We’re glad we don’t live anywhere near this guy.
He’s Virgil Williams, and he’s got a really, really loud car.
In his 1989 Honda Civic: a $25,000 sound system.
Williams, owner of The Stereo Source in Lynn Haven, says it’s the loudest car in a 500-mile radius. Six 15-inch woofers and two amplifiers fill the backseat and trunk.
Williams, 53, regularly enters contests for loudest car stereos and claims to own the world record for the loudest single-woofer car in the world (an 18-inch woofer that hit 170.3 dB, louder than most rock concerts).
His sound system can blast 154 decibels — louder than a jet taking off, a jackhammer and an air raid siren, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
Like most aftermarket car stereos, this one flouts state law, which says any car stereo clearly audible from 25 feet away is illegal, reports the Panama City News Herald.
Not that lots of folks in Panama City Beach really care.
It might be the excessively loud stereo epicenter of the county.
Local police issued 422 citations for noisy stereos in the last 12 months, according to Maj. David Humphreys.
Now Rep. D. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, is floating a bill to make loud stereos a moving violation, increasing fines and adding points, and thus higher insurance rates, for ear-splitting speaker enthusiasts.
“That’s bull,” Williams said. After thinking for a minute, he reiterated, “Total bull.”
Huh? What did he say? We can’t hear him.
Photo: Robert Cooper / The News Herald
Virgil Williams sits in front of a wall of six 15-inch woofers mounted directly behind his car’s seats.
