2002 Cadillac Escalade - Lightning & Thunder

Boom!
You don't need fans in the stands to shake the stadium with Osgood's ride and system cranking outside in the parking lot. Two monstrous Cerwin Vega Stroker Pro 15" subwoofers in the Escalade are powered by two Orion HCCA-D5000 amplifiers surface-mounted on both sides of the ampracks, which are molded seamlessly to the headliner. "The cool thing about this install is the 31/48" steel cage that couples the woofers together," Osgood says. The woofers are held together with 1" solid rods threaded at each end-a design feature that cancels all vibration. To top it all off, Albertini even removed the rear air conditioners to allow for the huge 35" long x 50in2 port openings to couple the enclosure after being slid into place. Of course, the interior was completely torn down and Dynamat Xtreme was applied to the entire vehicle. Naturally, the electrical system required upgrading, so a Powermaster alternator was installed to feed two Kinetek 1800 power cells-one underhood and the other in the rear spare storage compartment. All power wires are threaded across the Escalade's undercarriage.

If You Must Have Video
Alpine TME-M770 7-inch screens are mounted in each rear door. Put on a David Cronenberg film and you'll catch glimpses of the kind of freaky beautiful undulations that surround you in the Osgood/Albertini creation. A Clifford Matrix 50.5 SST deters would-be thieves and the alarm remote opens both the front and rear doors via solenoids.

Top Installer
The entire installation was a four-month job for Albertini, as well as Enrique Stiles who designed the internal parameters of the enclosure and helped out with the two rear doors. But the work was quickly rewarded at the 2007 DUB Show where Osgood's ride took trophies for Best Sound System, Best Retail Shop Car, Best SUV and Best SUV Wild. The Indoor Custom Car Show saw the Escalade again take home Best SUV and Best SUV Wild.

Osgood is no longer the only Charger in Albertini's stable. The wide receiver's teammates were so impressed with Albertini that several contracted him to do their cars. He already had three Chargers' cars with him at his DUB Show booth. After the show Antonio Cromartie asked Albertini to soup up his '07 Dodge SRT-8 Charger for a DUB photo shoot three days later. Within that incredibly small window, Albertini conducted a full interior color change (from gray to satin black) and full suede interior (including seat inserts, headliner and rear deck), as well as a four-amp system, dual batteries, a painted, computer-tuned enclosure (by Stiles) and a fiberglass trunk lid with a light-up plaque-all done with rounded corners. "Kassim has really got these guys excited about car audio," Albertini says. "It has been crazy. I have more cars lined up-even another Dodge Charger owned by Cromartie."

Reflecting on his award-winning
Escalade, which he sometimes takes to Charger home games, Osgood says: "This car project has been the biggest I have ever done. I had faith that Kenny would be able to deliver and he did-big time!" It just goes to show that if your faith is well placed, sometimes it can carry you through.

The rumbling of thunder starts with an Alpine IVA-D310 source unit mounted in a modified dash kit allowing it to clear the shift lever. Signal processing, including the active crossovers for the system, is handled by an Alpine PXA-H701. This feeds signal to three Alpine PDX-4.150 amplifiers mounted flush in a removable, suede wrapped fiberglass panel over the sub enclosure, and the two bass amps at the rear of the vehicle. The first of the PDX amps runs the 6.5" Alpine Type-X component set mounted in painted inserts within the front door panels with each of the component speakers powered by a dedicated channel. The second amp runs the rear tweeters and mids in the same fashion.

In addition to the front and rear speakers, Albertini added a center channel up front and additional midbass (toward the rear) powered by the third PDX-4.150. Two of the amplifiers channels were geared toward the center channel that consists of an Alpine Type-X 5.25" component set. These were molded into the top of a completely re-fabricated center console that has removable panels to gain access to the external fuseholders. The last two amp channels power four 6.5" Alpine woofers in ported 0.77ft3 enclosures with custom molded ABS rods for grilles.