|
WATERTOWN
Car-audio training covers installation, all the bases
By Emily Sweeney, Globe Staff Correspondent, 9/19/2002
 he
''boom, boom, boom'' of bass emanates from the speakers of souped-up cars,
vibrating their windows, like the resounding pulse of city life. Tucked away
on Dexter Avenue, just outside Watertown Square, is a state-certified school
that teaches students how to put together these stereos on wheels.
But Ritop School for Mobile Electronics has caught the ear of a national
antinoise group, Noise Free America. The organization, founded in 2001, put
the Massachusetts Department of Education on its ''Noisy Dozen'' list last
month, criticizing it for licensing a ''boom car academy.''
With chapters in 14 states, Noise Free America makes it a mission to
lobby elected officials to reduce noise from lawn blowers, video arcades,
nightclubs - and radios.
''Boom cars, like vehicles with `loud pipes,' are intended to create
attention and annoy people,'' said Ted Rueter, a California political
consultant who founded Noise Free America. ''Boom cars are destroying many
neighborhoods across the country. They are making people sick and
depressed.''
Ritop's director said the school turns out professionals who
can install stereos, alarms, monitors, and other technology in cars. He
pointed out that Noise Free America considers movie trailers to be a type of
noise. (The group's Web site describes those film previews as
''thunderous.'')
''We don't train guys to go out there and make noise. It's not about
noise,'' said the school's Director. ''We just don't go out and `boom, boom, boom,' all the
time.''
Heidi Perlman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said the
commonwealth licenses all proprietary schools, but does not evaluate their
courses or endorse their content.
''People have stereos, and they have to be installed,'' said Perlman.
''We make sure these schools are not fly-by-night operations, and that the
buildings are up to code. It does not mean we endorse what they teach.''
Rich Inferrera, owner of Rich's Car Tunes (located next door), started
Ritop in 1985. The name was an acronym for Rich Inferrera's Team of
Professionals. Today Ritop attracts students, most 18 to 21 years old, from
across the country and as far as Japan. Graduates of the eight-week program
go on to work for employers like Best Buy, Tweeter, Circuit City, car
dealerships, and LoJack.
When the school's Director talks about his school and the students, his rhetoric is
reminiscent of Morgan Freeman's portrayal of a high school principal who
worked to improve students' performances at a dilapidated inner-city school
in the 1989 drama ''Lean on Me.'' Listening to him talk about Ritop, one
could forget that this is an auto school.
''I won't allow anyone to fall through the cracks,'' said the Director. ''We're
very serious here.''
Students split their time between classroom and shop. The school has a
computer lab and a small library, and stacks of ''Car Audio'' magazines sit
on the table in the front lobby. The shop area is stocked with tools of the
trade: a drill press, table saw, rulers, and band saws.
Like most of Ritop's recent crop of students, 20-year-old Matt Druin
found the school while surfing the Web, at his home in Dayton, Ohio.
''There were a number of other schools to choose from, and I thought
Ritop would be the best. Most of the other schools are four weeks at the
most,'' said Druin, who wants to open his own shop one day. Now he is
contemplating installing stereo equipment in his 1990 Honda Civic.
Jeff Baker survived a major car accident four years ago, but that did not
stop him from working on cars and signing up at Ritop to learn the tricks of
the trade.
''It's a lot harder than I thought it was,'' said Baker.
A friend got him into it when they were both at Assabet Valley Regional
High School, and he found Ritop on the Internet.
''The way I am, if I have a job, I have to have a job I like doing,''
said Baker. ''I like putting stereos in. There's always something you can do
to make it better.''
But Mark Huber, of Noise Free America, who lives in Richmond, Va., said
Ritop teaches skills that bring more noisy stereos onto the streets, which
he considers a civil rights violation.
''Where I live, those boom cars are shaking buildings all over the place.
I can't violate their noise with my silence. I can't hold a conversation, I
can't listen to the sounds of nature,'' said Huber. ''There's a whole
culture surrounding these cars, and it's very misogynist and
overtestosteronized.''
Open up a copy of Car Audio, and you will see ads with scantily clad
women gripping shiny amplifiers or leaning on cars. But he steers Ritop
away from that image, and he laments that the industry is viewed that way by
some. Few women have attended Ritop, he said, but one of his goals is to
attract more to the trade and to this school.
One of those few women to attend Ritop is Brianna Matthews of Athol. Her
boyfriend, who works at Audisee Electronics in Athol, sparked her interest
in mobile electronics, and she read about the school in a copy of Mobile
Electronic magazine. Matthews completed the session that ended Aug. 30.
''[Being the only woman at Ritop] was very strange at first,'' she said.
''But then everyone gets to know each other, and it wasn't much different
that I was a girl.''
Matthews has a silver 2002 Honda Civic with a Kenwood Excelon head unit,
MTX speakers and MTX Thunder 8000 subwoofers, and a Memphis Belle 5-channel
amplifier that she drives back and forth to the University of Massachusetts
at Amherst, where she is pursuing a degree in nutrition. She did not install
the equipment, but now she knows how.
Now she has a job at Audisee, which helps pay for her college tuition.
After she completes her undergraduate degree at UMass, she plans to enroll
in medical school or graduate school for a doctorate.
She listens to the haunting chants of VAST, an electronic rock band,
during the one-hour commute from her Athol home to Amherst.
Kenny Nguyen, 19, of Worcester, finished his Ritop training at the same
time as Matthews. Last semester they worked on a 1989 Mercedes-Benz 500 SEL.
He has a light blue Acura Integra that he experimented with in his
driveway and garage, putting in the CD player and speakers himself. Now, he
wants to add an enhanced security system.
When he stops at red lights, he says, he lowers the volume of his CDs by
Jah Rule and DJ Matrix.
''I love the bass,'' said Nguyen. ''But I always turn music down,
especially for elderly people, because everyone has different ways.''
Globe Staff correspondent Emily Sweeney can be reached at
esweeney@globe.com.
This story ran on page 1 of the Globe West section on
9/19/2002.
© Copyright
2002 Globe Newspaper Company. |
