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true. i know a guy who swears by audiobahn because it has blue lights and chrome flames. sounds like ass cakes

that's why the list states that it's purely subjective, and there as a suggested list for people who are too lazy to do their own footwork, to be honest. *hides*

anyway I've met people who absolutely despise JL Audio and Eclipse and Alpine, and others who are totally in love with Audiobahn, MA Audio, BOSS, and even Legacy or Power Acoustik. Everybody has their favorites, and some of that list I should go through and revamp one of these days. I've just been busy with the holidays and have several things to do in that FAQ section soon anyway.
I just revised some of the amplifier threads yesterday.

Kiki's post is dead on. soccer moms and broke kids. my bread and butter, used to be.

I went backl and read the good the bad and the ugly in the faqs section. I really disagree with some of your pics.

money.
high end stuff is expensive, but doesn't sell nearly as much as entry level products.
if they sell a ton of cheap crap, it helps to keep them afloat to sell the occasional high end product.
in the end it comes down to economics I suppose. The same reason could be given for why people buy the cheap crap. They want something they can afford right now, and they want to pay as little as possible to get it. Not everyone has a taste or budget for high end products. Most people think spending thousands on a car audio system is a total waste to begin with.
As soemone with a lot of retail experience in this field I can tell ya, the average customer is either a broke 18 year old kid, or a soccer mom who's 3 year old shoved a peanutbutter sandwich into her tape deck and now she wants it to work again.
The people who want a high end system and actually lay down the money for it, are few and far between.

my guess to why brands have their lower lines and top level lines is so every one can have their brand.. i dunno, i just know what i like and what i want in my system and thats all that matters to me...

yeah i think think this discussion is based on quality build and sound, not SPL. i'd much rather own a system that i like to listen to, than to make as loud as possible. and as for the whole RF ordeal, i didnt have many details. i couldnt find any more articles about it.

the fact of the matter with companies like the ones you mentioned, ie sony lightning boss pyle etc etc, is that the product is built and geared for young or new to the hobby people. they probabdly spend more money on the marketing of the product than they do designing and building the product combined! the only conclusion that i can draw from this is that they care more about selling the product than they do building something that actually works well and lasts.

and why would any company want to have a 'good' line and a 'bad' line? if the company chooses to make crap and good products, what is the point?

SPL event titles never impressed me much, for what it's worth.
I've seen, nd this is no joke, Sony, Audiobahn, and American Bass all lay claim to top SPL event titles with factory sponsored vehicles.
Now, while this does mean the systems get loud, it really says nothing for their sound quality or reliability, and I feel that both of teh latter two points will heavily outweigh the former when it comes to what the average person finds most important in an audio system.
Price is almost always a concern for people, sure, but for whatever amount they spend, they usually want the system to sound it's best, and last them for a long time.
There are of course, those who just want to be louder than everyone else, and at the extreme, these people compete, and generally use thousands of watts of power, and tend to shred subs almost every event. They also don't care how the system sounds as long as they can squeeze every last decibel out of the car. These are the same folks running walls of subs, or 6th order bandpass enclosures tuned to about 65Hz.
Not the sort of system centered around musicality.
Now that being said, you can still build a totally SQ targeted system and should have no problems making it loud enough for any reasonable person. That's how my cars are set up, and they can all reach levels of inflicting pain before I hit any sort of audible distortion. I still may not win any SPL events though.

You are absolutely right, except that Lightning isn't junk. how many db Drags do you see boss, crunch or ma audio win? none, Lightning has several champions in competition. I am not saying the bolt stuff is awesome, but you can't say the entire line is crap, because its not. sure arc is great stuff, but you can't compare it to lightning as it is geard for a different side of the market. I can compare Mcintosh to sony all day long, but why? the 2 are in completely different leagues. you can't make blanket statements about an entire line based on the loss leaders. What company do you work for?

It all a matter of quality- simple.

I work in Manufacturing as an engineer. I know a good chunk of the cost on a product is engineering and R&D. Also the materials used and finally construction.

When you look at a 444W SONY amp or any of the Lightning Audio junkers how much engineering time do you think they put into them? R&D? Now look at high end stuff like Tru and ARC. Im sure these places put excessively mad hours of engineering and R7D time into each product.

Materials used. This is another big area. Again to drive costs down low they use the cheaper materials. 85 degree caps in amps, wider tolerance resistors, cheaper copper (VC's) and the list can go on all day.

Build Quality. This topic can go for anything that is made here in the US vs any 3rd world country trying to take away from our manufacturing power. Also a touchy subject for any of us in the US that works in manufacturing.

The materials used in building the equipment is just as vital as the engineering and the actual componets used. The cheaper products are usually assembled in volume with less attention paid to detail. Also the Quality Control may not be up to par with America.

Lastly here in America we know our manufactured products are the same cost or slightly higher than over seas products. We work dilligently and very lean to maintain this gap- whiule holding quality to a level that these 3rd world countries could only wish to achieve.

Keep in mind that Joe down the street has a family of 5 and works dilligently to produce a proper product at a fair rate of pay.

Mr. Tubisha has a family of 3 and goes to work for a bowl of rice and lives in sub par conditions.

Now which of these two do you think will go to work with better ambitions?

:happy055: