Car Audio Classifieds! banner

Stopped at a car audio shop today

3K views 65 replies 33 participants last post by  Boomintahoe 
#1 ·
Stopped at a shop today to price a couple batteries, fella quoted me $550 a piece for xs power d3400's. He did say that if I bought two he'd cut me a deal. Lol. I wonder if these places really think no one has the internet to compare prices. Last time I ever stop on there.
 
#3 ·
The internet is the demise of brick and mortar shops, unfortunately they cant compete with company direct, or drop ship pricing. Even if his price was 285,then you have to pay tax its still cheaper to go to sonic electronix and get it. Plus its not like one of us stops by for a custom wall install so they are usually stuck with installing a cheapo 100 dollar head unit and maybe a boss amp and subs barely making much. Only stereo shops i see that last around me do 75% window tint with the few systems here and there
 
#11 ·
theres only like 1 actual shop local to me and its a AV store mainly with a car audio section...prices through the roof tho...if the prices were close to internet prices, like within $20ish, id buy from them...i get it that day, easier warranty use and i can support a local shop...but when a dude tells me his zapco 1200.1 (a 2ohm amp) will work on 2 d4 subs, and tries to sell it to me for $600 and tells me its a steal, i kinda lose all faith
 
#15 · (Edited)
How did I miss a thread bashing shops?

Anyways, my favorite line was "get the fuse on the wire the same size as the total fuses on all your amps". My yelp review got pulled. Re-submitted, I think it's still there. Kinda lame cause they had audison and mcintosh amps sitting on display. My guess is they are pulling the same old bullshit to seem knowledgeable...or screwing someone over so they have to come back to fix their shitty advice. Oh and they had anl fuse holders for $45. Must be some nice plastic compared to the $5 ones on ebay. Don't remember the shop but it's in oakland somewhere. I felt bad cause the dude was really cool with the owner and I could tell the owner was just taking advantage of him. He paid a ridiculous price for the cheap-ass speaker wire too.

Another shop (not really as bad, but still kinda funny) said "no component sets will have a tweeter mount for your car". This was literally a week after I went to best buy and tried some kenwood components that DID. Either he was pulling the "sound like you know more than the customer" routine, or wanted to trick me into paying for some custom tweeter mounts. That shop required $100 per hour for their work, btw. I'm sure they would love to say it took them 2 hours to install 2 6.5"s and 2 tweeters since "the component set didn't come with the proper mount". Currently have 2 vifa's installed with some cardboard and they haven't moved an inch in a year. Suck it, brentwood car audio. Oh and BTW they said they would not take returns on a $20 dash kit for a vehicle I was working on. We ended up just checking the car out and it already had one. The guy might have made $20 on the chance the customer didn't even bother to return it.

Oh yeah, most importantly: first shop I went to and paid to run 8awg: they ran the wire outside of the firewall grommet. Almost cut through the wire by the time I went to upgrade to 4awg. What a waste of $80. I'm glad though, because it motivated me to do it myself and now I help other un-informed people by saving them from making the same mistake. This was car audio express in san jose. I think they are gone now. Shady ****ers wanted $40 for a stupid cable that I made myself for free. They declined my $20 offer. Idiots.
 
#26 ·
That's not too bad for rent. What size are those buildings? I'm looking into getting this 20,000sq/ft building for a little over $36k a year. Just have to find some people who want to split the building because I have absolutely no use for 20k sq/ft lol
 
#22 ·
Sad thing is a lot of these internet prices are listed by other shops that do their best to undercut. TALKING TO YOU SONIC *ahem*
 
#27 ·
sadly all of you guys putting these shops on blast have never owned your own business and most likely never will. you are the reason that these shops close down and good companies throw in the towel. Obsidian just threw in the towel b/c you clowns want cheap prices for high quality products which Obsidian produced. amazing how most of the ppl on here and other car audio forums put these shops on blast than complain about how the quality of products are going down the toilet. pay real prices for real products and real work that in turn will keep good installers at good shops selling quality products.
 
#31 ·
I call the only authorized Crossfire dealer in Georgia today,which happens to b about 4 1/2 hours away. I ask whats the bottom $ for the C5 1700D,they said $900 and i come an get.

Im not claiming to know alot about the car audio game,which in fact,i know very little. But i remember going in a shop with a friend to get some speaker wire and i over heard the people that owned the shop,telling someone that a mono amp CAN ONLY run one sub,thats why its called a mono amp,he said. Like a said above,im not a guru but a amp reads the load,not how many subs.
 
#32 ·
i over heard the people that owned the shop,telling someone that a mono amp CAN ONLY run one sub,thats why its called a mono amp
Most shops are in it for the money, not the love of the hobby, and either have hired slave labor (idiots with no training or experience so they can pay them bottom dollar) or do the typical "Pretend to know more than the customer to seem all knowing" routine - even if there is a possibility that a customer actually knows what they are doing. Just go into a shop and ask questions. Give a bad yelp review if they seem dishonest. That's our best fight against them. One guy from the local shop basically acted all nice to me on SMD forums to get me to remove my review. All of a sudden, he's so nice and honest...****ing pathetic...

It's a shame that these 2 possibilities are so common and expected nowadays.
 
#34 ·
I sold a cf vr2000d one time and the guy who bought had me neet him at a b&m shop so they could look at it.both workers said the amp was way overrated lol.luckily there was a cf dealer across the street and the buyer and myself went there next and this shop told him that amp will do the 2k plus on good voltage.i just couldnt believe that because the amp was a brand they didnt sell or had heard of that automatically it was junk
 
#38 ·
If you knew what us shops actually got our product for price wise, you really probably wouldn't be surprised why some things cost so much. Now $45 for a fuse holder, that's kindof crazy. But also, cost on a nice stinger fuse holder is like 18-20 lol. I do agree, there are shit shops out there, but then there are ones that really do love it, and just have to make money to stay in business. It's business.
 
#42 ·
what happened is consumers became more educated about all of the brands out there, rather than only knowing about the brands the local shops pushed. As they became more educated in the hobby, they were less willing to take the bullshit the shops tried to feed them. (not all shops, some of them. The $45 for a fuse holder shops, the $5/foot for 4awg shops, the "this 5000 watt boss amp on 8 gauge power wire blew your subs caus it's too much power, not the fact that you were clipping it to a square wave, you need to buy these subs from us to handle it", the "this capacitor will solve all of your problems, even tho you're trying to run 2krms on a 90 amp alternator" shops, and last but not least, the "We're the professionals, we're the only ones who know what we're talking about, everyone else is just some joe blow on the internet" shops...)
 
#49 ·
I must add that my opinions of shops are from only a few interactions with local shops. One shop (that I didn't know was here til I was recommended to stop in by members here) is great. The other local shop is where I base most of my criticism. As others have mentioned, the "I know more than you" attitude when they seem very un-knowledgable after a brief convorsation with them. When the kid appears to be a few years younger than me and sounds like he doesn't know much about audio, I'm doubtful that he has much experience installing. When you ask "Do you guys have a term lab here?" and he asks "what's that" it's a bad sign. And when after explaining what it is you follow up with "Do you guys even have an oscilloscope or a dd-1?" you just get a blank stare... I don't trust the shop to be more than people just trying to turn cash. The third experience I have to reference is after a buddy had subs installed at circuit city (back before they went out of business, his mom bought them for a christmas gift) their "installers" tried to send the car out with the subs wired out of phase, saying it sounds good, those are pounding. I know it isn't exactly fair to compare big box store installers to independant shops, but at that time they were one of 3 places locally to buy mobile audio. The others were Best Buy and the bad shop I mentioned earlier.

After speaking with the guys at the good local shop, I respect them. He told me that he sells alot of audiopipe, because they're decent and people want it cheap. He said he'd love to see everybody run DD and sundown and the likes, but most customers are too cheap to buy that level of product.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top