How many forum users are current or former 12V professionals?

The vast majority of my posts since joining this forum have been in this sub-section. It is one of the only subjects on here I know quite a bit about as I made my living as a professional mobile electronics installer and product specialist for almost 10 years before transferring to my current profession, still in the Audio/Video discipline.

I was curious, how many other MECP certified professionals are members on here?
Post your story and some background info if you're an industry vet! There's no better resource than collective knowledge

I started in the industry in the way most do - I was doing installs for myself and had a real passion for car audio.
I attended my first IASCA (International Auto Sound Challenge Association) regional event here in the metro DC area in 1995. I was very impressed with the quality (and the money!) put into the cars but nothing prepared me for my first listen to a SQ (Sound Quality) car...


This BMW http://milbert.com/autos/earl would change the course of my life as I knew it at the time.


The sound was unlike anything I had ever heard, in a car or otherwise and I was hooked.
I began at a local mom n pop shop with very little knowledge or formal training and began putting time and experience under my belt.
I then took a job some 60 miles from my house at a very reputable and high end home audio and car audio retail store in Annapolis MD. My Kicker rep at the time got me in at that store and my entire career from then on is thanks to that opportunity. I was factory trained by Kicker, Audio Control, Crystal Audio (I sure do miss that company) Pioneer, Kenwood etc...


Then I moved to GA for a while - worked at a local mom n pop shop called Custom Sounds that was a regional chain at the time in the Georgia area. They were interesting to work for . At the time they had their own line of in house OEM gear called Bostwick. Interesting stuff.


That lasted about a year and I then moved to Fayetteville NC. There wasn't much opportunity at the local Brick and Mortar level so I did the only thing I could..took a job at Circuit City. My higher end snob in me hated that but after a while I got used to it. Looking back I was very grateful to have had the opportunity to work in such a busy shop - we had a 5 car bay and in a month turned out more installs than some Circuit City Roadshops turned out in a year.

After a few years I was getting bored and took at job about 70miles away in Raleigh NC at Creative Acoustics. I was working on the team that at the time was the world record holder for SPL. That was an interesting experience as well...great family run business and the exposure to the highest end SPL vehicles was amazing as it was a discipline I was never interested in...Sound Quality was always my thing.
Anyway, I decided the commute was a bit too much and after about a year I switched back to Circuit City. Then I moved back to Maryland.


I briefly transferred to the Annapolis Roadshop and learned quickly what a culture shock that was...going from a 5 bay shop that turned 20-30 installs a Saturday to a 2 bay shop that might have that in a week I got bored very quickly. I soon learned that the original high end shop in Annapolis I had left 3 years prior when I moved had been purchased by one of the employees and they sought me out to come back and run the mobile electronics department. I was stoked. That was when in car entertainment with video was really taking off and custom fab work was getting pretty advanced. We picked up some new product lines - Alpine and JL Audio among them and I was trained on their gear as well.


The highlight of my time spent in car audio as a professional was probably when I was given the opportunity to travel to Torrance California to get factory trained on the Alpine F#1 Status equipment line. We were one of the first handful of dealers in the country chosen to carry this line and I was very proud to be able to sell and install this gear. Getting to meet Steve Brown and the see the Alpine USA headquarters was a dream come true.
At any rate - Not too long after that I became pretty bored with the state of car audio - I had pretty much accomplished everything I had set out to do, was making a very nice living off of my hobby and was ready to move on to the next thing. I started working in the home audio and home theater section of our store and handed the reigns of the mobile electronics department to one of my guys on staff.


All these years later I went on to run my own Home Technologies company for a few years till the recession and housing crash in 07-08 took me down.

Now I work in the Commercial Audio Video industry providing video telecommunications and command and control video systems design and engineering work. I still have a passion for good audio - not nearly the high end stuff I used to but I know enough to be dangerous and love helping people out. Crazy to think that single red BMW started all that....
I still do installs for family and friends, although getting upside down under the dash of a car isn't as easy as it once was

Please, feel free to share

Oh yeah - my setup I'm working on getting into the truck right now -

I've installed my headunit, amp and sub - just working on getting the time to work on my door set ups.
I've got an Alpine PDX-V9 installed;



This gnarly dude is sitting behind the DC seats until I can make time to build a proper enclosure for it;



These guys are going in the front doors (Diamond Audio Hex S600s);



Trying to decide if I want to mess with these or not - I've got them sitting around so I may fab something to put them in the rear doors (Diamond Audio Hex S500s);



Nothing at all like some of the systems I've owned over the years but life has a way of changing your priorities on you like that

 

I have been working on not only mobile audio systems, but all 12V systems you see in the auto and marine business. I have installed custom systems in cars, trucks, and boats since the late 80s. Most of it was learning as I went. I never worked for a specific company, but I did go to several competitions that were held in the Dallas area over the years. Picked brains and microscopically analyzed every install I saw for quality, design, and function so that I could learn.

Right now I own my own auto repair shop. While mobile audio is not our primary focus, we do still install and customize systems. I do 12V electrical system power designs, and also LED lighting systems for ALL areas of auto, truck, and boats.

 

I voted pro in my own mind because even though I have never been employed to do auto wiring I worked as an electrician for 6 years(commercial buildings and conveyor controls) and now I fix robots for a living, so I definitely think I'm a pro in my own mind when I work on my car

 

You just reminded me that I did do a few marine installs back in the day - not many though - we had a guy locally that would come in on a regular basis to buy equipment for his customers and do the installs on the weekends. I crawled into a few engine rooms to do a few of them myself when he was too busy or had a customer too fussy lol. Annapolis is one of the boating centers in the mid atlatic so most of the marine stuff I did later was of the 120v home audio variety.

Right on lol! That's why I threw that option in there

 

I have been doing audio installs for about 10 years and going for a major retail company.
Cars,boats,Rv's,Bikes you name it I've done it.

MECP Basic- when I first started
MECP Advanced- a few years after
MECP Master- Current

 

The majority of all the marine stuff that I did was on the smaller boats under 32 feet. All of them, at least back then, did have 120V available, but the audio systems were all 12V.

I miss the days of boat installs. We offer all the custom LED lighting now for audio systems with LEDs that react to audio and pulsate or change colors. (With our RGB light systems) I would love to do our LED lighting systems for homes, but that would require extra insurance, permits, travel time, etc. I like just having my shop here local. We even do Horse trailers and such.

 

I have been in the 12v industry literaly my entire life. My father worked at Rockford Fosgate, PPI and Orion in the late 80's through the mid 90's, while also running his own shop. I litteraly got to play in all the demo cars, like the badass Orion dually and orange Buick.
I currently work under him with his business, as well as have been employed with MTX audio.I've seen my share of installs, built my share of vehicle and met some great industry experts.
Out here in Arizona I've competed in MECA and for the 2012 season I won the MECA State Champion in Masters catagory for sound quality and State Champion in Extreme install with my Genesis Coupe.
My Taco is my new demo, which will be using the new Arc Audio XDi1200.6 ch amp and XDi1100.1 sub amp with Hybrid Audio Legatia top end and a pair of Clarus 10's on the low end.

 

I am not a certified professional, but I have always installed my own audio and done my own automotive electrical work. I have installed stereos in several friends vehicles as well. My favorite install was in my WRX. I did a google search on the VIN to find out where it went a while back and I saw it for sale on eBay. The description said my audio install was a "professional job". Nope, that was all me haha.

I am a ground radar technician in the Air Force, so I have plenty of experience with electronics in general as well. And a radar is really just a big stereo system with much higher frequencies and power (I work on the Next Generation Weather Radar [NEXRAD/WSR-88D] that hits 750,000 watts average ).

So basically, I love working on electronics in general. It's fun and each install/fix presents a new challenge which I love.

 

These guys were the norm for the 120v stuff I was doing...big 'uns

That's awesome !

Right ON dude. So you're father was in THE spot during the heyday of American brute amplifier advancement! The stuff coming out of AZ back then was unreal...the Punch x2 stuff are still some of my favorites and the Art Series PPI stuff..."the good ole' days" as it were. Speaking of the Buick, I saw it in Hot Rod magazine a few months back. It made its way out to LA for the Hot Rod Reunion - was cool to see it in it's perfect untouched form, what a time capsule!
I sure hope you plan on giving us a build thread of your new demo system!?

 

I used to love when the guys from the Naval Academy would come into our shop - some of them were real tech guys and loved car audio as much as we did. They would come in and bs for a while then pick up whatever piece it was they needed for whatever system they were working on at the time. Good times. You doing anything fun in the tacoma?
Thank you for your service, btw

 

Eventually I will probably build up the system in the Taco. I got the JBL package because I didn't want to hack up the system this time, but the more I use it the more I think it's just okay at best. Looking back I wouldn't have spent the extra $2k. When I go home on my mid-tour from Korea, I will be laying down some FatMat and CCF to help enhance the JBL. After that I'll slowly start building up my system. I need to find a good factory processor though, because I do like the Entune and factory Navi so I want to keep the factory head unit and go from there.

 

Yea, it is the heyday. Unfortunatly we dont see that type of stuff like we used to. Its funny how being so young, but i remeber going to all these different shows and events and how big they were, and now your happy if you get maybe 30 cars to come out.

I do plan on making a build log of the system, I just got my new battery terminals and cables to start my big 3.

 

Yeah, most of the stuff I was doing was not for the "rich bitches" in the big yachts, but the regular guys in the "fun" boats.