Garage Banned

A car belonging to our very own Carl Hynes

GARAGE, BANNED!

Carl Hynes is a PR Guru and marketing expert. He works across many fields and has been involved in the in car entertainment industry for many years, however, as a refugee from the world of professional audio, he always doubted the capability of in car Hi-fi. He is not particularly into cars and has always seen his own Vectra estate as a necessary evil. That is, until he had a sound system put in.

We let Carl tell his own story;

“The above introduction is correct in every way. I used to have a boyhood love of cars, but that left me when I realised I could never bring myself to spend a lot of money owning one. My real passion has always been for music. Having been brought up in a musical family with extremely broad tastes, it was second nature for me to pick up and learn a musical instrument. I began violin lessons age 7 and in parallel, taught myself to play guitar.  The classical disciplines I learnt as a pupil of the violin were extremely important to both playing and listening pleasure, as I developed an appreciation of all aspects of musical performance and later, the recording process.

I worked for many years in professional recording and broadcast studios and was exposed to a lot of very expensive equipment. I realised after some years that I had become an audio snob and the same reluctance I had for spending a lot of money on a car kept me from investing an inordinate amount on Hi-fi. In later years, I had a family and this restricted any ideas I had of investing in expensive Hi-fi for the home and, I must admit, I lost my appetite for music to a certain extent, even putting down my beloved guitars for way too long. 

I have been involved with FOUR MASTERS since its inception and as part of my involvement was required to have a system I could demonstrate to the press. Still sneeringly cynical, I had a reasonable Audio Joy system installed, ensuring that I still had enough space in the car to cart my children and associated paraphernalia around on camping trips. I had, of course, listened to no end of systems but had never actually experienced owning one and I guess I became increasingly excited as I waited for boxes to be made and glue to dry and final tweaks to be carried out.

When the day finally came for me to collect my car, I took with me a number of discs that I knew very well. It took a couple of hours to get used to the system and to set it up to my tastes, but once there, I could not stop smiling. Over the ensuing weeks and months I must have revisited my entire collection (some 2000 CD’s) and then started on other peoples. I was amazed that the sound kept getting better and better as the speakers ran in and no matter what genre I threw at it, it performed brilliantly.

We have two family cars and both are made by Vauxhall, but there is only one that I want to drive now, this is not because of climate control, leather seats, or that comforting bum warmer built into the seats, it is because the factory system in our “other car” sounds so poor in comparison to the Audio Joy system in the Vectra that I cannot bare to be in it for long! It is fair to say that my driving habits have changed or at least my attitude to travelling. I now relish a long journey and feel completely relaxed in traffic jams and must admit to finding any excuse to sit in my car when I purchase a new CD. But the effect has gone well beyond driving, I am discovering new music again and most importantly, have got all my guitars out and play them on a regular basis, albeit in the garage!

The experience has reawakened my passion for music and I would struggle to find any better justification for car Hi-fi!”

Top 5 Tracks

Since I’ve Been Loving You – Led Zeppelin

A Case of You – Joni Mitchell

Can’t be Sure – The Sundays

Cinema Show – Genesis

Desert Pirate – Thomas Leeb