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You get what you pay for

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 5:11 pm
by jmvv
This is a sample of the bull :bn: that consumers are subject to in the car audio industry.

You fork out your hard earned cash for a wiring kit to hook up your mega watt car audio system.

You pick the fancy box at the "too good to be true" for you only price and head home.

Image

But when you start the installation, you find that the 4# power cable that looks like this in the box:
Image

actually look like this when you compare it with an actual 4# cable

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I appreciate that most of us are watching the finances very carefully, but it really "pays" to pay a bit more for the good stuff. Spend your money wisely and beware te slick salesman.

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 5:24 pm
by eben
The printing on that box screams CHINA!!!!!

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 5:24 pm
by Pine
jmvv wrote: Image
That is enough to make Kurt Darren sound like (one) of the Drakensberg Boys Choir! :mrgreen:

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 5:42 pm
by Tony Z
take it back.

Make sure the box actually does say 4 gauge and not number 4 or 4mm2. 4 gauge is a specific size, as is 4mm2 but if its number 4... well who knows

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 9:42 pm
by karmakoma
I would love to see you take that to the shop you bought it from, and hook up the claimed 120 000 watts through those wires and watch the cable set the store alight!

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 8:04 pm
by Dutch_Diver
I hate when that happens....had the same thing with wiring!

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 8:08 pm
by Barbwire
Hallo Dutch, how are you doing??? Pity you could not make it at the braai and Gill, she and we were wanting to meet you.

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:16 pm
by jmvv
Another thing to look out for is the copper content of the wire.

The higher the copper content and the finer the strands, the better the wire - Rockford Fosgate and Stinger currently use 100% copper.

Some kits contain 10% copper. The actual strands are then normally made from whatever rubbish metal was melted and the concoction is then sprayed with copper dust during manufacture.

If your fingers get a copper coating and the wire turns silver when you handle it the chances are that you've been had and you can start to prepare yourself for the molten fuse holder syndrome.

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 9:05 am
by flatfourfan
the 120 000watt claim on the front of that box should have been enough to let you know what type of a kit that is.

I bought my kit from mo at autostyle, the sony kit, nice for basic systems, if you want the huge power stuff on a budget, buy calibra.

RF and stinger and all the top brands can cost as much as R75m for 4 gauge.

I've had it and it's not worth it..........My cabling alone in my old beetle was over R4500.

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 9:41 am
by bugspray
The kits in autostyle are good quality for moola. I bought the 4guage evo tuning, and it works great. Comes with everything needed to wire an amp to a headunit. R280. Best to go 4guage or lower. Pity my bud fried the splits even before we hooked up the subs.

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 10:21 am
by Ron&Gill
:lol: 120kW :lol: :lol: :lol: that's 150hp. You'll need three ACVW engines to drive that!!! And all of that throught that piece of wire... :lol: :lol:

Chinese, Japanese, Korean, all same-same. Never trust someone you can blindfold with a shoelace.

Some wise man said that on this forum, if I remember right...

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 10:53 am
by vader
Ron&Gill wrote::lol: 120kW :lol: :lol: :lol: that's 150hp. You'll need three ACVW engines to drive that!!! And all of that throught that piece of wire... :lol: :lol:

Chinese, Japanese, Korean, all same-same. Never trust someone you can blindfold with a shoelace.

Some wise man said that on this forum, if I remember right...


BWHAHAHAHAH Man thats the quote of the month!!! hehehehe

Stupid question time...

Why would you want cabling to handle 120KW when your amp only puts out maybe 500w RMS per channel???

At one stage in my life I also got into the BIG CAR SOUND thing... What a utter waist of money... IMHO put that money into a top notch home entertainment centre and you'll never look back!!!
Denon FM/AM digital receiver/amp, the 1807 is a very good place to start. has co-axil inputs, S-connectors, RCA's and digital inputs. 70W RMS/Channel ( A word of warning on Surround Sound Amps. There are maybe two amps on the market Denon being one of them that will give you 70w RMS/channel. All the others will give you 70w in front, 50w centre and 30w rear.) RTFM..... :twisted:
Quad fronts, centre and rears.
Monster cable, bi-wired to your fronts and centre...
Then look at getting a decent CD/DVD player... PS3 is the way to go as it will play red-ray and the new Blu-Ray disks and you can play games with it as well.

And I can get very good prices ...

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:00 am
by flatfourfan
I scaled down my car audio....mp3 ipod deck with clarion amp, jbl splits, jbl coaxes and jbl 8" sub, 100% stealth and it sounds great..........

Home theatre is a waste...........just go to the movies............lol.

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:09 am
by vader
Sorry that should be the Denon 1803 as an entry level...

Re: You get what you pay for

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:17 am
by vader
But if you are serious about your sound nothing beats 5 or 7 speaker surround sound...

Big car sound is for babies....

The thing with car sound is that you can only listen to it in the car :jerkoff: and then some wanker breaks into your car and steals it....

If you doubt what I say come and have a listen to my system the clarity is unbelievable the power is unparalleled and you can enjoy movies, music and truly enjoy music like never before.....