On the 19th of May 2012 Ashley & Darryl Burrell set off on a long tiring set of flights to the US of A starting with a short flight to Auckland with a brief bit of down time of around two and a half hours till the big flight out of NZ to San Francisco, USA.

After the thirteen hour flight to San Francisco, they had another three hour flight to Oklahoma City with some excitement of flying through Tornado Alley. I’m no expert on Tornado Alley but the one thing I do know about it is it takes a certain type of hardened person to live in and work in an area that is known as one of the most dangerous area’s to live in the world weather wise! Ashley was just telling me that when they were flying though there the plane was diving, twisting and turning all over the place which sounds like a barrel of fun to myself but to others I guess it could be there worst nightmare!

Finally they had made it to Oklahoma City and there first destination was the hotel then to a local bar for a good old American feed then back to the hotel for a well deserved sleep.

After a good night sleep it was time for a quick visit to the international rowing centre to watch Jassa’s son Charn train, then it was back off to the DD Audio HQ, they even had Jassa the man himself pick them up from the hotel! I don’t know if you would know who Jassa is but I’m going to tell you as much as I can anyway…

Jassa is the owner/MD of DD Audio and to my knowledge he has been building audio products as DD Audio since 1986, ranging from the Pro Audio Industry, Marine Industry, Mobile Audio, Home Audio, Industrial Applications and OEM Applications. His reputation of building top quality speakers/sub-woofers is so huge his speakers/subs are sort after worldwide and it makes perfect sense too after owning/using DD Audio speakers/subs I can’t see myself using any other brand of speaker/sub ever again!

Ok, enough of my ranting/worshipping… Back to Ashley & Darryl’s journey… But before I carry on, here is a photo of Ashley, Jassa & Darryl in that order.

Darryl was saying that he was surprised by the size of the DD Audio warehouse  since it was about a third of the block and if you have ever been to the US you know what he means since the commercial/industrial blocks are ten times the size of commercial/industrial blocks in NZ!

After a quick tour of the DD-HQ it was time go check out Jassa’s family home and what a house it is indeed too! I’ve been told about how humble he was about his house but I was and am still blown away by it, not only is it a completely beautiful home with a nice stretch of a yard with an epic pool behind the house but there also is a lake behind all of this!

The selling point of Jassa’s house to myself is his lounge and home-theatre room which in the lounge has two stacks of sixteen DD-LS241’s with four DD-2512’s housed in an awesome looking bench set. His home-theatre set-up is just some-thing else though and once I have managed to buy my own house I will just have to copy it as it is something I have always dreamt of building! With twelve DD-LS241’s surrounding the projector screen, another several DD-LS241’s to the side’s and two DD-2518’s (2500 Series 18″ Sub-woofers) behind the couches what more could you want in your home theatre audio wise!

The ABTEC boys also had the honour of getting a little demo of the DD Audio Demo Truck and the way Ashley described it was “Imagine sitting in the Pajero with four times the pressure”! Darryl on the other hand was saying “They were telling me to hop in but the pressure was close to pushing me back out”! This to myself sounds like a demo car I would love to own/drive and I would not expect any less from DD Audio!

Soon after Jassa’s wife Vicki was kind enough to take boys shopping but I’m sure you don’t want to read about shopping here…

On the Monday morning it was off to the DD-HQ again. This time it was to observe and learn a few things off the DD Audio crew, Darryl spent around five hours learning about building the sub-woofers from ground up and I must say there is a lot more involved than I thought after watching the video Darryl recorded of some of the process. From what Darryl recorded, took photos of and learnt from the DD Audio crew I’d say it wouldn’t be to long till we are up to scratch with re-coning and minor speaker/sub-woofer repair.

Ashley spent the day with Jassa discussing everything from technical formulas on building SQ (Sound Quality) boxes, SPL (Sound Pressure) boxes to how to properly meter amplifiers to find true power outputs and generally talking about all things audio. From what I have heard since Ashley has got back from the US he managed to learn a lot from Jassa and I can only imagine the conversation. Since they both have around 30 years or so experience I expect it would of been pretty intense and especially since I know how much Ashley loves to talk!

As a send off, Jassa & his family had Ashley & Darryl over one last time for dinner, so once there Darryl told a wee white lie and said “I need to go buy some razors”! So once again down the road they went, this time Jassa drove them down to what Ashley has described as “The most monstrous sized supermarket I’ve ever seen”! While there, they brought some T-Bone steak’s that even Fred Flintstone would be proud of! 

After what looked like amazing meal and some good conversation Jassa dropped the guys off to there hotel ending there visit to Oklahoma City, USA with what must of been a journey of a lifetime!

Also I must say A BIG THANK YOU! To the DD Audio Crew Oklahoma City, USA for looking after the Bros, giving them good old American hospitality and also for making the most amazing Sub-Woofers around!