The sound-off is a lesser-known but no less exciting aspect of the Cape Town car scene. This is a subculture in which, simply put, creative car folk build as much powerful audio equipment and power supply into a car as is humanly possible, and bring that car to ‘the lanes’, where the loudness is measured using hi-tech equipment.
For 13 years running Deafrow Audio, owned by Zaid Watson, has been staging their Bragging Rights sound-off around this time of year. This year the event at Watergate Mall saw the bar raised once again. But first, some details on how the sound-off works.
Deafrow (ain’t that a name of note) brings their TermLab Magnum audio measurement system to measure sound pressure level (SPL) as well as the root mean square (RMS), which is the true actual power pushed out by an amplifier. The TermLab is the official meter for most major sound competitions worldwide.
This year the sound-off was accompanied by a show ‘n shine organized by well-known Cape car scene aficionado Shahiem Bell. So, a selection of awesome metal rocked up to make a pleasing aesthetic experience for punters. Harley Carelse was the winner for best of show with his bagged BMW E30.
At the sound-off, cars line up one by one in the testing lanes where the equipment is set up. The testing takes place and fans gather to take the pressure of competition up a notch, with the winners across the 20-or-more categories leaving with the bragging rights.
Craig Young took top honours this year with his Targa-built Bantam bakkie from Cay Audio pushing a skull-splitting 163.4dB. This represents a year of pushing the audio build limits for Craig, who came second last year to Randall Didloff’s 161.03 dB in his Mk1 Golf, up from 2022’s 156.7dB by Granger Niewoudt in his Team 0.25 station wagon.
Jackie Cruze spoke to Zaid after the event. He says: “We had 59 cars through the lanes on the day, and the team challenge brought much excitement. We had four teams go head-to head and it was epic. The finals saw Team TNT versus Bassnatics, with Bassnatics taking the prize.
As you can imagine, the sound game is a combination of budget and ingenuity. Zaid says the leading edge is all about compactness and getting big sound out of smaller, super-powerful components. Plenty of extra battery power is required, with the power banks providing aesthetic appeal, especially when it comes to the rather pricey lithium-ion versions.
Creating this kind of loudness in a car takes some specialised know-how. Zaid explains: “Well first, there is working within your budget but in general the build looks like the following: First comes a strong supawood box, reinforced with steel bars to prevent flex, and this will house the bass speakers.”
Door panels are where people get really creative, with custom fiberglass and wood builds to house the 6 by 9 speakers.
Most of the other stuff in these cars, such as back seats, gets taken out to make space for the install. Next comes the battery pack, and for this you need space and in most cases a second alternator. These power the amplifiers via thick cabling that needs to be carefully planned and laid out, with a more-than-basic understanding of electrics. Matting such as the Targa T-Mat is stuck to all bare metal, particularly the roof, to deaden unwanted vibration.
“It is quite the challenge to build a car that withstands internal pressure,” says Zaid.