Best amp for entire system.

[Palmer812]

Originally Posted by Alien Mantis

Is the price difference ever $15 more?

It has been my experience that a local shop can be TWICE as expensive.

Discounts over time? How much product am I going to have to buy, before I start getting a decent deal on stuff?

Local shops are there to make money.
They want to do big upgrades, and custom installs.
They are not in the business of moving large quantities of product, at competitive prices. Local shops can also haggle with you about a warranty issue, if you do not pay them to do the install. They can try to say it was not properly installed or configured, and that is why it failed.

REPUTABLE online retailers move large volumes, most of them do not do installs, so they automatically understand the customer will be doing the install, they never give you any crap about returns as long as you follow their return policy, shipping is usually the same or LESS than local sales tax, ( in many cases it's FREE ), local shops typically only stock a very limited product line, online retailers stock a HUGE variety, local shops screw you on the price of wire and cables, ( they seem to have a huge markup on that stuff, must be another trick they use to talk people into letting them do installs ), local shops demo stuff in their showroom to push people into the higher-end stuff where they have larger profit margins, etc... etc... etc.

I am not a fan of local car audio shops. I played the game, and I see how it works.
Since I do installs myself, I do not need their services.
I need quality audio gear at a price I can afford, with a guarantee.

I GET THAT FROM SONICELECTRONIX.COM

I understand your feelings if you have had bad experiences before but you are going to the wrong shops. I gladly match prices from Sonic and Online Car Stereo and give out free advice on a daily basis to customers who are doing their own installs. And as far as warranty goes why the hell would I try to hassle you or deny you warranty? It doesn't cost me anything to warranty a product. Last week I had a customer poke a hole in his new speaker with a drill while installing it. I gave him a new speaker on the spot under warranty. I can't tell you how many times I have gone out to a customer's car that they have installed something and are having problems where I showed them what they did wrong and sent them on their way at no charge. I also have customers that have been buying from me for over 15 years. When I changed companies and moved 20 miles away they still came to me. I know some shops try to get rich off of people but they are idiots and will go out of business if they think they can keep it up. Things are not the way they were 15 years ago when I started in the industry. You have to adapt. I offer great prices and great service and free advice and I survive just fine from repeat customers and referrals. I would rather make $10 or $20 profit on an item than have you buy online and make $0.

[teejayy]

Originally Posted by Palmer812

I understand your feelings if you have had bad experiences before but you are going to the wrong shops. I gladly match prices from Sonic and Online Car Stereo and give out free advice on a daily basis to customers who are doing their own installs. And as far as warranty goes why the hell would I try to hassle you or deny you warranty? It doesn't cost me anything to warranty a product. Last week I had a customer poke a hole in his new speaker with a drill while installing it. I gave him a new speaker on the spot under warranty. I can't tell you how many times I have gone out to a customer's car that they have installed something and are having problems where I showed them what they did wrong and sent them on their way at no charge. I also have customers that have been buying from me for over 15 years. When I changed companies and moved 20 miles away they still came to me. I know some shops try to get rich off of people but they are idiots and will go out of business if they think they can keep it up. Things are not the way they were 15 years ago when I started in the industry. You have to adapt. I offer great prices and great service and free advice and I survive just fine from repeat customers and referrals. I would rather make $10 or $20 profit on an item than have you buy online and make $0.

I'm sure there are people out there like yourself, and credit to you for your service to the car audio industry!
However, it is cheaper to do the work yourself, buying the top grade equipment off large wholesale companies..
It really is whatever suits you, the consumer. If you want good advice, with trusted people doing an install then you can't beat a good local shop, especially if you have built up a relationship with a particular installer! If you want to get a hold of equipment in bulk, ie cabling.. then it's obviously cheaper to buy off a wholesale company, they work on such a large volume they can afford to be cheaper than local car audio stores.. It's the only reason these large sellers exist, if they weren't cheaper than local car audio stores why would anyone use them?!
What your talking about are different opinions on two different ways of doing the one thing we all love doing which is Car Audio Installs,
The issue in the UK is that I struggle to find local car audio shops, and being quite young I'm yet to meet anyone in the industry whom I could trust enough. I know one guy affliated with Vibe Audio and he has done me well selling second hand equipment fully refurbished with full manufacters warrenty but the same thing doesn't exist for 'high end' audio. Or maybe I haven't found it yet!

@ sqcomp
Utterly overlooked the SR series amplifiers, I apologise! I think seeing the word audison and entry level together in the same sentence didn't sound right so I overlooked it, upon futher investigation I realise that they are well priced for the quality! And audison Is a good brand!

[Alien Mantis]

To be fair, I understand some shops are good, and some shops are not.

In my area, we have shops that are not good.
Most of them are a joke.
We have one shop that literally makes up prices on the spot, based on what the customer looks like. They have no prices on anything. They look at you, look at what car you arrived in, and they make the price up.
Another shop wanted to charge me $3 a foot for 8ga bulk wire.
They had large spools of the stuff in different colors. $3 a foot? Is it made of GOLD? Gimme a break.

Palmer812, I would do business with you, if you were in my local area.