I just posted this in the 2009 thread, but have a feeling it will not get due notice there... Therefore, here are some of my thoughts on how we can listen to A LOT more boxes than we did last year or this year, and have some fun doing this.
For next year, here is what I think we should do:
1) Each member brings a deck of cards. From your deck, you will extract a set of Joker-10 and have them on hand ready to cast votes with (like on Dancing with the Stars). Joker = a 1, as in "you've got to be joking." 10 is the highest.
2) Set up a display in the room where the food was such that any box that any of us want to listen to gets put in a que... with a power plug, and a component CD player or tape deck handy to provide source material via line-in. No laptops, iPod, MD or walkmans. The source for line-in should ideally be a good quality ANALOG tape deck (IMHO). The reason I think we should use tapes is because we can control the signal and duplicate it. I volunteer to make a set of three or four identical high-quality tapes specifically for this purpose, and will use a mix of songs from the 80's that span funk, soul, early hip-hop, rock and pop. We can all agree on a tracklist prior to the meet. Radio stations sometimes mess with the mixing and you can't duplicate song to song, etc... We should make this as much of an apples to apples test that we can.
3) Each box gets assigned into one of seven categories, which should be:
A) mini one piece
B) mid-size one piece
C) large one piece
D) mini three piece
E) mid-size three piece
F) large three piece
G) Modified boxes (any mods on the box, you end up here)
4) We then play each box, grouped in their respective categories. The box is played for a maximum of 3-4 minutes using either the units own tape deck or the line-in. There should be no less than 8 or 10 members on hand during the playing of each box. I'm thinking some boxes will get gonged from the competion almost immediately and not need their full time slot for an evaluation, so we can burn through lots more boxes that way. The 3-4 minutes are for evaluating those boxes that have a legitimate shot and a trophy..
5) At the end of each box's demo, each member holds up a card with the value of how they think the box should be rated in that category. The low and high value are removed and the rest of the values go into the boxes' score.
6) After a category is complete, the two or three highest scoring boxes are then isolated and played again back-to-back for final evaluation to determine category winner.
7) At the very end, the winner of the two "large" stock categories go to a final battle to determine which box is the MASTER BLASTER fo the bunch. I don't think modified boxes (non original speakers, amp upgrades, custom boxes and such) should be included in the master blaster competition. Instead, the best modified box gets its own trophy as MASTER MOD BOX.
I realize there would be a huge time period involved depending on how many boxes we have. And we may want to drop some of the categories. Something that does kind of limit us is the fact that there is only one room and so many boxes. In order for this to work, though... there would have to be some serious organization, structure, and buy-in from all involved.. or it will be a huge cluster-fukk. If we have sound coming from the other side of the room because a couple of members aren't into the competition and want to hear something on their own, that would create a problem. Maybe we can setup a table and a power plug somewhere outside for them to listen. We don't want to fascists about this, after all....
Anway, lets sort this out now and have some fun with this one... plus, we'll need to scour some thrifts for some cheap trophies to hand out! I can bring a laptop, double stick tape and a paper cutter so I can photoshop some labels like I made for Frank's trophy this last year. We'll just need someone to bring a printer and print-driver disks.
Soooo..... Whaddayaguys think?
For next year, here is what I think we should do:
1) Each member brings a deck of cards. From your deck, you will extract a set of Joker-10 and have them on hand ready to cast votes with (like on Dancing with the Stars). Joker = a 1, as in "you've got to be joking." 10 is the highest.
2) Set up a display in the room where the food was such that any box that any of us want to listen to gets put in a que... with a power plug, and a component CD player or tape deck handy to provide source material via line-in. No laptops, iPod, MD or walkmans. The source for line-in should ideally be a good quality ANALOG tape deck (IMHO). The reason I think we should use tapes is because we can control the signal and duplicate it. I volunteer to make a set of three or four identical high-quality tapes specifically for this purpose, and will use a mix of songs from the 80's that span funk, soul, early hip-hop, rock and pop. We can all agree on a tracklist prior to the meet. Radio stations sometimes mess with the mixing and you can't duplicate song to song, etc... We should make this as much of an apples to apples test that we can.
3) Each box gets assigned into one of seven categories, which should be:
A) mini one piece
B) mid-size one piece
C) large one piece
D) mini three piece
E) mid-size three piece
F) large three piece
G) Modified boxes (any mods on the box, you end up here)
4) We then play each box, grouped in their respective categories. The box is played for a maximum of 3-4 minutes using either the units own tape deck or the line-in. There should be no less than 8 or 10 members on hand during the playing of each box. I'm thinking some boxes will get gonged from the competion almost immediately and not need their full time slot for an evaluation, so we can burn through lots more boxes that way. The 3-4 minutes are for evaluating those boxes that have a legitimate shot and a trophy..
5) At the end of each box's demo, each member holds up a card with the value of how they think the box should be rated in that category. The low and high value are removed and the rest of the values go into the boxes' score.
6) After a category is complete, the two or three highest scoring boxes are then isolated and played again back-to-back for final evaluation to determine category winner.
7) At the very end, the winner of the two "large" stock categories go to a final battle to determine which box is the MASTER BLASTER fo the bunch. I don't think modified boxes (non original speakers, amp upgrades, custom boxes and such) should be included in the master blaster competition. Instead, the best modified box gets its own trophy as MASTER MOD BOX.
I realize there would be a huge time period involved depending on how many boxes we have. And we may want to drop some of the categories. Something that does kind of limit us is the fact that there is only one room and so many boxes. In order for this to work, though... there would have to be some serious organization, structure, and buy-in from all involved.. or it will be a huge cluster-fukk. If we have sound coming from the other side of the room because a couple of members aren't into the competition and want to hear something on their own, that would create a problem. Maybe we can setup a table and a power plug somewhere outside for them to listen. We don't want to fascists about this, after all....
Anway, lets sort this out now and have some fun with this one... plus, we'll need to scour some thrifts for some cheap trophies to hand out! I can bring a laptop, double stick tape and a paper cutter so I can photoshop some labels like I made for Frank's trophy this last year. We'll just need someone to bring a printer and print-driver disks.
Soooo..... Whaddayaguys think?