Beware - Car Audio Dealers - Amazon Seller

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Originally Posted by husker77

I'm guessing most local stores getting tired of douchebags coming in "I read on the internet, blah blah blah". "I can get it for $1.50 less on the internet" "skar is awesome your stuff is stupid junk"

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Its two sides to everything. Where I'm at local shops could care less. One of the sales guys told a friend of mine that image dynamics wasn't a real brand and he should get rid of his Idmax and buy some kicker cvrs. Is my friend a douchebag for declining?

try contacting amazon itself. if i got an item and it had no serial numbers etc on them or scratched off. i would not install them and reported it immediately.

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Originally Posted by esilvers

Its two sides to everything. Where I'm at local shops could care less. One of the sales guys told a friend of mine that image dynamics wasn't a real brand and he should get rid of his Idmax and buy some kicker cvrs. Is my friend a douchebag for declining?

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i know what you mean. i went into a local shop a few years back and asked what kind of 18s they had available and the sales guy said " I dont think they make 18s anymore" I then named about 6 brands off the top of my head and he didnt even know most of them. i then say you know what...nevermind. thanks. and walked out never to return. i only know of 1 shop thats somewhat local to me that actually knows about audio and do stop in now and then to bs and buy stuff here and there just to support them. not that i need anything lol. anyways i understand where your coming from.

i buy online and shop around also so what. its not our fault companies sell out and make easy for scam artist to take advantage of people that dont have much money to spend on a hobby. if the companies were all like memphis, mmats, sundown etc we wouldnt have this situation would we? local shops sell for same price as online price so only reason to buy online would be if your local dealer is out of stock. actually local shops likely to cut you a better break than online on the brands i mentioned and similar. so if im going to buy a sell out brand such as kicker, pioneer, kenwood etc im not even going to a local shop to buy it because those are always much cheaper online.

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Originally Posted by esilvers

Is my friend a douchebag for declining?

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Not necessarily for declining, but I'm guessing he is for other reasons.

And to be honest I'm guessing most of these stories about shops are a bold face lie, or at least a severe exaggeration.

Yeah, support your local dealer, like i did. Get ripped off to the max, like i did. I had the stereo installed in my new-ish car by the local "upmarket" store because I didn't want some cowboy hacking my nice car up. John Wayne could have done a better job. They ripped me off on the price of the components but I was willing to swallow that for a quality install. Since I got my car back from them, I've had to take it back because the hissing noise coming from the tweeters was driving me crazy. They sort of fixed that after a lot of yelling on my part and I vowed never to return no matter what. After the "fix", the amp would turn on every time i used my left indicator and the front speakers would crackle until it turned off about 15 seconds later. I've also had to dig a tweeter out of my door and remount it, turn the sub around so I could hear the bass guitar and change the polarity on 1 of the speakers. When I think of the stereo I'd have for the same money if I'd bought the components (online) myself and paid an installer, I could cry.

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Originally Posted by Knowmadic

I bought the speakers from this shady company thinking they were a legit, and authorized dealer. Oh how wrong I was, I was wondering why the performance was sucking so much the first few weeks and finally found the weak link; fake speakers. My doors are sealed and sound deadened with two layers of MurderMat, I'm using eKs RCA's from KnuKonceptz and an Alpine PDX-F4 Amplifier tuned with a SMD DD-1. Everything else works perfectly in my system except for these speakers. I swapped speakers for some random Polks I had laying around and they destroyed these Alpines, it wasn't even a competition. I took out my speakers and started doing some initial checks of the product and found quite a few things. While everything looks as it should when powered off (minus the missing serial numbers, oh did I forget to mention that?). When I power them on I hear sound come out but whats the woofer do? Not even flex a millimeter. I turned my HU up to max unclipped volume and are the woofer moving at all now? Nope. Just the same little tiny vibrating, no excursion at all. I looked at some Youtube videos to see if that is just how these speakers are and they are most certainly supposed to be excurding, even on low volumes. I'm contacting my credit card company soon to file a chargeback, contacting Amazon to inform them of fake merchandise and contacting Alpine to inform them someone is peddling fake Alpine gear. I tried contacting the company to resolve this and the manager, William, pretty much told me "You're wrong, we don't sell fake stuff, only brand new A stock from an Alpine distributer" I proceeded to ask him just to tell me the name of where he gets his speakers and he simply told me "That's a trade secret". Seems legit. He then proceeded to tell me to send back the unit and he'll get everything exchanged. I'm extremely skeptical about sending it back(He's making me pay shipping to send back his defective garbage?) because I feel like it's going to end up "lost" or "You sent back a different unit". Some typical run around crap. I gave him an ultimatum and that was to send me a legit set, and then I'll send back his defective fake pieces of crap or I pursue this legally. I've also seen the horror stories on his reviews of refunds taking 3+ weeks to process.

EDIT: Will upload pictures of speakers in about an hour when I take these out for good.

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I would not trust that place what so ever, very shady business. A buddy of mine got some focals from them that turned out to be fakes on Amazon, when he called them they say they are Techronics.com and claim they are authorized Focal dealers. He spoke to a manager with a very thick accent who was very hard to understand but claimed that caraudiodealers is also Techronics.com who is authorized on focal. We called focal only to be told they are not authorized. They refused to take the fake focal speakers back and my buddy took a bath of about $400.

I'm sorry to hear. There is nothing wrong with trying to find the cheapest gear. I do it all the time .All the **** local stereo shops here in Stockton are all owned by **** Gypsies . The ones that are not, charge 3x what you can get them online for . Most only have Mainstream , I don't do mainstream. They also do the typical bait and switch and pressure you to buy the Koiler/low-end stuff also for 3x what you can get them online for.

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Originally Posted by esilvers

Yea...easy to say when neither of you are in VA....

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I'm in va

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Originally Posted by rebelfromva

I'm in va

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You know any half decent shops or have you yet to find one?

Were are the pics of these counterfeit alpines?

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Originally Posted by Knowmadic

You know any half decent shops or have you yet to find one?

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Pm me your number. Would take my car to one shop in the state if I really had to but I do all my work except box building. That's what Jaydub is for. I can help ya out the or get ya on the right track

Sounds to me like user error. If the mid is playing but not playing low frequency OP probably is using crossover wrong.

Seriously, Alpine speakers are pretty entry level and it's likely not worth anyone's time to counterfeit them. Why not take them to a PROFESSIONAL and verify your claim before trashing a seller?

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Originally Posted by hispls

Sounds to me like user error. If the mid is playing but not playing low frequency OP probably is using crossover wrong.

Seriously, Alpine speakers are pretty entry level and it's likely not worth anyone's time to counterfeit them. Why not take them to a PROFESSIONAL and verify your claim before trashing a seller?

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I've spent countless hours researching the forums, attempting to work with the seller to get them to work, and talking to numerous members on here via hundreds of PM's and utilizing the Help 101 section and after trying any and all suggestions that were given to me they still don't work. Mylowes is probably sick of me asking questions at this point, but I'll try finding a professional just for you. I'll contact rebel and go to the shop he was talking about if it's within a 40 minute drive and get them checked out just to prove to you what I already know.