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EMMA Car Audio Competition 07.08.2010 (Ahvenisto, Finland)

DLS Revolution had its first EMMA competition during the weekend and it was great success!

Schedule was very tight and whole team worked 16 hours nonstop before the competition to get everything working properly. There were also couple of helping hands in the garage during the last night before the competition.

DLS Revolution made a new Finnish record, it was the first car which got total of 500 points!

Sound: 279 points, installation: 221 points, total: 500 points.

Sound was 286 points but there were problems during the judging and car didn´t start, so it got -6 points because of that and -1 point for some extra noise.

Despite the challenges during the competition Team ReVolution is very happy about the first competition, since lot of things were not ready, like all grills, documentation and couple of smaller issues. This is a good start and now we will improve the car for the next competition which will be the Swedish Finals in two weeks.

EMMA Car Audio competition 20.-22.08.2010, Swedish Finals (Vallåkraträffen Helsingborg, Sweden)

Revolution did it, first Finnish competition car which has ever won the Swedish Finals!!!

During the last weekend there was Swedish Finals kept in Vallåkra near by Helsinborg. Approximately 500 cars, including EMMA cars, were in the outdoor show on the grass field.

Competition started on saturday by judging the sound with two judges separately from the driver side. Both judges were giving only couple of comments about the sound and it was not possible to see score sheet.

When the sound judging was finished we had installation judging. We were still expecting deduction from total points, since grills were not ready for this competition either so, it was not suprise that we didn´t score full.

Overall, Judging was very very tough, but fair, just like it should be in the finals. Both jugding was executed in very professional way and we didn´t have anything negative to say about it. To be honest this kind of sound judging would be much more convenient for other countries and euro finals, since usually the car´s are tuned for driver side only...

Trophy ceremony was on Sunday at noon and I have to admit that it was very exciting moment since there were many good cars in our class. We got 284 points from sound and 207 points from the installation. Installation didn´t have bonus points because in Sweden there is only Master 7 class which is not having bonuses.

After that Best of Sound cars were announced and judging started right away. 3 Judges were judging sound separately from the driver side and average of those was the final score. DLS Revolution won the the Best of Sound as well!

Last but not least was the tuning show competition and Mini was competing in best Interior of show category against 2 Volvo´s. This time engine was running smoothly so no problem with that but D was broken...so we have to reverse to the podium. :)

So, 3 trophies from the Vallåkra was very very good result for DLS Revolution. Team wants to thanks everybody who has been helping with the project!!!

Special thanks goes to EMMA Sweden and to all competitors who were really friendly and helpfull. We were treated as a VIP during the whole weekend, thank you!!! :)

EMMA Car Audio Competition 28.08.2010 (Pietarsaari, Finland)

DLS Revolution visited in Pietarsaari where EMMA had competition together with Jeppi´s tuning show.

Our plan was to put Mini and all show material into trailer on Thursday already, so that everything would be ready when working day is over on Friday. But...once again the plan was changed due to techinal difficulties. on Thursday evening when we started the car, one of our control box blew and it was impossible to move the car.

So our electronic guy had to fix the box on Friday morning and we installed it to Mini on afternoon and after that we were able to get on the road.

We were only car in Master Unlimited class, so we got first place, but we also won best of sound and tuning competition trophy.

Wheather was very cold during the day, around 10 degrees, so we had to use amplifier preheating most of the day to be able to keep them warm enough. Judging was started with sound and this time we got a little bit lower points and we had very interesting discussion with the judges when they gave feedback for us.

Installation went pretty much how we expected, since we still didn´t have speaker grills inplace. Only thing that came behind the tree was that there was small issue with one speaker cable and that caused -5 points. Otherwise everything was ok.

This was last competition before the Finnish finals, so now we have 1,5 weeks time to get everything ready. That work has already been started... :)

Sound: 273p, Installation: 223p, Total: 496p.

EMMA Finnish Finals Hifi & Tuning Show 11.-12.09.2010 (Oulu, Finland)

Finish Finals were kept together with famous Hifi & Tuning show 2010 in northern part of Finland, Oulu.

Team revolution started roadtrip on Friday afternoon towards Oulu. After 10 hours of driving Team Revolution arrived to Oulu hall, around 00.30AM. Mini was transported in a trailer, so we just made a quick cleaning and take it out of the trailer until we went for a sleep.

Saturday morning finals were started and judges started their work. First we had sound judging which happened outside of the exhibition hall. All cars were moved to that special area, since it was so much noise inside the hall. Sound judging was very good and feedback from the judges was in nutshell that sound is extremely high end. Only mistake was cooling fans in the amp which were too loud and it gave us -2 points for sound. Once again one more thing to be improved to euro finals... :)

After sound judging we had installation and it went pretty smooth as well. We had grills ready for tweeters, midranges and midbasses but subwoofer grill was still missing, so it took points from the installation. And there was one finishing mistake with speaker cable... :)

Saturday evening we had trophy ceremonity and we won our class with the new Finnish record of 519 total points.

Sunday was time for best of sound and best of installation judging as well as for tuning competition.

Sound was judged individually with 3 judges from the driver´s seat only.

Final score was based on the judge who gave the ´average´ score, so the best and the worst score sheet was taken out and the middle one was taken into account. Dispersion was quite big among three judges but luckily it didn´t affect to end results so much. Two of the judges scored DLS Revolution to be the best and one judge placed DLS Revolution as a second best. DLS Revolution won the best of sound by 6 points which is pretty much taking into account that score sheet in best of sound was limited score sheet from the normal EMMA sound core sheet

After best of sound and best of installation it was time to go tuning show trophy ceremony and it was big suprise for us that we won best interior and best exterior classes as well. :)

What can you say...this was competition of our dreams to have 5 first places!!!

Team Revolution will now concentrate for Euro Finals which will be held after 3 weeks in Rotterdam, so see you all sound fanatics there!

Sound: 287p, Installation: 232p, Total: 519p.

European Car Audio Championships, 6.-10.10.2010 (Rotterdam, Holland)

There is a saying that “good things happen to good people”. We still want to believe in that; this just was not the time for us.

Team ReVolution arrived to Amsterdam on Tuesday evening. Our plan was to be there early enough, so that we have enough time to setup everything for the biggest and most important happening of the year. Wednesday was the booth building day. We started building the booth in the afternoon by setting up all supplement materials around the car. After couple of hours booth was ready and it was time to clean the car inside out and do the final sound check. Competition was started on Thursday, but our class was not judged on that day, so we concentrated to give demo for the press and other competitors. Around 40 people listened the car on Thursday and almost everybody said that this is something truly amazing how good this car is sounding. On that time we were feeling quite confident about the sound…

The big day was Friday when we had judging in our class. Installation was first and it went as planned, we got full points from the presentation and full points from the whole installation. We had put a lot of effort for our presentation and everything was planned carefully for the Euro Finals. For example we had two huge aluminum stands following the theme, one for sponsors and one for the documentation including screen showing hundreds of installation pictures and printed brochure with high quality step by step pictures. We also had two glass showcases for showing different very unique parts of installation. Our idea was to set up presentation limit so high that others wouldn´t score full points from presentation just with the couple of photos in the photo log… how wrong we were in the end of the day. Everybody in our class got full installation points in our class. But since these are sound quality finals and sound is all that matters, we didn´t feel bad about it.

We were the last car in our class for Sound judging and our turn came in the afternoon. We prepared to that very well; we were heating up the amplifiers whole day and checking every now and then that voltage is just correct for the judging. Then the judging started. After 15 minutes it was done and it was time for feedback from the judges. It was like a SMACK on your face when we got the feedback that basically nothing is good in this car. Couple of highlights here from the feedback: tonality is not good, you have issues with tweeters, you have problems with midrange, you have problems with sub base. It is not yet time for this car, maybe next year. With such installation you cannot get better result for the distance, you should have them on your dashboard.. and on the top “you know I do not have anything against for DLS cars, I am totally blind for different brands”. On that moment we did not believe what we heard. One of the things in the feedback was that “tweeter and midrange are way too sweet”. To be honest we were blown at this point…what went wrong? More we thought about feedback, we notice that we did not get any positive feedback from them at all…

After judges left, we checked the temperature of the amps and voltage of the battery: Everything was just like it should be. We also listened the sound of course, if there is something wrong with the settings: no it was good as well. Being totally confused, we asked the head judge to check the points that they are in line, because of course we didn´t know what other competitors have got and maybe it is just the very strict line made by the judges. Head judge checked the sound and came out of the car. He said that tweeters and midrange are way too aggressive. Weird, don´t you think? We listened all the cars in our class, except one, during Saturday and Sunday, because it was bothering us so much what kind of scores we got and also the feedback given by judges was so negative. After listening them we were confident, that our car is sounding really really good and it must be just the very strict line. How wrong we were again…

Finally on Sunday afternoon it was time for trophy ceremony. First we got Best of Show price which was very nice. Then it came time for our own class and it was a BIG disappointment for us to be third in our class. On the other hand we “knew” already at this point what the situation was. Overall we had very confusing feelings in the whole team. However we did find also something very positive in the end. During the show, we had more than 150 listeners including judges, press and other visitors and almost everyone gave compliments how good sound we had and that we have the best midrange they have ever heard. And by the way, we didn´t change the settings after the judging… Everyone interested were warmly welcome to listen ReVolution Mini.

During the show we also had very interesting discussions with many judges, head judges and other EMMA people. Common understanding was that by doing some improvements we can be sure that there is no room left for any kind of mistakes in the judging in the future. Maybe it would be better to do judging with 5 different judges from the driver side, then throw the best and worst score sheet to trash can and calculate the average of three other score sheets? Maybe judges should also pay attention to rulebook, since there are some certain rules for them as well, not only for the competitors. Also in master and expert category there should be experienced judges used and not any rookies, since we are talking about the European finals. The highest level of car audio at the moment.

Some of the competitors are taking this “hobby” pretty seriously and some of the competitors do care if “shit happens” and some of the competitors are sacrificing a lot of their life’s for car audio, without forgetting the fact how much they have spent time and money to be able to participate in the competition. There for it is reasonable to demand proper judging in the euro finals, don´t you think?

At least with some of the improvements mentioned above we can be more sure that “bad things won´t happen to good cars” in the future.

Sound: 264p, Installation: 235p, Total: 499p.

AMICOM SHOW 2011 9.-13.4.2011 (Leipzig, Germany)

EMMA season 2011 opening was held in Leipzig, Germany at the same time with AMICOM show. Team ReVolution arrived to Leipzig on Friday evening after being afraid that we will miss the connection fligt in Frankfurt where we suppose to change the plane. First flight was 40min late and we only had 45 min time to change the plane, but luckily the second fligth didn´t leave until we were on the plane.

Saturday morning was started by taking Mini out of the trailer and setting up the booth. Atfer everything found its place on the booth it was time for soundcheck and do the last fine tuning for it because every hall affects differently to the sound. Finally all was setup and we started giving demos to audience and other competitors.

After the exhibition was over on Saturday, we went to our hotel to prepare the bonus list together with whole team DLS. We had couple of hours brainstorming session and first draft of the list was then ready. On midnight we wrote it clean couple of times and we were ready for the sunday´s competition.

Originally there were only one other car in our class besides our Revolution Mini but when Viktor Ivanov noticed that we are in Expert class he changed from Master Unlimited to same class with us. At this point we were very exited, because Viktor is current European Champion in Expert category. It was time to challenge him.

Sunday morning was started with sound judging. This was the first competition in EMMA history where sound was judged by two judges one by one from the driver seat. Mini was placed in AIV booth and there was a huge background noise coming from the other booths where sound pressure cars were playing music very loud. We got permission to move the car to same part of the hall where other EMMA competitors were and there were much more quiet. After half an hour first sound judging was over and we got short feedback which was mostly positive things about the car.

Second sound judging came pretty quickly after the first one, since there were only three cars in our class and that also went well. This time feedback was a little bit longer and also very positive in overall. Second judge picked up exactly those things from the sound which we already knew so it gave a confident feeling about the judging.

When the sound judging was done we moved the car back to our booth where installation judging took place. Installation judging was done also in very professional way just like the sound judging and when we got the feedback, we were feeling more relaxed because there were no suprises in the judging.

We felt that new sound judging procedure worked very well and hopefully this will be taken into use in other competitions in all countries. Scoresheets were not shown at all during the feedback, so we didn´t have a clue what kind of points we got and how did they match with the other competitors points. It was time to start being nervous in a positive way.

Price giving ceremony was pretty much similar to Euro finals, except that it took less time. And what a suprise it was when our name was said last in our class, WE WON !!!!! :)

This was our virgin competition in Expert Unlimited class and well, what can you say, we beat the current European Champion in that class. This was a very good start for the season 2011 and there is still time to improve the sound.

Next competition will be in Sweden on Easter at Bilsport Perfromance and Custom Motor Show. If you like to hear DLS ReVolution Mini, please stop by BRL booth in hall B. See you all there!

Sound: 418p, Installation: 309p, Total: 727p.

Bilsport Performance & Custom Motor show 22.-25.4.2011 (Jönköping, Sweden)

The Easter in Sweden, over 700 vehicles, over 75000 visitors and more than 35000 square meters of show and the season opening of EMMA Sweden. That was the setup for our next stop at Bilsport performance & custom motor show in Elmia.

The trip was started in a “normal” way when we went to the airport and realized that our flight was delayed by 1,5 hours because of some broken parts in the plane. Luckily those parts didn´t break in the air…

We arrived to Jonköping on Thursday evening and started building our booth. Friday was the first exhibition day and people started to come in. It was very nice to see that there were no drunken people at all in the show because none of the restaurants there sold any alcohol. This is something the organizers of Finnish exhibitions should follow.

On Friday evening we met our Finnish friends or “enemies”, depends on how you like to call them :), who had been building a Revolution “killer” during the winter and were supposed to compete against us in the same class. There was a big hype going on about how good this new car was and how we would get beaten by them. Anyway, we wanted to keep the “enemy” close and decided to have a few drinks with them..

Finally on Sunday the EMMA competition started with sound judging. Our turn was in the afternoon, so we had plenty of time to warm up the system and check that everything was correct. Judging was done from the driver’s side only, similar way they did in Leipzig, except that now we had only one judge in our class. After the judging it was possible to see the score sheet when the judge was giving us feedback. It was very easy to agree with the judge because all the things he pointed out we already knew. It also gave us a more confident feeling that the judging was once again done in a professional way.

Just before the show was over on Saturday we heard from the other Finnish team that they decided to retire from the competition, or should I say that they literally ripped themselves out of the competition. So, we didn´t get a chance to compete with them, maybe later on…

On Monday it was judging time for the installation. In installation we have always been very strong, so we didn´t expect the judging to be such a witch hunt. There were three installation judges. The reason for this was that one of the judges was a competitor from the very old times who hasn´t been so active lately but was now trained at the same time during the judging. You can just imagine what will happen when you have been resting a long time and you are full of energy to examine the car. And on top of that we also forgot some crucial installation items to our garage and some items that shouldn’t normally be in the car during the judging were there now, so installation points were not so good this time. This was a good reminder for us to prepare 110% for each competition and we also got ourselves a to-do list so that installation will be perfect in the future competitions.

Since the installation didn’t go so well, we were nervous about the results. In Sweden there is only one Master category where all master and expert cars are competing together and there are no bonuses for the installation which means that you have to have good sound to be able to win. We knew that the sound of the Revolution was very good, but was it good enough?

Finally it was time for prize giving ceremony. There were five competitors in our class and our name was announced last, which means that we won! It was the second time in a row in Sweden, a historical moment for us.

Overall everything went well, the judging was done in a professional way, people were really nice and we didn´t have any problems. Once again it was a very positive experience about judging only from the driver’s side. Hopefully we will see more of this kind of judging! Also thanks to the BRL people to be able to have our car in your booth.

Sound: 272p, Installation: 199p, Total: 471p.

EMMA Car Audio competition 28.05.2011 (Artukainen, Finland)

The 2011 EMMA Finland competition season finally started as well. Team ReVolution was well prepared and ready in time for the season´s first competition, which was held in Turku, Artukainen on May 28th. For many of us, car audio feels like a real summer hobby. Summer starts when the competition season starts and ends when the Finnish Finals are held. However, that impression was quite far away from our minds on that Saturday morning when it was time to start the drive to Turku. The weather looked pretty bad, only +7 degrees and it looked like it could rain all day, not even mentioning what an awful wind there was outside.

From the weather point of view we ended up to be quite lucky after all. It was raining when we were driving to the competition area. This time the team set up was limited since Tommi was enjoying his well earned vacation and had gone fishing. We were actually surprised how easily we managed the entire day with just two of us – Olli and Sanna. But what else you could expect after all those times we have practised during the last season and spring time.

From the competition point of view we didn’t need to be too excited because we didn’t have anyone else in our class with us. We just wanted to hear the feedback from the judges and simply enjoy the great spirit together with car audio people after the long winter.

The day went very smoothly and fast, mainly discussing with our friends. And surprisingly enough, we won our class :D Once again it was easy to agree with the judges when it was time to get feedback from them. Overall we received great feedback. The sound judges told us that we have very good sound, only some minor things to be improved. This we already knew and the work will continue. Now we will concentrate on polishing the diamond to it´s final glory and finish all the loose ends in the installation as well as from the sound point of view.

Thanks to all who visited us. It was great to see you after the long winter. See U around during the season.

Sound: 450p, Installation: 280p, Total: 730p.

EMMA Car Audio competition 06.08.2011 (Lahti, Finland)

A sunny day in Lahti, Finland where recently opened car audio shop called HifiX was having the EMMA car audio competition. Team ReVolution participated to second EMMA competition in Finland after having a long installation period. During this period, DLS ReVolution got many new things underneath the surface panels as well as lots of new improvements for the sound.

This was also the first competition when the car was finally moving forward with its own engine. So far there has been failure in gearbox which has been causing the problem so that it has not been possible to drive the car forward, only reverse has been working. There was one solenoid broken inside the gearbox and it took several weeks to spot the broken part as well as to find a replacement part. After calling all gearbox stores in Finland and around Europe we finally found the correct solenoid form the United States. Not speaking the work effort when broken part was replaced. First remove the engine compartment, removing gearbox, removing solenoid, putting all together, reprogramming the gearbox etc.

The day was started with installation judging which was done extremely properly. It took almost an hour but every little detail was checked and maybe even double checked by the judges. I have to say that judges did an excellent job. They noticed all the details and gave very good feedback how the installation and especially bonus points can be earned even more.

This was also first competition when we had a new portable remote control in use. With this remote you can control all the electronic equipments of DLS Revolution just by touching the screen. Remote worked well, even though it was in the morning when we put it together and got it working for the first time because anodizing of covers took more than estimated originally.

We were last in sound judging so we had plenty of time to check that everything was in place and temperature was correct in the amplifiers. In the Finnish EMMA competitions sound judging are always done with two judges simultaneously from the both front seats. This time sound judging was not so clear, judges said that sound was very good, except that there was a little bit too much of bass overall, especially subbass. When judges gave more detailed feedback we noticed that too high level of subbass ended up to result that altogether 20 points was taken from the score sheet because of that. But there were no other mistakes or anything else to complain in the sound, so we were happy about the end result of judging.

After the trophy ceremony the weather changed quite dramatically and it started a heavy rain. When it was time to put car into the trailer we got totally wet but it didn´t matter so much because of the good team spirit :)

Sound: 447p, Installation: 280p, Total: 727p.

EMMA Car Audio competition 13.-14.8.2011 (Ahvenisto, Finland)

Once again Team ReVolution was on the way to EMMA competition on early Saturday morning, this time it was the last competition of the season before the Finnish Finals. And by the way, once again it was sunny morning :)

Competition was held in the Ahvenisto race track where was held RADALLE.COM event at the same time, so there were plenty of gasoline in the air during the day. We started the morning with usual stuff by setting up the booth. When we got everything in place it was time for the first sound judging. This time sound judging was done only from the driver side, because this was international event, same way like it will be judged in the Euro finals. We got short feedback after the judging and now the sound was excellent so the day was started well. Second sound judging came right after the first one and almost the same result as the first judge, so no problems with the sound.

During the day we were giving lot of demos for the audience and lot of people were commenting how much better the car was this time than the last year when they heard it last time. We were also checking the racing during the day when there were little breaks between the demos.

In the afternoon it was time for the installation judging and it went also very well and we got good, long and detailed feedback. Judges also gave some tips how we can still earn couple of more bonus points for the euro finals. Still some things to be done before the finals ;)

Overall this was really good competition, especially because this time sound judging was done with two judges one by one from the driver side. Also we got the best scores so far in Expert unlimited class, so we are in good shape what comes to this year´s euro finals.

Sound: 463,5p, Installation: 294p, Total: 757,5p.