Quote:
Originally Posted by LeVous
I get what you are saying but musicCarNW comes in at around $4k which is approximately the same as what I've been quoted for custom installs at reputable shops. Living near Atlanta, good installers are regularly serving Ferrari, Bentley, and Aston Martin owners so they really don't have time for budget concerns.
I've found that second tier installers do not meet my quality standards. They break stuff, wires are not tied nearly and hidden and interior mods are done with a dull bread knife.
|
The fun part of this issue is that the reputable shops don't actually charge much more than the crappy ones for their labor rates. The difference between the above-mentioned shop in Portland and the 2nd (and 3rd) tier is very low. Lower end shops certainly aren't likely have the tuning expertise to set the sound field correctly. Car audio is much more than just dropping in equipment.
The real cost comes from the equipment, and in that you are pretty much stuck. There are a huge range of speakers available if you are looking at 6x9's (ick) or really any primary drivers above 4". BMW's have the same equipment constraints as the more expensive cars and they are no less difficult to work on.
You will not save much money going to a lower-end shop and you will cause yourself a ton of headaches. I tried to find a cheaper way to deal with this situation and the only thing that's worth doing below the level that the good shops do is to just drop in a Bimmertech (or an unmodified PP82DSP with a harness) and give it a good tune (which, again, not everyone can do). It's better than you'd think (though not "audiophile" and it can't be with any stock or cheap speakers) and you won't get "audiophile" results in these cars unless you find a way to spend the money it takes. I bought a bunch of my equipment used, and that helped, but at the end of the day, I spent the money. There isn't another "$1000" audiophile solution. Or any audiophile solution for that price. Even just adding a sub is a grand once you deal with buying a decent custom enclosure, sub and amp. You can avoid a custom enclosure and lose trunk space to save money (or build one yourself if you are that handy and can do it right) but the cost of the amp and the sub itself are fixed costs.
Keep this in mind as you look at this more fully: Male human voices are mostly between 160 and 260 or so hertz. If you listen to music with male singers, that's the hardest range for 4" speakers and 8" underseat woofers to cover, and just because a speaker can put out sound in that range, it doesn't mean the speaker can do so with accuracy and quality. It cannot be done correctly with cheap speakers.