iexiak
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Real quick for those that don't recognize my username from the mods section - I'm pushing the limits of what you can do in a Mach-e audio wise, running 4000 watts of stereo equipment, and have won a world championship in sound quality (not loudness!). I went to 2 huge shows in the last couple of months and thought I'd share some updates from them 
The first was AXPONA (Audio Expo North America) - a massive home audio show that hosts a car sound quality competition. This show is 3 days of having your car locked in a convention center, and a bunch of audiophiles stop by to listen. This show is really cool - I had over 100 people in my car listening and giving feedback. It was nonstop demos for me all day every day. There was also a professional photographer who captured our cars and shared the photos with us, so I have a set of great photos to share here (thanks Troy!).
I added a light up pony to the sub box in the trunk. This is a BSKT gen 1 front pony mounted on an ABS-GF 3d printed plate.
I'm really happy with how the front subs turned out. I have one under each front seat, and this is the most you could ever get out of an underseat sub in our car..there just isn't space for more. I added these plates for decoration, you can't see the pony without getting very intentionally down on the floor, but I think that adding some hidden ponies to the others that exist around the car is a nice touch.
Just to give a better scale to this - there were about 30 cars here, some of them are vendor cars but most are competing. Unlike last year I wasn't the only EV - there's a Tesla parked just to the right of this picture.
This picture makes me smile - it's hard to tell but I'm in the back giving a demo to some folks in the front. Everyone in this photo I gave a demo to or walked them through the setup. It was nonstop talking about the car and listening to music.
Overall AXPONA is a great time. I met a handful of Mach-e drivers and a few that knew my posts on the forum. Was great to talk about the car, the system, etc with a ton of different people...and unlike most other shows the volume of people that come through is crazy. AXPONA is my favorite show I go to throughout the year.
My only lesson learned here was to put some double sided tape on the steering wheel and seat controls...too many people got in and just started moving the seat around, and I had a scare when a rather large gentleman used the steering wheel to stand up out of the car. Thankfully he didn't break it but it did make some noises that sure sounded like he did, and popped to a lower position than I keep it at.
SQ@HQ2 I didn't end up taking a ton of pictures except for -
This was also a good show, about 60 competitors and lots of Kicker demo cars. I've had Kicker in a lot of my systems (even have an old CVR sub in my living room next to my Paradigm towers haha). They are a staple of car audio and this felt a bit like a trip to mecca for an enthusiast like myself. Their collection of tricked out cars and wall of sound were incredible, and they put on a great show!
What I wanted to talk about here was the trip! The drive there was 725 miles plus another 725 miles back.
We used mostly Electrify America charges with 0 issues - not a single broken charger at any stop. At one of the chargers we got asked to move so a tow truck could drop off a Polestar in a charger - turns out he had tried a couple of different Blink chargers and they failed and he couldn't make it anywhere else...seemed like it was going to be an expensive tow!
Did a few normal Tesla stops and similarly, no issues....Except we did try to charge at a hotel Tesla destination charger - after setting up the app, finding the charger on a map, the app then refused to recognize the QR code that was posted on the wall...so we couldn't charge at our hotel. Hotel workers acted like this was the norm, which really sucked as I didn't want to wake up to a nearly dead car but that's how it was. We ended up charging at a Buccies (those places are so overcrowded and really don't live up to the hype).
Cool waterfall stop in Joplin that I was able to park close enough to to include pics with the car -
(excuse the bugs, did not expect this location to be photogenic)
And the Cherokee Nation Cultural and Welcome Center was a nice stop after charging at the EA/Walmart nearby.
The main route was on 70/44. It felt like there was always a route 66 something to do at every charging stop once we reached that area. Rec stopping in at Firefly Grill's EA charger if you are near Effingham IL - the restaurant is expensive (4oz steak meal, burger, and a couple drinks was $120) but quite good. The atmosphere at the stop is also great...just a nice area to walk around with a good vibe.
I will say that I don't think I'll be doing a trip this far/fast again in my Mach-e. The later you drive the more depressing it gets, and as stores close and you can no longer get up and walk around, sitting in the car while it's charging becomes more and more exhausting. This drive is 10.5 hours + gas stops in a gas car, but ended up being 15 hours each way for us...which is a lot in 2 days. I'll plan for another day of travel if I'm doing 700 miles again, and try to be a bit more purposeful on finding fun places to stop. It's just so much easier to have the boy look up things to do on the way in a gas car with no worry about *will we make it to the next EV charger if we stop there* than it is to pre-plan stuff to do near chargers for me.
We did also get to drive the 80mph highways in Oklahoma, and the Mach-e did great! It was only like a .1 or .2 loss of efficiency, and ABRP/Google Maps were able to correctly guesstimate the range impacts. I was a bit worried that if I followed the higher limit the car would suffer enough that the GOM wouldn't be right, but Google Maps battery percentage predictions were pretty much spot on for the whole trip which was very appreciated.
I do appreciate having Bluecruise...when it works. It seemed to struggle in direct sunlight especially, and there were a few bug issues on the front camera that caused it to stop working for long periods until we stopped at a charger and cleaned it. Wish it had more feedback as to why it stopped working, as I could have easily stopped and cleaned the camera but without the ability to activate the front camera at speed there was no way to know. I'm honestly not entirely sure what it gets me that the regular lane centering doesn't...While it was working for >70% of the trip, my hands never left the wheel and I largely had to treat it as the non-BC enabled system given the intermittent failures.
The first was AXPONA (Audio Expo North America) - a massive home audio show that hosts a car sound quality competition. This show is 3 days of having your car locked in a convention center, and a bunch of audiophiles stop by to listen. This show is really cool - I had over 100 people in my car listening and giving feedback. It was nonstop demos for me all day every day. There was also a professional photographer who captured our cars and shared the photos with us, so I have a set of great photos to share here (thanks Troy!).
I added a light up pony to the sub box in the trunk. This is a BSKT gen 1 front pony mounted on an ABS-GF 3d printed plate.
I'm really happy with how the front subs turned out. I have one under each front seat, and this is the most you could ever get out of an underseat sub in our car..there just isn't space for more. I added these plates for decoration, you can't see the pony without getting very intentionally down on the floor, but I think that adding some hidden ponies to the others that exist around the car is a nice touch.
Just to give a better scale to this - there were about 30 cars here, some of them are vendor cars but most are competing. Unlike last year I wasn't the only EV - there's a Tesla parked just to the right of this picture.
This picture makes me smile - it's hard to tell but I'm in the back giving a demo to some folks in the front. Everyone in this photo I gave a demo to or walked them through the setup. It was nonstop talking about the car and listening to music.
Overall AXPONA is a great time. I met a handful of Mach-e drivers and a few that knew my posts on the forum. Was great to talk about the car, the system, etc with a ton of different people...and unlike most other shows the volume of people that come through is crazy. AXPONA is my favorite show I go to throughout the year.
My only lesson learned here was to put some double sided tape on the steering wheel and seat controls...too many people got in and just started moving the seat around, and I had a scare when a rather large gentleman used the steering wheel to stand up out of the car. Thankfully he didn't break it but it did make some noises that sure sounded like he did, and popped to a lower position than I keep it at.
SQ@HQ2 I didn't end up taking a ton of pictures except for -
This was also a good show, about 60 competitors and lots of Kicker demo cars. I've had Kicker in a lot of my systems (even have an old CVR sub in my living room next to my Paradigm towers haha). They are a staple of car audio and this felt a bit like a trip to mecca for an enthusiast like myself. Their collection of tricked out cars and wall of sound were incredible, and they put on a great show!
What I wanted to talk about here was the trip! The drive there was 725 miles plus another 725 miles back.
We used mostly Electrify America charges with 0 issues - not a single broken charger at any stop. At one of the chargers we got asked to move so a tow truck could drop off a Polestar in a charger - turns out he had tried a couple of different Blink chargers and they failed and he couldn't make it anywhere else...seemed like it was going to be an expensive tow!
Did a few normal Tesla stops and similarly, no issues....Except we did try to charge at a hotel Tesla destination charger - after setting up the app, finding the charger on a map, the app then refused to recognize the QR code that was posted on the wall...so we couldn't charge at our hotel. Hotel workers acted like this was the norm, which really sucked as I didn't want to wake up to a nearly dead car but that's how it was. We ended up charging at a Buccies (those places are so overcrowded and really don't live up to the hype).
Cool waterfall stop in Joplin that I was able to park close enough to to include pics with the car -
(excuse the bugs, did not expect this location to be photogenic)
And the Cherokee Nation Cultural and Welcome Center was a nice stop after charging at the EA/Walmart nearby.
The main route was on 70/44. It felt like there was always a route 66 something to do at every charging stop once we reached that area. Rec stopping in at Firefly Grill's EA charger if you are near Effingham IL - the restaurant is expensive (4oz steak meal, burger, and a couple drinks was $120) but quite good. The atmosphere at the stop is also great...just a nice area to walk around with a good vibe.
I will say that I don't think I'll be doing a trip this far/fast again in my Mach-e. The later you drive the more depressing it gets, and as stores close and you can no longer get up and walk around, sitting in the car while it's charging becomes more and more exhausting. This drive is 10.5 hours + gas stops in a gas car, but ended up being 15 hours each way for us...which is a lot in 2 days. I'll plan for another day of travel if I'm doing 700 miles again, and try to be a bit more purposeful on finding fun places to stop. It's just so much easier to have the boy look up things to do on the way in a gas car with no worry about *will we make it to the next EV charger if we stop there* than it is to pre-plan stuff to do near chargers for me.
We did also get to drive the 80mph highways in Oklahoma, and the Mach-e did great! It was only like a .1 or .2 loss of efficiency, and ABRP/Google Maps were able to correctly guesstimate the range impacts. I was a bit worried that if I followed the higher limit the car would suffer enough that the GOM wouldn't be right, but Google Maps battery percentage predictions were pretty much spot on for the whole trip which was very appreciated.
I do appreciate having Bluecruise...when it works. It seemed to struggle in direct sunlight especially, and there were a few bug issues on the front camera that caused it to stop working for long periods until we stopped at a charger and cleaned it. Wish it had more feedback as to why it stopped working, as I could have easily stopped and cleaned the camera but without the ability to activate the front camera at speed there was no way to know. I'm honestly not entirely sure what it gets me that the regular lane centering doesn't...While it was working for >70% of the trip, my hands never left the wheel and I largely had to treat it as the non-BC enabled system given the intermittent failures.
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