Do any of you ever surf through youtube? People are like "I've got the sub volume on the deck at 15/15 and the gain is at 90%" let me play it wide open with an amp thats pulling way too much current off my car. I don't think many people know anything about how to set their amp's gain.
On their behalf I'm quite sure Best Buy and the likes probably (and secretly) encourage car audio thieves as their installers. After all who better to quickly add and remove equipment?
Personally I wouldn't trust those comical install/chop shops to program the time on my radio today. I remember the first time I paid to have an install done on my camaro using a decent shop close by. Man was it worth it. They guy knew his stuff and was CLEAN as a whistle, not one wire or scrap showing anywhere after he was done. One guy too, not a team of 4 bumping into each other. Afterwards he explained EVERYTHING he did and tested the equipment out in front of me and educated me a bit as well on the proper use of it all.
THAT'S a pro.
That was also 15 years ago. Today your local Best Buy will install it any way they can, leave the junk behind and leave you with the clean up. Also assuming it was done correctly.
hell the guy at abcwarehouse who told me he knows what the hell hes doing and hes been doing this for TWENTY years and that bs made my cut diameter on my custom 12 fi q box 10.7 inches instead on 11.125.... isnt that jacked up????? im like hmmmm the sub didnt fit... so went back and had him redo it wow right?
then i was like hmm... i wonder if he didnt even cut the diameter need perfect what else he messed up on.... and sure enough come to find out i get freaking PORT NOISE due to 7 sq in of port?? sigh bout to get that HOPEFULLY fixed from another dude tommorow
Yea, the average joe doesn't know much about audio. They usually have a buddy that 'does beat' and believe I everything he says like it spoken from the mouth of god himself.
I try to show customers just how far they can drive their system safely, but alot of that is in one ear and out the other. That is why I love DD's M-class amps. A blinking red light and the words WARRANTY VOID go a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG way.
I think one common misconception is that amps and subs are "underrated" so people think its ok to push things a little harder. They assume its ok to run the gain a little high, or turn the sub level up on the deck, etc. A lot of videos you'll see people talking about how their amp really does a lot more power than its rated. In a perfect environment, on max voltage it may, but in their car with fluxuating voltage it isnt.