• Over the weekend we showed the first part in Alpine’s Sinister Six demo car build videos, and we wrapped it up with Part 2. It’s still hard to believe this beast started life as an $80,000 BMW 645…. The resemblance is there, but this demo car is a work of art!
• Griffin sent us a few of their in-car iPod charger/wireless transmitters to take for a test drive and we just finished our review of the first product. The gadget worked very well – we were impressed!
• Pioneer’s MINI-mino impressed us both on CarDomain and SoundDomain, so we couldn’t resist writing about it either! We got a few details on the product line-up and modifications, but not much info was available at press time. It’s definitely worth a second look and we’ll do our best to get even better details!

• The Alpine Imprint RLS will always be one of the most amazing demo cars ever produced. But before the Imprint made it’s impression on car audio history, the Alpine crew built the Sinister Six. What started out as an innocent $84,000 BMW 645ci ended up a jaw dropping, road raging, Sinister sports coupe. And SoundDomain has two videos  from Alpine following the crew through the amazing build.
• It interesting what you can find in life if you just look a little bit closer…. SoundDomain’s new guestblogger, Ben, writes about the hidden easter eggs found on circuit boards. Who’da guessed engineers had a sense of humor?
• Car manufacturers aren’t the only ones getting hit by Chinese knock-offs; even car audio manufacturers have to step into the ring. Check out the pics of this bogus Alpine amplifier found out in the wild. Would you have spotted it?
• Our main man Steve Meade is back and shaking up a ruckus at Taco Bell. Watch what happens when the two drive thru guys ask for a sample of the Tahoe’s beefy beats. Notice the bills in Taco Dude #2′s hand when Steve gives the magic knob a twist… The looks on their faces are pretty priceless too: from excitement to satisfaction to shock & awe. It’s always a good time with Steve.
• Bored? Add Bluetooth to your 5G iPod.
• We’ve also got a video of CarDomain member Jamminwagon plugging in and jammin’ out on his electric car through his Dodge Magnum’s sound ssytem. Boy’s got some skills, car’s got some beats!
• Scosche built out a pretty crazy demo car for SEMA 2006: a bright orange FJ Cruiser stuffed with EFX gear: eight 12" woofers, twelve amplifiers, seven monitors (including a 32"monitor in the rear door!), twenty speakers, three batteries, and over 9000 watts of power!

• Have you ever dreamed of owning your own company? How about owning your own car audio company? Well, now you can! We stumbled on a Craigslist ad where some guy is selling his high-end car audio amplifier company, including inventory, schematics, and documentation! He’s already done the hard part, now you just need to fork over a measly  $10Gs to buy it!
• If you’ve been thinking about buying an in-dash navigation or LCD screen, now’s a great time to do it! Pioneer is offering a $200 rebate on the D3.
• Bluetooth is being integrated into just about everything, but it never occurred to me to add it to a CD radio?! Well, Cobra did, and it’s a great idea!
• AT&T’s new Palm Centro smart phone does just about everything a smart phone should, and more! This smart phone actually streams XM satellite radio right to your phone! A first for this industry and it’s only $99!

• Premium car audio manufacturer Focal gave us the scoop on their new Solid Series amplifiers. These mid-level amplifiers offer great flexibility, small footprints, and uber-clean sound quality. The plain-Jane design is great for flush-mounting, and the amps are available in Wrinkle Black or Wrinkle Red. SoundDomain is the first place you’ll see these audiophile amps, so make sure to check them out and let us know what you think! One thing to point out, Focal’s parent company, home audio manufacturer JM Labs, has a home speaker that sells for over $35,000 EACH. These guys know what they’re doing when it comes to offering the best of the best. What’s in your ride?
• Team Hybrids member Dave Brooks is a World Champion car audio competitor, and last year won the MECA Modex Division National Championship, earned the title of IASCA’s Rookie World Champion, and took first place in the Sound Quality Championship. Dave’s sponsor, Hybrid Audio also wanted to congratulate him for recently achieving the rank of Chief Master Sergeant, and is now the highest ranking enlisted serviceman in the USAF. Congrats to Dave!
• We’ve got another video from Scosche live on the site. In this episode Trevor Kaplan walks you through their iPod auxiliary input for the Toyota Tundra. The AXIPTA interface is extremely easy to use and seamlessly interfaces with the factory radio almost like it was just meant to be.
• Microsoft and Alpine just inked a deal to share technology and patents. This shoudl be a pretty cool partnership since Alpine is pretty much the #1 car audio manufacturer, and Microsoft is the world dominator when it comes to software and their new Sync system is just SICK!

• If you haven’t experienced the beauty of Satellite Radio yet, you honestly don’t know what you’re missing. Not only is the programming superior to what you get on repetitive FM radio, the fact that it’s uncensored and little to no commercials on the music channels really is a God-send. If you want to give it a try, but don’t want to spend a lot of money, check out the killer deals Sirius is running! Good ’til March 1st!
• If you just picked up an ’08 Accord and want to swap out the radio, but all the shops told you "No-Can-Do", Scosche just released this color-matched kit for single and double-DIN radios!
• Did you know that JBL speakers can be found in approximately 80% of allmovie theaters in the US and that Lucas Arts (You know, the guys that made Star Wars?) designed initial THXspecifications using JBL speakers? Yep. That’s right. And JBL just released some new Power Series speakers so you can swap out those tin can-sounding factory speakers for some premium quality sound. May the force be with you.
• Ben from Car Audio Nationals just stopped by the to announce the resurrection of the Car Audio Nationals Series of Sound Quality events for competitors on the East Coast (or those further West crazy and dedicated enough to make the trek!). Three events are planned so far, and winners are actually paid CASH to go along with their trophy. Start tuning that sound system!

Ever wonder what life would be like without music? I’ve wondered it, but I don’t think I’d ever want to experience it. Music is one of the reasons I got into the Mobile Electronics industry. The gadgets and the cool devices that help make the music in my car and life are only secondary, but they make my job and hobby that much more exciting. I know nothing really beats the sound of a finely tuned engine, but nothing compliments it better than a finely tuned car stereo system. And if I couldn’t listen to music, well, then I guess I’d just hop over to SoundDomain and catch up on the news!

• High-end home audio manufacturer Naim has announced it will provide the audio systems for future Bentley vehicles. Produced under the moniker "naim for Bentley", the system will belt out 1100 watts of pure audiophile power to 15 speakers. How much does the Naim system add to the bottom line of a Bentley? Well, as the saying goes – if you have to ask….
• If you’ve got an old school muscle car or classic cruiser in your garage and you’ve considered upgrading the radio and audio system, your options are pretty slim. Fortunately there are companies like RetroSound that offer the latest technology in a radio package designed to look factory in your retro-rod. USB, MP3, CD Changer controls, multi-color LCD… Get all the modern luxuries in a classic package.
• Blast from the past… Back in the good ‘ol days of Car Audio, Alpine and the Lambo Countach were one of the most recognized symbols in the industry (Alpine still is for that matter). I was digging around the net and stumbled on some oldie-but-goodie shots of this classic car stereo icon.
• Our man "Crazy Like a" Brian Fox is at it again… This time he’s creating a work of art to be showcased at Nissan’s booth at the New York International Auto Show this March. His new project is another Nissan Altima Coupe that will sport the new Fox Marketing 6-piece body kit, 19" Work wheels, and a bad-ass Rockford Fosgate stereo system.

There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to make a decision. You should weigh the positives, and negatives carefully because you don’t want to make a hasty decision and figure out it was the wrong one after its too late.** Well, while you’re thinking about your decision, maybe you should catch up on the SoundDomain news:

• We told you about Realm’s ’63 Lincoln Conti not to long ago; the car is just plain hot. Well, apparently MC Hammer thought so too and at CES he tested out his new CD on the Conti’s system and the guys at Realm snagged some video of Hammer getting down to his album. Hammer didn’t hurt ‘em, but you still can’t touch this. Oh yeah… I went there.
• The guys at Thought Out developed some pretty unique iPod and iPhone accessories and the Ped3 for the iPod Touch and iPhone is by far one of the best desktop solutions I’ve seen yet.
• Tim from HzEmall Customs is back and his most recent installment for SoundDomain gives us an in-depth look into the progress on a 1969 Camaro project car. The crew is basically customizing the entire interior, re-doing most of the electronics, suspension, etc. This is going to be one big, bad-ass old school when the wrap it up. Custom seats, VERY custom car stereo install, custom center console, custom trunk, custom suspension, big ‘ol LS2/6 motor and tranny swap, air bags, and chrome 18s up front and big ‘ol 20s in the rear. You don’t want to miss this.
• And don’t forget to check out the last two installments of the Alpine Million Dollar Imprint RLS demo car build videos. In Part 3 the guys get the exterior skeleton built for the custom body panels and the fabrication of the interior panels. In Part 4, with 1 week to go before CES, it’s paint, prep, and finished product. I’m surprised Gary, Steve, and Brent had any skin left on their fingers after all the sanding this project needed!

**The CarDomain editors are not responsible for pointless, mindless, babble contained in these blog posts. And what are you doing reading this anyway?? You should be reading the SoundDomain news!!

It’s amazing where the mobile electronics industry has gone in the last 15 years…. Tape decks were still around, CD players were just starting to be commonplace, and in-dash LCDs and navigation weren’t even a glimmer in our eyes. Now technology is evolving so quickly that if you stop paying attention for a while, you can easily get left behind. But lucky for you, SoundDomain is here to keep you in the loop:

• If you’ve ever installed new speakers in your ride and then flipped on your system only to find your new gear sounds like you’re listening to it in a long empty hallway, you probably have your speaker wires mixed up and they’re out of phase. Either you can rip your car back apart and find the culprit, or you can pick up a handy tool called the Phase-It.
• Massive Audio’s new SQX woofer is GI-NORMOUS. It’s designed for Sound Quality competitions, but SPL junkies will be more than satisfied with this big boomer.
• Hemp is about as handy as the soy bean; you can make just about anything from it, and whatever you make is bound to be better than it’s mass market counterpart (paper, rope, clothing, oils, etc). Check out these new hemp-coned woofers from Hemp Hop! If you’re lucky, you might even win one!
• The guys from Alpine stopped by the site and dropped off a few videos showing the amazing, and I mean AMAZING, build of the 2007 CES demo extravaganza, the Imprint RLS. Check out Part one in a four-part series. You won’t be disappointed!

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A priest, a rabbi, and donkey walk into a bar…. Oh.. You’ve heard that one? Ok. How about this one:

• Realm’s ’63 Conti is one of the cleanest old school resto-demo projects I’ve come across in a long time. The car is just straight up sexy.
• Got some fiberglassin’ skillz? Want a chance to win part of a $3500 prize pack? BassForms is holding the a box-building compeition to see who can build the loudest, hottest-looking fiberglass box. The winner will be chosen at Spring Break Nationals in Daytona Beach. Peep the deets over at SoundDomain: Does your box rock?
• Scosche loaded up our video section with a ton of great informational and How-To videos. This week’s feature: Aux-In installation in a Chevy Silverado.  Check it out – it’s a lot easier than you think!
• Image Dynamics released the details on their new horn-loaded compression drivers. They’re available in both full size and mini, but both come with full-size sound.
• Car alarms are pretty common nowadays, and unfortunately so is the sound the siren makes. Although the DonkeyLabs video is purely a spoof, they’re on the right track, and this alarm certainly would get plenty attention when it’s tripped!

It’s no secret that sixties Lincoln Continentals are a favorite of this blog. After all, what’s not to love? They came with suicide doors, an interior which can comfortably accommodate, like, 30 people, and absolutely timeless body lines. But while bone-stock is great, few would argue with the results Realm Audio achieved when they put this beauty under the knife! The integration of the amps and subs into the trunk is a masterpiece in its own right, and the dash and door panels look almost factory. Get full details on the build and check out a grip of great pics over on SoundDomain.