Podcast Ep 76: Dolby Atmos® music in your car is the real deal
Pioneer SPHERA: Dolby Atmos® music in your car is the real deal
In this episode:
JR and Huffy are joined by Dylan Wold, Pioneer's vendor trainer, fresh off a day of training Crutchfield's sales advisors on the brand-new Pioneer SPHERA — the first aftermarket car stereo with built-in Dolby Atmos®. If you've heard "Dolby Atmos" and pictured helicopter sounds flying over your head in a movie theater, Dylan is here to reset those expectations. This is about music: bigger soundstages, better instrument placement, and hearing songs you know by heart in a way that genuinely feels like the first time. Crutchfield has the SPHERA installed in demo cars at both locations, and the reactions from everyone — skeptics included — have been unanimous.
Dylan tells us how SPHERA works (spoiler: it's simpler than you'd think), what it takes to get the most out of it, which factory and aftermarket system combinations to watch out for, and why 92% of the Billboard Top 100 is already recorded in Dolby Atmos and waiting for you. Plus, JR gets his own band's music played through the up-mixer live on air, and our co-worker Dave Delamere stops by to demonstrate the calibration system in action. If you're considering a new car stereo, this one's worth your time. Questions? Email [email protected] or talk to a Crutchfield advisor who's been trained on the Pioneer SPHERA firsthand.
After you listen to the podcast episode, check our writer Dave's side of the story with his review of the Pioneer SPHERA.
Timestamp Chapter Title
[0:00:00] Intro
[0:01:25] Welcoming Dylan Wold from Pioneer
[0:02:40] How long has the Sphera been in the works?
[0:05:26] What Dolby Atmos actually does for music
[0:10:00] How the Sphera works — setup and calibration mic
[0:11:35] The calibration process explained
[0:12:31] Dave's demo car: factory speakers in a Toyota Camry
[0:15:26] Using the Sphera with aftermarket amps and speakers
[0:17:03] Factory premium audio systems — what to watch out for
[0:18:33] Is Pioneer leading the charge? Competition talk
[0:21:00] Who is the Sphera customer?
[0:23:33] How many Atmos songs are available?
[0:24:05] The up-mixer: Atmos simulation for non-Atmos tracks
[0:27:58] Live demo: JR's band through the up-mixer
[0:29:28] Factory speakers only — and it still sounds like that?
[0:30:14] Dylan's background in car audio
[0:34:21] Outro and thanks
[01:00:00;00 - 01:00:11;06]
(Music)
[01:00:24;23 - 01:02:13;20]
Hello and welcome to Crutchfield the podcast. I'm your host JR joined in studio by my co-host and good friend, Huffy. How you doing? Aw, great. Thank you for calling me your good friend. Yeah, it's a lot. It keeps getting better every time, right? It does. Where we're going to go from here? You went from co-worker to acquaintance to friend to confidant to good friend. Perfect. Excellent. Huffy, do you remember back in January when we did that CES show where we talked about all the cool stuff we saw coming out of CES? Boy, do I. We talked about some stuff that has now come to fruition. Yeah. And I'm pretty excited to be doing that again today. We did it recently, the last episode, we had a bonus episode last month in which we talked about some of the new RGB TV technology that's out with some exclusives in there. That was a pretty exciting episode to work on. That was fun. So one of the other things I was excited about from the CES show we did was the Pioneer Sphera that does Dolby Atmos, a new car stereo that somehow makes your factory speakers or any speakers or amps or whatever Dolby Atmos, like movie theater kind of surround sound for music in your car. And that's now available. As cool as that sounds, it's cooler when you actually get to listen to it. And we have gotten to listen to it. Yes. Pioneer has sent us a couple radios. We've gotten one installed both here in Charlottesville and in our Southwest Virginia Contact Center so that all of our advisors could experience it firsthand. I've done it. I've been in the car. I've seen other people. The reactions are incredible. I've been in a car. Don't, don't shortchange me here. I've done this too. I'm glad you spoke up. I had my doubts about whether somebody would allow you in their car, but apparently you talked him into it. Yes. You're a pretty good salesperson.
[01:02:14;22 - 01:02:38;23]
I've been called worse. And today is the day that we have Pioneer here at Crutchfield doing their vendor training to share with us the story behind and explain all there is to know about the Pioneer Sphera radio, which is technically called the DMH WT8000NEX. Wow. Just flows right off the tongue. Doesn't it? I love a good model number mouthful, baby.
[01:02:39;27 - 01:03:50;07]
And it's not just going to be you and me talking about the Pioneer. Now there's someone else in this room right now. We've actually got, yeah, Dylan Wold from Pioneer is our vendor trainer of the day. He's finished his training sessions and he is here in the podcast studio to answer all of our questions and tell us all about the Pioneer Sphera. Dylan, how are you doing today, buddy? I'm doing good. The trainings are done and I'm excited to be here and talk about this new radio. So thank you guys for having me. This has been a lot of fun so far and I can't wait to see what we get into next. Well, I think we just want to know more about this radio, right? Like let's focus just on that. We could do 29 podcasts about Pioneer and their history in car audio and beyond, right? But that's not the story today is the story is about the Sphera radio that does Dolby Atmos. I would first want to know like, how long has this been in the works? Like how long has Pioneer been dreaming this up, thinking about this from when they started working on it to like today when people can buy it? The first that I heard about is probably about a year ago. We did some
[01:03:51;18 - 01:05:24;05]
intros with a few vendors just kind of as like a introduction to the idea of this and we put it in a demo car that we had. We took it to one of the Knowledge Fest events and kind of showed it off to a bunch of people. We were doing surveys with everybody that sat in the car at the time. That was Vegas Knowledge Fest 2025. Okay. And the feedback we got was unbelievable. Everybody was pretty much blown away by, you know, getting to experience their favorite song for the first time again because of how much different the experience is with Dolby Atmos music that I think everybody just decided, all right, this is a good idea. People love it. Let's bring it. So people that know a thing or two about car audio more than the average Joe sits in the car. And I know that there are like a lot of jaded old car audio vets that are like Atmos in the car. Really? Is this going to be a big deal? I know Dave Delamere, one of our writers who has it now in his car, what came in a little skeptical, right? Like you can't help but wonder, is this a gimmick or not? You can count me there. I love Atmos. I'm kind of a home theater guy. And so I hear about Dolby Atmos and I, you know, thinking about those dinosaur explosions and helicopters flying over my head from one angle. I'm like, how's this going to matter in my car when what I listen to is two channel,
[01:05:26;01 - 01:11:33;29]
but it does matter. Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions, especially from your traditional two channel purist standpoint is like, music for the last hundred years has been left and right stereo. I was the same way. I'm a two channel, like I've put DSPs in my own car. I've taken the time. I've spent time with some really, really smart people to learn how to get the basically the best two channel system I could ever get in my own car. Right. And the, I think initial reaction is just like you said, Huffy for, uh, Atmos is like, oh, is the guitarist going to sound like he's on a trapeze swinging around the room or something like that. But that's, that's not really what it's for. Like sure, there are some kind of modern tracks and new music, you know, electronic music that does have a lot of that movement and motion and, you know, different effects and height. But if you go back and listen to, you know, old school songs, like some, uh, Rocket Man by Elton John or stuff like that, that's been remastered in Dolby Atmos. There's just so much more room. The, the stage is bigger. I think that song in particular, that's really cool is the, the background singers are actually behind you in the vehicle, right? And Elton is John, Elton John is on the dash in front of you. And it's like, you've never experienced that song like that before. So it's not all about movement and crazy effects and stuff. It's more about being able to add more detail and accuracy and get a better sense of where the song was meant or where the song was made when they recorded it. And placement, like placement is the key, moving it all around, not the key, but placement seems, uh, critical. Like Love Shack was one of my favorite examples when I got to hear that, because it really just feels like you're at a party. You got people talking in the background of that song and just having a good time. Uh, if you've seen the video and heard the song, you get it, right? There's a vibe there and the vibe is more present than just listening to it on a two channel system. I mean, it's, it's, it's really cool what it does. Yeah. I think that's kind of the best way to explain it. Um, I mean, I think that we, as people that sell car audio and music in general have a really hard job because how do you explain to somebody how something sounds? It's like, what does the color purple tastes like? Like how do you explain that? What color is the number seven? You know, it's, it's purple, but you know, I, I, you know, how do you explain that to somebody? Right? So trying to explain to somebody what they're going to experience when they go and listen to this for the first time is not easy. Um, and so like you guys have done sitting in a car and getting to experience it and listening to your favorite song for the first time all over again is, uh, I think what this does for a lot of people, which is really cool. It's similar to when you get like a new amazing pair of headphones and you all of a sudden can hear more detail and like you're hearing stuff in songs, you know, like the back of your hand and you're hearing new things in it. Uh, I think there's a lot of opportunity for that to happen here. Yeah. And with Dolby Atmos, I feel like you're, you're picking up a lot more nuance and the music that maybe you didn't, you didn't get before because I mean, the idea of Dolby Atmos, whether or not it's in headphones or home theater is that object based, uh, the, the object based sound. So three dimensionally you're, you're, you're in that space with the, with that artist. And now all of a sudden when you get those voices kind of beside you or it just improves the sound stage, right? In stereo, we've had sound stage forever, but now you're sitting in the middle of that sound stage. It's really cool. Uh, we could talk about our experiences, listening to it for awhile. The point is, and what I'm hoping you at home get out of the last couple of minutes is that actually experiencing this, it's the real deal. Yeah. Uh, and, uh, you, if you appreciate good music and, and, and you want your drive to be accompanied by good music, uh, this is pretty good. Uh, it's pretty great. Um, let's talk about the how, how does it happen? Uh, first off, how does your stereo do at most in your car? What does it take to make that happen? Yeah. So right now we are limited to, you know, technology, um, in a little bit. So you have to have an iPhone with Apple music or, uh, Apple music classical. It'll also work with audible. So those three apps, but as of right now, it is only compatible with, uh, Apple CarPlay. Uh, we are obviously all hopeful that that will change in the future, but as of now, that's what we're kind of limited to. But outside of that, that's really all you need. Uh, your factory speakers, uh, you pull out your stock radio, put the 8,000 NEX in there and you're ready to go. Um, it's, there's not a whole lot more to it. It does come with a calibration mic. Uh, some of you guys out there that have had a lot of pioneer radios over the years, we used to have a microphone that could auto EQ. Uh, I've been asked the last few years when we're going to bring that back. Why did we stop putting that in the box? Where did it go? So I'm super excited to say that the 8,000 does come with that calibration microphone. Uh, it does the EQ, it does your time delay. It does your impulse response to set all the distances for your speakers. Uh, again, to tell the radio where you're at in relation to, uh, you know, all the speakers in the car. So it does all that, but it's also an in-depth analysis of the acoustics inside the vehicle. So it's doing real time processing of that file and of the, um, you know, inside the radio to make sure that the staging is correct based off of where you're sitting in the car.
[01:11:35;04 - 01:12:29;19]
So the radio has built into it all of the bleeps, the creeps and the sweeps that it needs to play on the speakers that you put the microphone. I presume you put it on like a, well, like a tripod or something in the driver's seat. Uh, you can do that, or you can double stick it to the headrest. It's pretty lightweight. So it's pretty, you know, yeah, super flexible. So you set it all up cars on, radios on microphones in place. You hit go and you get out of the car, close the doors, close the windows and wait for it to measure everything. Right. Yep. And how long does that take? A couple of minutes. It's about five to 10 minutes. Yeah. And when it's done, the radio's like, Hey, we're done. We're good. Like, is it really that simple? It really is that simple. And then it actually gives you a little, you can push play and listen to the Dolby demo test track right after. And that's really cool too. That's like your first experience of that. That was the first thing David played for me when I got in the car. I'm like, Oh, yeah, that's pretty cool. This is cool. Ta-da. Sphera.
[01:12:31;13 - 01:12:51;15]
Hi, Dave. Hi. So first off, what kind of car is this? This is a 2016 Toyota Camry. This is the Pioneer 8000 NEX better known as Sphera. Sphera. Sphera. The first aftermarket car stereo with built-in Dolby Atmos encoding. Sphera.
[01:12:53;08 - 01:15:24;26]
And when you say David, that's one of our co-workers. I've mentioned his name three times. Yeah. So he put it in his car. And of course, he had an amazing system already in his car with what kind of speakers did he have? Oh, he's being funny now. Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. So yeah, David had his factory speakers. That's what we all listened to it on, right? Like, that's the demo we heard. It's pretty rare that you hear a demo as impressive as that played on the factory speakers in a, it was like a 10-year-old Toyota Camry, right? Like, it's not even an incredible system. It's a popular car. How does it do that with the factory speakers? A lot of it has to do with just how much more information is inside of the Dolby Atmos codec. So there's a lot more detail. So it's a higher res, higher quality file than like Flack or what we're used to listening to, right? So there's a lot more information there. So I think that's part of the more detail and better sound. But then that calibration mic is the process that the radio is doing is super powerful. Like I said, it's doing an acoustical analysis of the vehicle. So it really is getting you the most out of whatever speakers you have installed, even if they're the factory ones. Well, we're no stranger here at Crutchfield to the idea that digital signal processing is incredibly powerful, right? Like you can audition speakers on crutchfield.com using Speaker Compare, and that's basically the engine that powers that. Something similar to what you're talking about, a calibration system. There's more to it than that. I'm oversimplifying it, but yeah, there's no doubt in my mind that it can do it. And it's impressive that this is as impressive as it is with factory speakers. What if you replaced your speakers and the take it one step further what if you add amplifiers and subwoofers and stuff like this is just using four channels of audio. But what happens when you have a customer who wants this at most with the Sphera in their car and also wants the biggest, loudest, best car stereo on the block is all works just fine with that. Yeah, it's I mean, you're just going to take all of that and amplify it to the next level, adding the subwoofer, better speakers, amplifiers, all of that. You do have to make sure that you're using all four outputs of the radio. So if you are, you know, deciding to add an external DSP,
[01:15:26;15 - 01:17:01;22]
you can't sum like the front signal, you know, using just the front outputs of the radio, and then routing that inside your DSP to output to all of your speakers, because contrary to what we're used to with two channel just left and right, these at most tracks have information that is only for the rear outputs of the radio. So if you don't have anything connected to that, and the radio is trying to play out to it, it you're not going to have any sound, it's going to lose Elton John's backup. Exactly, exactly. So you do got to make sure you're using all four outputs of the radio. But outside of that, you can design and create, you know, any type of system that you're used to designing. Are there situations in which the this radio is basically incompatible? I mean, you just mentioned an aftermarket situation. But what about with like factory systems, or I'm thinking about premium systems in some cars with separate amplifiers and integration modules and all the things we've got to do now to make new radios in work well installed in new cars. Does this work okay with that stuff? So kind of that same situation we just talked about, a lot of the vehicles with factory amplifiers, if you have to use some sort of factory amp retention module, yeah, if that module is only using the front outputs of the radio to retain the factory amplifier, you're going to run into that same issue. So in that case, you either have to do an amp bypass, or you know, figure out a way to use the front and rear outputs for that vehicle.
[01:17:02;29 - 01:18:22;11]
Another situation that I talked about in the training today is like some of the Jeep or Chrysler vehicles where you if you install an aftermarket radio, you have to plug the RCAs into the rear of the deck. Or if you make a phone through Bluetooth, you won't have any audio. So you're only using the rear outputs in that situation, you're going to have to bypass the factory amplifier and use the amplifier that's built into the radio or add an aftermarket amp to power all of your speakers. So that is something to definitely be careful of is if your car is a premium audio system with a factory amp, and it only uses two channels to retain everything, then you're going to lose the atmos. Got it. So yeah, so there might be some factory systems where this might not be ideal. But if you're going full aftermarket, you're in total control of which outputs you're using, just make sure you're using all four and you're good. What about the sub outs are the sub outputs of like, say, the six channel RCA preamp outputs, are they affected by the calibration system in the Atmos? The calibration, you know, it sets the distance and all of that for the subwoofers. But I mean, if you're, you know, if you're not using the subwoofer output, you're not necessarily going to lose your overall Atmos experience. The main the most important is your front and rear,
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you know, but of course, the subwoofer is the most important part of any system. Oh, thank you for saying that. Agreed. On this week and all agree.
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Good. So are do you have a feeling for your your peers, pioneers, peers, your competition? You know, we carry a lot of brands of car stereo, are we going to start to see everybody doing Dolby Atmos in a year? Or do you have? Are you truly leading the charge here? And nobody else is going to be riding your coattails in, it's going to take them a while or what would you say they're pioneering this? We're pioneering allow him to do that. That's that's my favorite line right there, actually, is we're pioneering the way to this. No, I think we definitely did a good job of that. Like I mentioned earlier that this has been a year long collaboration with Apple and Dolby to make to bring this to life and, you know, let you give you guys the opportunity to experience this. I can't speak for anybody else of what they're working on. But I don't think it'll be a fast process, just from knowing how long it took us to get to this point, you know, again, we kind of paved the road. So maybe if somebody else will, but yeah, I don't I don't have a whole lot of insight on kind of the legal or regulations or what anybody else is working on. So, but I think we're going to be the only ones for a little bit. Yeah, you guys don't sit around and talk about that when you go to conventions and stuff. Unfortunately, no, I think there's some some sort of laws that say you're not supposed to do that. I can picture, you know, at the pioneer booth, right? They're all sitting there talking. And then then one of those competitors comes walking by with their people and all of a sudden it was quiet, quiet. Yeah, yeah, that's my story. Yeah. The Kenwood rep walks by the I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna, you know, you know, here in the car audio industry, it's there. It's so, you know, everybody knows everybody. So there's really not a lot of that. Like, you know, they stop and say hi. And we all it's like all the late night hosts how they're they're no longer. It's not like Dave and Jay anymore, right? Like all the Jimmies and the Stevens and they all talk to each other. They're all friends. Yeah, yeah. I mean, when I'm doing trade shows and traveling and whatever, I go to dinner with the JVC and Kenwood reps almost every night. Nice. We're all good friends. So Dylan, did you guys have conversations in developing this and marketing this? Like, is there like, who's like the customer for this? Who's the person who you see as the first person to like, Oh, yes, I heard about that. I want that. Who is that person?
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I think the very first adopters are going to be the guys that are early adopters of technology, people that want, you know, that always love to have the best of the best are constantly upgrading.
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Then the next is going to be just like the kind of the traditional 12 volt car audio enthusiast.
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But really the idea behind this and the focus was spatial audio for everyone. Spatial audio for all. We wanted as many people as possible to be able to experience this, which is, you know, why we're using the four channels of output to keep the radio compatible with as many vehicles as possible on the road. So that if you want it, there's a really good chance it'll be compatible with your vehicle. You can install it and you'll get to experience it. Are you worried at all that people are going to see Dolby Atmos, so movies, movies in my car? I mean, this is very clearly for music. It's not a surround sound movies thing, right? It's not, you're not marketing it that way. You're not ever selling it that way. But the word Dolby Atmos is kind of most people would associate it with movies and surround sound. What are you doing to help people understand what this really does for them? Yeah, that is definitely the first. When we announced this, you know, eight months ago, we made a post or whatever social media, that was like the first handful of comments was about, oh, well, if it doesn't play movies, then what's the point of Dolby Atmos, right? Like, yeah, we heard saw that all over the place. And like, I get it, because that's where Dolby Atmos has been heard and seen. And you everybody's learned about it over the last five, 10 years, right? The first time I experienced Dolby Atmos is in my own house. Like I'm a, I have a theater, I'm a Dolby Atmos nerd through and through. And so I get that, but 92% of the Billboard top 100 is recorded in Dolby Atmos. There's tons and tons of content out there. And this is what that's for. This is to experience that music that is already being made and recorded and available for you. And then that's another cool thing is like, you don't have to go and search for a specific song that is made in Dolby. Everything you listen to is already in Dolby Atmos. It's already there. We're just giving you the away of the ability to access it. Yeah. And so you stream it on Apple music on your iPhone.
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And there's a ton. Do you, do you have an idea how many total songs there are clearly more recently recorded popular music is more likely to be mixed and mastered in Atmos. But are they, are there thousands and thousands of songs available from going years back in like available in Atmos? Yeah, a lot of tracks have been remastered. I haven't Googled the specific number of tracks that are available, but I would say, yeah, there's definitely thousands available.
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There's a good number. There's a good chunk. Yeah. There's no shortage of stuff available, right? Anybody from any genre is going to be able to find a song that they like in Atmos. Yeah. Probably a bunch of them. For sure. Yeah. So I did just Google it. Okay. I was waiting for that. Apple does not publish a specific exact number of Dolby Atmos songs available in Apple music. However, the streaming catalog is expansive featuring tens of millions of tracks, mastered and spatial audio. That's more than a thousand. That's, that's, that's, no, it's thousands. Yeah. A lot of thousands. A lot of thousands of thousands. There you go. There you go. And if that's wrong, then, you know, it's Google. So blame, blame AI. Blame AI. Yeah. There we go. And what about songs? What if I don't use Apple music? What if I use Spotify and or title or Cobas or anything like that? Obviously to get the spatial, I'm going to go and use my iPhone and my Apple music. But if I'm playing anything else, does this radio do cool stuff to my songs? Yes. So there is an up mixer that you can turn on and off as you please. It's just a button right in the quick access menu on the home screen. And for most songs, it's actually really cool because when you turn it on, you can immediately hear the sound stage move up to the top of your dash. So the speakers in the doors basically disappear. And now you're, you have a true sound stage as soon as you turn it on. If you're listening to this podcast, I recommend turning it off because we probably sound like we're at underwater or something. But for music, the up mixer is nuts. It's really, I don't, I don't know what magic we put in there, but it, it sounds really, really good. And it works with Android with any other music apps on an iPhone. The only time the up mixer isn't going to work is going to be for USB audio, Bluetooth, the AM FM radio, or Sirius XM. Anything else you can turn on the up mixer and experience our simulated spatial audio. And I think it sounds way better than just traditional two channel. And I love that. It's just a button right there. So if you like it, great, have it on. And if you're listening to a podcast and, and it's not hitting as well, then yeah, turn it off. No big deal. Just a button. Yep. And it's really easy to get to. So it's not like hidden in some, you know, Dave did this for me in his car. I said, Hey, play one of my songs. My, my band has songs and there comes the song promotion again, and he played it and he was able to turn it off, turn it back on. So we kind of go back and forth made a huge difference. And it was a lot of subtle things. It was adding extra, maybe not extra, but revealing the full like decay of my symbols. I'm the drummer in the band. So, and hearing more detail. And it wasn't as amazing as a track that's actually available in spatial audio, but it was close. All right. I have a request. Go for it. I want to hear a song that I know really, really, really well, but is not recorded or put out in Dolby Atmos. I would love to hear what it does. Very good. The band is called to be T O B E. That's one word fair F A R E and 10 20. That's the song I want to hear. Okay. So this is your simulated audio, 3d simulated spatial audio switcher. So right now it's not active. By the way, this is on my, you can actually adjust EQs in Atmos as well. So if you want to tweak it even more, you can go for it. So when we engage this, this is what you're going to get.
[01:28:05;13 - 01:28:33;27]
When you cry, yeah. Once again, that symbol decay kind of all over the place, not just realistically, I think. Yeah. You do. You happen to know the drummer really well. Do I? You're sitting two feet away from him at the moment.
[01:28:38;14 - 01:29:03;19]
I can also do in the settings, I set this thing up where I can turn the actual calibration on and off for you. Oh, so you're that. Yeah. So Dave just turned the calibration off and it went back to like, this isn't great. No.
[01:29:07;11 - 01:29:22;24]
And the drum fell just went from right to left, but not just up here. It went back there with a slight delay back there so I could tell it was back there and it raises everything. Everything. Oh yeah. I switched it off. We're down here at our camp. Down by my feet. Now they're here.
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And this is all with the factory speakers.
[01:29:28;24 - 01:30:14;21]
Yeah. And I mean, obviously the main difference there is Adobe Atmos file is way bigger. It's a much bigger file. It's got way more information. So the level of detail and ambiance, as Huffy said, is going to be way stronger in a true full res Adobe Atmos file, but the up mixer does a really good job of getting close. You know what we didn't do at the top of this show that we should have done? What's that? Should have gotten to know you a little bit more, Dylan. So what's your story? How long have you been in car audio? How long have you been at Pioneer? What's your deal? Yeah. So my parents got me my first subwoofer box when I was 15 actually, but before I could drive
[01:30:16;00 - 01:30:19;28]
because they thought that was the cool thing and I had no idea what it was, to be honest.
[01:30:22;02 - 01:31:56;20]
And I installed it by running speaker wire to my rear doors because I didn't have an amplifier and I didn't, I was impatient 16 year old. Sure. That'll make sound come out for a little while. Yeah. So it actually played for way longer than it should have. But then I went and got my first radio and then ended up going, being the kid that was hanging out at the stereo store all the time for no reason. And so then the employees would just talk to me just because I was there and got one of my best friends involved. He ended up getting a job at one of the stereo shops and then I was going to school and ended up, they needed somebody to do sales at the shop. And he knew that I was going to school for sales and he was like, you want to come work here? And I was like, yeah, I would love to work at a stereo shop. So started there in 2014, did that for six years? And then our territory actually lost our pioneer rep and we didn't have a rep for like eight months. And so I reached out to a rep for pioneer in Minnesota. I'm from Utah. I was like, how we need some stuff. Who's our new rep? And he told me that they hadn't hired anybody for that position yet. So I said, who do I need to send my resume to then? And he gave me contacts to the sales manager and said, tell him I sent you. And so I sent my resume and then COVID happened.
[01:31:57;27 - 01:32:43;20]
So that was in January of 2020 when I sent my resume, uh, talk to him, um, you know, a few weeks later and then by like the end of February, it was like, we're on a hiring freeze, stay in touch. We can't do anything. So I would bug them every three months like, Hey, how are things going? And then finally October, 2020, I, well, the end of September, I got to have an interview and then on my birthday, October, 2020, I officially got called and was hired. So that was kind of cool. Kind of a cool birthday present. Look at you making that happen. It was a long process, but here we are. Now I'm on a podcast with Crutchfield. And what, in addition to doing trainings, like the one you did for us today, what else do you do for Pioneer?
[01:32:44;20 - 01:34:20;29]
I do our video content now. So if you've seen our YouTube channel, I'm the guy in all the videos, showing you our new radios, teaching you about our products on that end. I'm doing all of our trade shows. So, you know, Knowledge Fest, MasterTech, I'm there at the booths and also doing trainings at those events as well. So I do all, you know, our online trainings as well for our direct dealers and stuff like that too. What's the best part of your job? Making videos. So I enjoy it. It's not, it's really kind of crazy that I've ended up doing that now because I've always kind of enjoyed cameras and editing and I don't have like the most creative mind for that thing. I more enjoy like the technical side of it, but it's like I kind of as a kid, like in high school was like, Oh, this would be super cool. So the fact that I've eventually gotten there is actually pretty cool. So I like making the videos. Are you like a one man wrecking crew making these videos or do you have a crew of people working? Yeah. Audio, video, recording, editing, posting. Yep. Just me. I know a little bit about that. Yeah. That is fun stuff to do. And the fact that you get paid to do that is pretty sweet. Yeah. See, kind of like us on this podcast. Yeah. Can't complain about it. We still think we need to do this video. All right. You know what we need to do this video. Here's what, here's what it would take for that to happen. You ready? More people listening. Yes. If enough people are listening, people here at Crutchfield will go, you know what? We should do video and we won't even have to ask.
[01:34:21;29 - 01:36:10;02]
And so if you are listening to this show, please tell your friends, share it out with people, put it on your socials, post up on our socials. If you have questions for us, send us an email, podcast at crutchfield.com. If you want all the show notes, all the details from everything we talked about in today's episode, go to crutchfield.com slash podcast. Big thanks to Dave Delamere for letting me hang out in his car. Big thanks for Dylan Wold for being our vendor trainer today, for hanging out with us. If you heard any a bunch of noise, like in the background, it's because it's a very busy day here at Crutchfield. We've got the training for new sales advisors happening in the room right next to our studio. And we've done all we can to soundproof it, but it's, you know, we also need more listeners to get somebody to pay for a soundproofed studio. It's not enough to just be in our underground bunker. Big thanks to Alexis and Abby for running all of our socials. If you have any comments there, they send them to us and we can maybe talk about them on the show. So get in touch with us. We'd love to hear from our listeners. What do you think about the Pioneer Sphera? Are you excited to put that in your car? Do you have questions about it? All of our advisors have gone through training and can help you know if this is the right stereo for you and your car. Is it going to work with your system? And how much are you going to love it? So please get in touch. One last time, Dylan, thank you for being here today. Thank you guys. I really appreciate it. It was a lot of fun. JR, you're good at this. And you got a new listener today. So, come in. Dylan, we're old as our new subscribe. Yep. Five stars wherever you rate it. And comment, subscribe, smash that follow button, whatever this, whatever the cool guy. Notice he said, JR, you're really good at this. Yeah, we might get a huffy to listen.
[01:36:11;20 - 01:36:29;21]
We're still working on that. Maybe. No, this has been great. I really appreciate you guys having me on. This is a lot of fun. This has been awesome. And one last thing, we end every show with this. A big thanks to Bill Crutchfield for continuing to pay us to continue to talk about the coolest stuff on the planet. Thanks, Bill. Peace out, everybody.
[01:36:52;03 - 01:37:18;05]
Because Bill's our sponsor. Yeah. So instead of having a plug for a sponsor, eventually, we're just like, no, let's just think the guy is actually paying us. There you go. If we put that at the end, maybe they'll let us keep on doing this for longer. That's the Easter egg at the end, right there. I backed away from the mic too. So yeah, so it would be obvious that it wasn't and it's the best perfect. I'm gonna stop recording now.
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