Why does everyone bash JL for their prices?

[SAZCLASSD 10+ year member]

Do all SQ guys drive around playing 20-100 Hz sine sweeps because they know their woofers sound so much better than everyone else's?
I actually listen to music; not just tones. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif Once again, your argument is invalid.

well put sir //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/thumbsup.gif.3287b36ca96645a13a43aff531f37f02.gif

 

[twistedchild420 5,000+ posts]

This FTW!

 

[WRX/Z28]

by "music" you mean rap music? Boxes tuned a 40hz where most cars have alot of gain sound ridiculous on most normal non rap music. Anyway I like my music loud, but I also like it to sound good, the way it's actually supposed to sound. If one frequency range can only get to 128db's then IMO, the car can't realistically do much over a 130 on music. Ported tuned high gives you alot of gain from 40-50hz where there is alot of audible bass, but you can't keep up with that ANYWHERE else. It's like turning up the treble on stock speakers to make them louder, yeah it kinda does, but not really.
Anyway JL does make good gear. The speakers have very quiet suspensions (can't say that about most SPL subs), can handle a reasonable amount of power, and offer relatively low distortion figures. I'd put money if you put a w7 and any of the other forum SPL boners on a klippel or Dumax you'd see that for actually playing music, the w7 is a much better engineered driver. That all being said, unless I can get one second hand I wouldn' run one as there are too many small internet companies that do make comparable gear for SQ purposes.

Anyway the nice thing about a SQ car is that you can literally put anything into it and it sounds good. I can listen to Jazz, classical, rock, pop, techno, anything and it sounds just fine. Sure when I play rap or techno I tend to turn the bass up, but oh well. I had some kids who were SPL oriented in my car a few days ago actually and we were listening to thriller. The passenger actually turned his head as he realized the opening walk was moving across the stage like it's supposed to from pillar to pillar. I was also running it full range at about 115db's so the opening was pretty intense lol. After that they actually asked me to play some rock music so they could hear what that kind of full range clean SPL sounded like on a good recording with some good drum beats.

Once you get a system that is half way setup for SQ you realize how "noisy" most systems sounds. Mids out of phase, tweeters just kinda blaring.. No staging to speak of (once your used to being able to actually pick out instrument locations and have a defined left right and center, not having it *****, I swear). There's no reason a system like that can't be ****ed loud either.

Some of the better SQ cars I've sat in could actually **** near reproduce a concert. To do this requires SQ and SPL, you have to be able to get loud, but keep all frequencies in balance.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This needs to be repeated.

There's nothing wrong with buying a product from a lesser known company, just like there's nothing wrong with purchasing JL gear. People that buy JL are not "stupid" or "forgot to do their homework". JL makes excellent equipment. When you're less concerned with bragging to people about how much you saved (vs. "stupid JL buyer"), and more concerned with finding the best equipment for the job, you'd see that JL makes some killer gear for the SQL market. Is it the cheapest gear out? No, definately not. Is it proven to be high quality, fantastic sounding, and utterly reliable gear? Yes.

Personally, I think there are very few companies who have contributed more to car audio than JL. If you look over their website, they have ton's of valuable information, tutorials, and excellent articles.

I never give the "budget" guys a hard time, there are some fantastic pieces of equipment at killer prices out there. I would never give the "high end" guys a hard time either, there are some upper echelon pieces of gear that are hard to compete with at a lower price point.

All this being said, the bashers need to remember one thing. Everything you buy has profit built into it (not just car audio, everything), even the lesser known car audio companies are out there to make a $. Don't fool yourself into thinking that because you bought an internet company's sub/amp/speaker, that you didn't line some companies pockets with your hard earned cash. If they're selling it for less, chances are, they built it for less and/or they can't get any more for it.

****Edit

The other things you guys have to remember is that not everyone wants to spend 24/7 on a car audio forum researching/reading, some people just want to listen to music. lol //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/omg.gif.05aa02c3095d6ce9338996654eca0863.gif