven by a modified Sony underdash TC20 cassette deck. Later on I installed a Pioneer KP-4000 Indash AM/FM cassette. It was the first indash radio/cassette combo on the market. Both required direct solder connections to the output of the volume control because there was no such thing as pre-amp outputs in those days. Later on I bought a van for my start-up concert sound company and installed the AM system electronics with Electrovoice Interface A home speakers without the stands. Ah the stories I can tell...


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## bluecat

Nice! Are they still working?


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## BlackIce000

Holy Crap!
I have been looking for paperwork/manuals/schematics for quite some time! My 928 had a full system installed in 1982. It had a spaghetti nest of wiring with many DIN plugs. Seems like the common version from the head (at the time a Nakamichi TD7) to a SA400 with a remote mounted 3 slider eq back to the crossovers and a rack mounted pair of SA1000's so many housings were opened and tucked in various places that I couldn't really get a handle on how it was originally wired.

If anyone has any docs on any of the Audiomobile components or wants to sell some (so I have spares) I'd love to talk to you!

Thanks,

Rick


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## oosoom121

I'll have to check my basement archives to see if I still have any of my old notebooks. I probably don't have much, if anything, from the SA1000 / SA2000 days but I may have some SA1200 / SA1600 stuff.


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## Creative338

oosoom121 said:


> I'll have to check my basement archives to see if I still have any of my old notebooks. I probably don't have much, if anything, from the SA1000 / SA2000 days but I may have some SA1200 / SA1600 stuff.












I found my original folder with the specs and diagrams!


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## Oldamp123

Creative338 said:


> View attachment 315171
> 
> 
> I found my original folder with the specs and diagrams!


Do you by a chance have photos or printable pdf of this I've have looking everywhere for literature about audiomobile and I found this .
if you could


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## Oldamp123

Do you by a chance have photos or printable pdf of this I've have looking everywhere for literature about audiomobile and I found this .
if you could


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## Lineman26

That article was awesome. It’s crazy to see how things have changed, and what you get for your money. I would absolutely love to somehow hear what the functioning $20,000 system in the Scout sounded like, as I started spending every extra dollar I had on my car audio systems starting almost immediately after turning 16 and getting my license and first car in 92 by 1996 I had cobbled together enough equipment, often buying more expensive used stuff from the classifieds in the local paper as it was the only way I could afford to keep adding on or upgrading. The biggest come-up I had was when I saw an ad for a Rockford Power 1000 amp circa 1992 for sale in the paper for $650.00. I was so excited to possibly score that amp that I probably left the house without shoes and was 20 miles away making the deal in under 30 minutes from seeing the ad. I’m not sure the seller knew what he had, because when I saw the amp for the first time I immediately noticed it was one of the ultra rare chrome Terminator editions, one of only 100 made of which only 90 were available bro the public as 10 were reserved for the Terminator hearse or whatever it was. I mentioned the scout because a few months after getting the Power 1000, I had pretty much my entire system and interior stolen from my car, which was the worst. Thankfully I was still young and in my second year of college so I was still living at home and was still on my folks insurance. I went to my local shop and long story short, the owner was able to get the insurance company to pay for everything that was stolen. Including all the expensive used equipment because I had pictures of everything during and after my “custom” install. I remember they paid almost $3000.00 for the Rockford alone, and all said and done, after the shop had my car for nearly 2 months, I picked it up along with an invoice for the system… Just over $8000.00 in equipment and parts plus another $8000.00 for the labor. It won numerous trophies at IASCA competitions, and over the next year or so I had added and upgraded enough to finally eclipse the $20,000 car stereo mark, which was in a super clean and tricked out, but still only worth $6000.00 92 VW GTI. Not many adults understood my thought process of having that much invested and all it really ever got me in return was a dozen 3 to 5 foot tall trophies. And noticeable permanent hearing loss in my right ear. I would love to see what $20k got you in the very beginning, compared to the mid/late 90’s which was really the peak of really big systems, then to see what that would get you today.


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## MythosDreamLab

Just wanted to throw out a quick message to anyone checking out of this thread...

The person who started it, has not been to this website since March-2013, so don't don't hold your breath on getting a response...lol


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## Tdg

Creative338 said:


> View attachment 315171
> 
> 
> I found my original folder with the specs and diagrams!


Wonder if there’s any chance to get a copy of that manual


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