Why is Car Audio and this forum dead?
09-22-2011, 06:37 PM
#31
50 Watt CAFz'r
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 64
From what i can see. All the posts are coming from Out West. All the east guys got ban or just dont care to come on. I will post my builds to help others like a step by step if they ever wanted to do so but i think im gonna stop soon. I get no respect for it. Im tryin to keep this thing alive we all started here. Thats my 2 cents.
Mad respect 4 u bro!
When my build is done I will do the same.
09-22-2011, 06:52 PM
#32
50 Watt CAFz'r
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 64
Some may not like the bluntness of the following response, be warned.
The entire problem with car audio today begins with the consumer not wanting to pay for quality product. This drove most companies to start downgrading quality control, lowering building costs to match what consumers thought they should pay. This movement severely lowered peoples standards as to what good sound is. Ask 90% of people out there, Listening to MP3 off a pair of ipod headphones sounds really good, their epitome of high end sound is the Bose junk in a box setup their uncle has...
This lead to more and more people not upgrading, bad sounding OEm systems. Which slowly shrunk the market and forced manufacturers to make things cheaper and cheaper so as to be appealing.
10 or so years ago a flip out DVD screen was in the $3K prince range and had a huge control box with it. Nav add-on was $1200+ XM add on $350+ when it came out.
Now.. fully Loaded double din Head unit, with SD, USB, Ipod interface, Bluetooth, Nav, aux in, Dual zone video control is about $900 from reputable manufacturers. Far more features for 1/3 the price and the image quality on the older screens was WAY better than the stuff that's there today.
5-6 years ago, go on any car audio forum and People were raving about how fantastic their Infinity Kappa 3 ways sounded. There was no shortage of people with the exact same product backing them up because they have it and it's awesome. Which lead to another downfall. The people pumping a product with half decent performance into "high end" levels. People listening to these speakers, badly installed in their older cousins car etc thought that it was awesome.
True high end now has become very specialized equipment, and even "high end" manufacturers have had to cut costs so as not to have to price their products out of grasp of the common man. Many have gone to China for manufacturing and as a result has ended them up with mass amounts of copy cat products out on the market.
Another major factor is that compared to days of old, people didn't have an ipod, an iphone, an ipad, a PS3, an Xbox, Cable TV, and the internet sucking money out of their pockets leaving folk with less spending cash available and far more fixed monthly fees.
Couple that with the generation gap of the baby boomers and their kids. The market shrunk in the late 80's through late 90's as the population of people in the consumer age bracket declined.
NOW... add this to the newer age parenting techniques that told parents to set the bar low and give kids only achievable goals. This caused a generation of kids to use every cheat on every video game and get a false sense of winning. Now into the real world, where it takes hard work and skill to gain exceptional achievements it's just too much work and the threat of losing at competitions is enough to get them not to try.
Add to that, a lot of new vehicles have the head units integrated highly into the vehicle. either through the cars computer networks, or the panel is also the heater controls, airbag module..etc.
Which in turn goes back to peoples highly skewed sense of what good sound is, having them happily smiling along with a sound system I would leave permanently turned off if it were in my car to prevent my ears from crying in agony.
Cheers
Donald
The entire problem with car audio today begins with the consumer not wanting to pay for quality product. This drove most companies to start downgrading quality control, lowering building costs to match what consumers thought they should pay. This movement severely lowered peoples standards as to what good sound is. Ask 90% of people out there, Listening to MP3 off a pair of ipod headphones sounds really good, their epitome of high end sound is the Bose junk in a box setup their uncle has...
This lead to more and more people not upgrading, bad sounding OEm systems. Which slowly shrunk the market and forced manufacturers to make things cheaper and cheaper so as to be appealing.
10 or so years ago a flip out DVD screen was in the $3K prince range and had a huge control box with it. Nav add-on was $1200+ XM add on $350+ when it came out.
Now.. fully Loaded double din Head unit, with SD, USB, Ipod interface, Bluetooth, Nav, aux in, Dual zone video control is about $900 from reputable manufacturers. Far more features for 1/3 the price and the image quality on the older screens was WAY better than the stuff that's there today.
5-6 years ago, go on any car audio forum and People were raving about how fantastic their Infinity Kappa 3 ways sounded. There was no shortage of people with the exact same product backing them up because they have it and it's awesome. Which lead to another downfall. The people pumping a product with half decent performance into "high end" levels. People listening to these speakers, badly installed in their older cousins car etc thought that it was awesome.
True high end now has become very specialized equipment, and even "high end" manufacturers have had to cut costs so as not to have to price their products out of grasp of the common man. Many have gone to China for manufacturing and as a result has ended them up with mass amounts of copy cat products out on the market.
Another major factor is that compared to days of old, people didn't have an ipod, an iphone, an ipad, a PS3, an Xbox, Cable TV, and the internet sucking money out of their pockets leaving folk with less spending cash available and far more fixed monthly fees.
Couple that with the generation gap of the baby boomers and their kids. The market shrunk in the late 80's through late 90's as the population of people in the consumer age bracket declined.
NOW... add this to the newer age parenting techniques that told parents to set the bar low and give kids only achievable goals. This caused a generation of kids to use every cheat on every video game and get a false sense of winning. Now into the real world, where it takes hard work and skill to gain exceptional achievements it's just too much work and the threat of losing at competitions is enough to get them not to try.
Add to that, a lot of new vehicles have the head units integrated highly into the vehicle. either through the cars computer networks, or the panel is also the heater controls, airbag module..etc.
Which in turn goes back to peoples highly skewed sense of what good sound is, having them happily smiling along with a sound system I would leave permanently turned off if it were in my car to prevent my ears from crying in agony.
Cheers
Donald
09-22-2011, 09:20 PM
#33
Menace, You keep up the good work bro. I cant speak for everyone, but I appreciate seeing others put effort into showing off builds and doing step-by-step for noobs. If you help even one or a few people, I give u a big thumbs up!
Mad respect 4 u bro!
When my build is done I will do the same.
Mad respect 4 u bro!
When my build is done I will do the same.
09-22-2011, 10:01 PM
#36
50 Watt CAFz'r
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 261
Donald, I like what you had to say, most of it very true.
As a small retailer in a small town, with the average age of 60, my demigraphic is quite small. Rear view cameras and back up sensors are where its at. Unfortunatly its going to get worse, before it gets better. Profits always dictate where a manufactuer spends his time and money, and what ever country can produce it cheaper wins...consumers are losing, because having a i phone is more important than a great sounding stereo. In my day if you were a home audio guy, you were not a car audio guy and visa versa. Everyone had a specialty hobbie, now for 500 bucks, you can have home theater in a box, a lap top, and a new deck for the car because its "good enough" and because we feel we need those things.
As a small retailer in a small town, with the average age of 60, my demigraphic is quite small. Rear view cameras and back up sensors are where its at. Unfortunatly its going to get worse, before it gets better. Profits always dictate where a manufactuer spends his time and money, and what ever country can produce it cheaper wins...consumers are losing, because having a i phone is more important than a great sounding stereo. In my day if you were a home audio guy, you were not a car audio guy and visa versa. Everyone had a specialty hobbie, now for 500 bucks, you can have home theater in a box, a lap top, and a new deck for the car because its "good enough" and because we feel we need those things.
09-22-2011, 10:37 PM
#37
50 Watt CAFz'r
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 182
Donald, I like what you had to say, most of it very true.
As a small retailer in a small town, with the average age of 60, my demigraphic is quite small. Rear view cameras and back up sensors are where its at. Unfortunatly its going to get worse, before it gets better. Profits always dictate where a manufactuer spends his time and money, and what ever country can produce it cheaper wins...consumers are losing, because having a i phone is more important than a great sounding stereo. In my day if you were a home audio guy, you were not a car audio guy and visa versa. Everyone had a specialty hobbie, now for 500 bucks, you can have home theater in a box, a lap top, and a new deck for the car because its "good enough" and because we feel we need those things.
As a small retailer in a small town, with the average age of 60, my demigraphic is quite small. Rear view cameras and back up sensors are where its at. Unfortunatly its going to get worse, before it gets better. Profits always dictate where a manufactuer spends his time and money, and what ever country can produce it cheaper wins...consumers are losing, because having a i phone is more important than a great sounding stereo. In my day if you were a home audio guy, you were not a car audio guy and visa versa. Everyone had a specialty hobbie, now for 500 bucks, you can have home theater in a box, a lap top, and a new deck for the car because its "good enough" and because we feel we need those things.
09-22-2011, 11:28 PM
#38
0 Watt CAFz'r
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 34
for my fellow competitors in other states and countrys we all show hope to travel more plus you need more shows in more locations like i am from philadelphia but i compete in nj de ny md camden and soon to be ncand sc would love o make a canada show as well we need a better scdhule and more events thats how you get people interested no silly a rules
09-23-2011, 12:54 AM
#39
2000 Watt CAFz'r
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,141
ic the tnespl is very big down in pa seems to be a legit org theese days , ageee with bill and donald theese days its very tough to stay afloat , you have to have the right companys in your shop , companys that have a solid rep and companys that have solid markup thats very hard to find these days
09-23-2011, 10:52 AM
#40
50 Watt CAFz'r
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 261
ic the tnespl is very big down in pa seems to be a legit org theese days , ageee with bill and donald theese days its very tough to stay afloat , you have to have the right companys in your shop , companys that have a solid rep and companys that have solid markup thats very hard to find these days
Although the problem with having the right product, is that if it is worth selling some sales guy gives it to some online company and enough said...Where is the loyalty??? Companies that gave loyalty are now struggling, because the consumer uses the internet to determine the percieved value of products. Most online companies sell @ independent dealer cost, now the consumer thinks the product is worth $0.00 to the independent dealer, who throws the shows, who educates the consumer, who deals with the complaints when something goes wrong...
Thanks Luke now you got me ranting...I need a hug...
