"name" brands...

[memphis_vette 10+ year member]

i need mny lol

 

[Steelemayne 10+ year member]

im not a big fan of "mainstream" brands because you are basically paying for the name. IMO the biggest examples are JL, MTX, and Rockford. Go by something else just as good if not better for half the price.

 

[5er Guy 10+ year member]

Obscure = Having to work harder to create a good reputation and make enough of a profit to stay around. Typically yielding a superior product.

Mainstream = Making very good profit (through mark up, etc.) because of pre-established reputation. Thus, resting on their laurels doesn't impact their bottom line (in a lot of cases).

These views are of course from my personal experiences.

Sealed FTW!

 

[BringDaBoom 10+ year member]

im not a big fan of "mainstream" brands because you are basically paying for the name. IMO the biggest examples are JL, MTX, and Rockford. Go by something else just as good if not better for half the price.

Then when those "obscure" companies spread their product and name enough to become mainstream then you'll be paying for just the name too right? LMAO.

ECONOMICS 101: Produce a shyt product and it won't sell, it don't matter if it says BMW, Rolex, Jordan, whatever. It's gotta be at least on par with the masses.

Since you listed some examples, I'll use one.

Being seriously open minded, looking at it from A) design standpoint, B) Engineering, C) overall performance (I.E. BL chart, SPL, etc):

Name me all the woofers that match or excell say.. a JL W6 or W7 for the same price or less. You'll count them on one hand. That right there speaks volumes (no pun intended) for not only JL...but those companies that can match or exceed it.

Or screw JL...What about ID? Name me the woofers that can match those parameters on say an IDQ for the same price or less. Again you won't find many.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR, IN ALL APSECTS OF LIFE. Car audio is no different than PC's, vehicles, boats, jewlery, etc.

Unless your Frank Lucas and cutting out every single middle man and getting grade A meterials direct, the number of companies truely giving you "the same or better product" cheaper are cutting corners somewhere, somehow. Either in design, materials, quality, construction, etc.

Thus...it is not the same product.

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

ECONOMICS 101: Produce a shyt product and it won't sell, it don't matter if it says BMW, Rolex, Jordan, whatever. It's gotta be at least on par with the masses.

Since you listed some examples, I'll use one.

Being seriously open minded, looking at it from A) design standpoint, B) Engineering, C) overall performance (I.E. BL chart, SPL, etc):

Name me all the woofers that match or excell say.. a JL W6 or W7 for the same price or less. You'll count them on one hand. That right there speaks volumes (no pun intended) for not only JL...but those companies that can match or exceed it.

Or screw JL...What about ID? Name me the woofers that can match those parameters on say an IDQ for the same price or less. Again you won't find many.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR, IN ALL APSECTS OF LIFE.

Car audio is purely subjective, thus there is no way to truly measure and prove that brand A will exceed or at least match brand B. Many people that want a system don't know what they truly want or what it is they should be looking for.... except a brand name most of the time.

 

[bumpin buick 5,000+ posts]

most of us can agree that many mainstream producers make great subs but as stated before its about price. Maybe its because many of us are cheap asses but the fact that you can get a sub that is half the price and has the same sound quality or gets just as loud if not sound better and louder. Why pay more for a name, an example would be a MTX 9500. No doubt they are good subs but at the price range most people pay for them you can get so many other great subs ranging from an FI BTL to a Aduioque HD3 or an older RE XXX. Any of those subs would be louder than a 9500 and still sound better doing it.

 

[Steelemayne 10+ year member]

most of us can agree that many mainstream producers make great subs but as stated before its about price. Maybe its because many of us are cheap asses but the fact that you can get a sub that is half the price and has the same sound quality or gets just as loud if not sound better and louder. Why pay more for a name, an example would be a MTX 9500. No doubt they are good subs but at the price range most people pay for them you can get so many other great subs ranging from an FI BTL to a Aduioque HD3 or an older RE XXX. Any of those subs would be louder than a 9500 and still sound better doing it.

thankyou

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

personal opinion here so take it for what it is worth...buy from a local dealer if you can...if not car audio will just keep getting smaller and smaller/

 

[dbhittin 5,000+ posts]

i usally buy from a local dealer so i dont get ripped off on here... id rather pay the extra money to know i can take it back to get a new sub/speakers if they blow

 

[Gilliz 10+ year member]

Then when those "obscure" companies spread their product and name enough to become mainstream then you'll be paying for just the name too right? LMAO.

ECONOMICS 101: Produce a shyt product and it won't sell, it don't matter if it says BMW, Rolex, Jordan, whatever. It's gotta be at least on par with the masses.

Since you listed some examples, I'll use one.

Being seriously open minded, looking at it from A) design standpoint, B) Engineering, C) overall performance (I.E. BL chart, SPL, etc):

Name me all the woofers that match or excell say.. a JL W6 or W7 for the same price or less. You'll count them on one hand. That right there speaks volumes (no pun intended) for not only JL...but those companies that can match or exceed it.

Or screw JL...What about ID? Name me the woofers that can match those parameters on say an IDQ for the same price or less. Again you won't find many.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR, IN ALL APSECTS OF LIFE. Car audio is no different than PC's, vehicles, boats, jewlery, etc.

Unless your Frank Lucas and cutting out every single middle man and getting grade A meterials direct, the number of companies truely giving you "the same or better product" cheaper are cutting corners somewhere, somehow. Either in design, materials, quality, construction, etc.

Thus...it is not the same product.

Yes and no. Competing manufactures can offer the same if not better quality for cheaper. They just don't mark up prices as high. They will probably eventually do so when they get the name out and "foot in the door". I was at the local dealer. Their was one of those catalogs by JL for boxes for the vehicles. A box for my buddies truck cost $600, just the box, same thing with the w7. Yes, it's patented/new technology blah blah blah, but don't even tell me it costs them 90% of what they sell it for. I enjoy buying from companies that make solid shyt, but they haven't yet marked up out the ass. Ya dig?

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Car audio is purely subjective, thus there is no way to truly measure and prove that brand A will exceed or at least match brand B.

Wrong.

The point he was making is 100% correct. There are measurable, objective parameters that can be compared. It is NOT purely subjective whether sub A is better in terms of distortion/linearity/etc than sub B.

Personal sound preference or "is it worth the price" is subjective.

But most aspects of performance are not.

 

[MTXman 10+ year member]

MTXman wanna be? Haha we have the same name.

You'll wanna change it as I do now - because you realize after about 2 days on this forum that there are much better car audio companies out there.

 

[BringDaBoom 10+ year member]

Wrong.
The point he was making is 100% correct. There are measurable, objective parameters that can be compared. It is NOT purely subjective whether sub A is better in terms of distortion/linearity/etc than sub B.

Personal sound preference or "is it worth the price" is subjective.

But most aspects of performance are not.

That's exactly what I trying to say. Personal sound preference is the subjective part.

But there are concrete parameters that you can compare different subs in that will show a clear cut difference, in areas of performance, materials, and build quailty. This is where the majority of price difference comes from. Notice I said majority.

The patented stuff is not "blah, blah" or a thing to laugh at. It takes guys with 40 lbs craniums and research and develpment to come up with some of the stuff that companies like Kicker (the square sub) and JL (the W-cone, DMA optimaization, etc) have that ACTUALLY WORK AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE in the performance of the speaker. It cost money and time to develop that. and time =money. Then it costs money to get the patenet and then maintain the patent. You pay for that when you get those type of products.

If you're a person that doesn't give a hoot about any of that and wants something that's gonna play your music and "sound" good to you...then yeah perhaps some of the name brands out there are not for you.

If you're a person that is into the nuts and bolts so to speak and engineering behind their products then some of "main stream" brands are for you.

I'll use drag racing as an example (I used to work at Chassis engineering in South Fla building drag cars for some years before I joined the AF).

Customer A will come in and have a $500 chassis he picked up in a bone yard. He wants the bare minumum to make the car rigid and hook up on the track. We give him that, then he goes home and builds his own motor from parts he grabed at swap meets. He throws some juice on it and he's running 10's in th 1/4 for a total price tage of under $10,000

Customer B wants a product he knows he can beat the shyt out of and is performing at the top of the mountain in terms of performance. He buys a $20,000 Pat Musi motor with full roller valvetrain, CNC machined ported heads, the whle mash. Then he puts it in a $15,000 tube chassis with a fiber glass body. Car looks slick, its the latest thing out there. GOes out and runs 10's or maybe 9's.

A second faster than the other car, but that other car could get there still without matching the budget the other guy did. Is Customer B stupid? No. He paid for the technology and engineering, and for the comfort that he's working with some of the best designed and engineered stuff out there. If that doesn't matter to you...then go the other route. Nothing wrong with it.

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

Personal sound preference or "is it worth the price" is subjective.

But most aspects of performance are not.

Sorry for the confusion.... The point I was trying to make is exactly what you said: personal sound preference or "worth the price" only. Sure, we can put brand a against brand b and determine that the performance is the same with testing equipment, but it all comes down to choice on a subjective level after individual personal opinions are formulated based on the performance results and maybe even past brand experience/current brand perception.

Let's use JL as an example yet again: it's my opinion that they make great equipment from a quality of product and performance standpoint from what I've examined and experienced personally. However, their high prices deter me from their products. Other will have the opinion that their products completely **** and are junk no matter what the price. And yet others will have the opinion that they are the greatest products available no matter what the price is.

 

[5er Guy 10+ year member]

Others will have the opinion that their products completely **** and are junk no matter what the price. And yet others will have the opinion that they are the greatest products available no matter what the price is.

Sorta like BOSE. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif