The Sacramento Bee

September 12, 2007

Auto Tech: Use your car horn to blare out any recording
By Mark Glover - Bee Auto Editor

It was only a matter of time in this high-tech age that someone got around to customizing the sound of the automobile horn.

Enter San Clemente-based Horntones Corp., the 2-year-old company specializing in mobile audio products. Its flagship product is called the Horntones FX-550 System, billed as "the first mobile audio system that allows you to augment the sound of your vehicle horn function using virtually any standard audio file format."

The company offers a handful of suggested audio offerings.

You can hit your horn and get the tough-guy line actor Clint Eastwood made famous in the 1983 Dirty Harry film, "Sudden Impact": "Go ahead, punk. Make my day."

Of course, the discriminating motorist might want to be careful about using that one; using it when you're in line behind a massive, jacked-up pickup at a monster-truck rally might not be a good idea, for instance.

Just saying.

But there are more gentle audio horn choices produced by the company. You can opt for the happy tune of "I Got You, Babe," a hit for Sonny and Cher back in 1965. Horntones said it's a great way to announce your arrival at your girlfriend's home.

The instantly recognizable theme from the 1975 movie thriller, "Jaws," is likewise on the audio menu, although one is inclined to wonder just when that piece might be appropriate. Maybe in a traffic jam of goldfish.

Anyway, you get the idea. If it's in audio form via any MP3 audio clip, the Horntones FX-550 System can project the sound outward from your vehicle.

"The brain-seed for this invention occurred at a coffee shop back in the summer of 2005, when a group of teenagers were heckling me about the Incredible Hulk that is airbrushed on the hood of my H1 Hummer," said Horntones Corp. President Mike Kosco, a California native and graduate of California State University, Fullerton. "I thought to myself, 'I wish I had a button I could push that would make my car growl.'

"Well, the Hummer now growls and makes hundreds of other sounds too, from simple voice clips to entire theme songs."

The Horntones FX-550 System is basically made up of three pieces -- a controller/player, an audio amplifier and a speaker. The system can store 256 megabytes of tones. It has 9 preset buttons.

Tones are organized into "themes," with names such as Tailgate Party, Concert, Car Show, Soccer, Carpool, Movies, Politics and Advertisements.

New tones can be added by using a standard USB thumb drive. The company's Web site -- www.horntones.com -- includes a "virtual player" that allows users to configure their FX-550 online and then save the file to a USB thumb drive.

The thumb drive can then be plugged into the FX-550 system, where new tones and configuration settings are automatically loaded. The system does not have to be removed from the vehicle during this process.

The Horntones FX-550 System can be ordered at the company Web site for $250, plus shipping costs.