It must always get worse before it gets better
Christmas holidays was a perfect time to dive into my car audio project. But as always, I was too optimistic on the time it would take to install and rewire new speakers. I had taken the panels off inside the cabin to route the wires properly, so the car was not in a driveable state and this increasingly annoyed me as the days became weeks. Finally, I decided to just spit in my hands and wrap things up, no matter how long it would take. I didn’t finish until after 04:00 in the morning, having worked for seven hours straight without a break. Was it worth it?
Yeah, it was worth it. The past week has been tough, because losing a good night of sleep is similar to jet lag. I read somewhere that regarding jet lag, you can adjust your circadian rhythm by about one hour per day when travelling to different time zones. That makes it quite obvious how a full night of work will mess up your biological clock. But what’s the alternative? Having a car that is taken apart with pieces all over the floor? If that goes on for too long there is a real chance the whole project can stall completely and then I don’t have a car anymore at all. I am certain that the alternative cost, had I prioritized sleep, would have been much higher over a long timeframe.
Also, when you click the final panels into place when your work is finished, that just feels so good. A proper dopamine rush. It is extremely important to finish things. Many of us, myself included, are better at starting things than to conclude them. One of the reasons for this, could be that we haven’t determined what the conditions are for mission accomplished. With my car audio project, I started by writing down every step that I had to take in a document on my phone. I also added tick boxes for all steps with a rather high level of detail of all necessary steps. As my checklist grew, I began to rank order certain work moments. Otherwise, it is all too easy to finish the front system to about 50% and then start working on the rear speakers. Maybe this is some kind of ADHD thing, I don’t know. But I personally have a very strong urge to just bounce between various tasks and this is not good for productivity. Thus, these lists help me a lot. I also wrote in certain sections of my list that I was absolutely not allowed to begin with a new step before the previous one was completed. For example, I have some small adjustments left on my rear speakers, but I cannot devote any energy whatsoever on this before the front of the car is 100% done.
That includes a phone mount as well, which I picked up tonight from the store. The car was originally fitted with a car telephone back in 1992 and it still has the original microphone fitted just below the dashboard, which is the optimal place to hear the driver speak. My new fancy Blaupunkt head unit also has hands-free capability, and a microphone was included with it. But routing the cable is a different story if you want it to look good. And one should obviously remove the old mic if it is not in use anymore. However, when I was routing the new loudspeaker cables, I discovered a small box with connectors inside the console. This turned out to be the hub from the old telephone system. I was very pleasantly surprised when I discovered that the old mic was compatible with my 33 year more modern head unit. Finally, I had discovered something that was plug and play! I tried it out today on the road and the old mic worked perfectly! That little discovery probably saved me many hours of routing work. And it looks kinda cool to still use the legacy microphone, because I am going for a 100% stealth installation. When I am done, it will be impossible for an untrained eye to see that the car has a very capable audio system even though the head unit looks exactly like a 30 year old cassette tape stereo. This will be funny to expose my unsuspecting passenger.
I still have some minor adjustments to attend to regarding the hardware, but it should not require a full night of work but a couple of hours. It is so close now that I can almost touch the finish line of the first stage of the car audio project which is means new loudspeakers, new head unit and the ability to make handsfree phone calls. The next stage will continue during the spring and involves designing and building an amp rack, installing power amplifiers, and routing more cables to the trunk, a lot more cables. And the final touch will be to add the subwoofer, which I already miss more than the deserts miss the rain.