Well, since I don't have super-powers and can't tell the good techs from the hacks on sight, I'll have to go with my singular experience with Circuit City, where they broke the mounting tabs on both of my door panels when installing speakers and super-glued everything back together in a sloppy attempt to fix the damage. No one at the shop bothered to tell me any of this, so I discovered it 3 months later when the door panels fell off of the doors. Took it to the dealership, where the techs there showed me how the mounts had been jury-rigged back together. Since the damage had been done months ago, it was too late to do anything about it other than cough up the money for new panels. I have no direct experience with Best Buy, so if you work there, you can thank Circuit City for forever scaring me away from having any "electronics supercenter" ever do an audio install on my car ever again.

You make a good point, though, about the custom shops. They can certainly be just as bad. That's why I always try to do my installs myself now, so if something gets f'ed up, I only have myself to blame. If I get in over my head, I'm lucky enough to live near Crutchfield's HQ, and although they're pricey, I've never heard any complaints about them.

 

www.mcintoshlabs.com

 

yes I doubt anyone is gonna want to drop money on mcintosh..

 

Yeah that tells us they were most likely the lowest bidder. Seems that the logic GM uses these days. They loaned them their name for the lowest price.

 

Sorry cowboy...Alpine is a great set-up...

 

Alpine's have also come in Vipers stock... and it's not a "badging" thing either... The unit that came factory in the Vipers anyone could go out an buy.

And Alpine is one of the ONLY HU's I'll ever own...

 

 

Lurker, you say that you don't have super powers and thus can't tell the good techs from the hacks...yet...you can tell people not to have an install done at Circuit City or Best Buy based on ONE bad experience at only one of those places? That doesn't really made any sense to me. What about HiFi buys...or other chains? Are CC and BB the only ones with crappy installers?
When you take your vehicle to a shop and have an install done...there's a certain level of trust that you give them to do a good job. 99.999% of the time, they do a great job...and sometimes they make mistakes. I'm here to tell you right now, that it doesn't matter where you take a car...or what type of install you're having done...mistakes happen. At that point, it's all up to how ethical the installer is...ethics have nothing to do with what shop you're at...it's all about the installer doing the work. So let's not stereotype a certain catagory of shops due to individual installer ethics.

There are TONS of crappy installers out there...eventually...their poor decision making abilities catch up with them...

 

I just installed my Alpine CDA-7897...... and I think I'm in love. Although it has too many bells and whistles . Gives me room to grow into I guess.. hehe

 

CDX-M850MP Sony

i have it, love it