bbeljefe

Well, I'm a forty four year old man who's been married to the same woman for 27 years, so at this point I've spent almost twice as much of my life married as I a have single... and I wouldn't have it any other way. We have one child, who is now a 26 year old married man with no kids as of yet.

I've been interested in car audio and audio in general for as long as I remember and what I like about it most is speaker building. I built my first speaker cabinet when I was 8, from a set of Jensen speakers my dad had taken out of a car he was working on at his paint and body shop. I used a good, sturdy cardboard box as the cabinet and I connected the newly constructed "loudspeaker" to my clock radio for some additional volume.

Not long after that, my folks bought me a Sound Design home stereo system, complete with phono, 8 track and a set of "tower" speakers with one full range driver and one drone cone each. Didn't take long for me to hack into those things to add my Jensens. I felt cheated out of two good drivers for years, until I learned what a passive radiator actually is.

I competed my one and only time in car audio back in 1983 at a local stereo shop with a wedge box behind the seat of my 1970 El Camino. In it, there was a Cerwin Vega DVC sub, a pair of Kenwood 6X9s, the full range drivers from my old Sound Design stereo system and a pair of Radio Shack super tweeters. The full ranges and the tweets were powered by my Concord shaft style, analog cassette head unit and the rest were powered by a Punch 40. I took fourth in that contest out of about ten cars, which wasn't too bad I don't guess, given that I was the only one who had built and installed his own system... with zero training in speaker design.

Later on I went to work at a Car Stereo shop and began to get my college education in electronics. There was little time and no money for competing then though, because I had a family to feed. I spent time in the alarm industry and learned commercial audio, PBX and pretty much everything that had to be wired for that wasn't a power outlet and finally, started my own low voltage company with an emphasis on residential audio. In its hey day, I was a dealer for Parasound, XLO Electric, J Rambo and Petras (now defunct speaker manufacturer in Dallas, TX) I sold Jamo speakers, Pioneer laser disc/dvd players, JVC super VHS players and the odd Denon Receiver. I also showcased the very first dvd rentals in Tyler, TX... which was a move I should have waited on and consequently, which cost me too much of my operating capital to keep afloat.

Now days I'm a real estate investor and property manager, which is enjoyable but doesn't expose me to my first love in life... audio.

Other than that, I'm a bit of a different sort of person than most. Politically, I'm a philosophical libertarian or, anarcho-capitalist. Which is really about as much a political affiliation as atheism is a religion or not collecting stamps is a hobby. In simple terms, I'm an anarchist, so I reject all claims of authority, including those not involving government. I also reject the notion of gods and all other superstitions so, I'm an atheist. I also refrain from the use of violence or coercion in all of my relationships, including familial. Add to that the fact that my wife and I lead an alternative sexual lifestyle and we pretty much break every rule and taboo known to humanity. :-)