Where to go for decent cheap car audio?

With the incoming Excursion, I've been thinking about bass again.

Hopped over to crutchfield and they're double Amazon price for the same stuff (mtx box, subs, amp). But Amazon is also full of a lot of strange and bizarre brands with ridiculous claims.

I'm not looking to be heard half a mile away, but I wouldn't mind a healthy dose of bass. Under 1000 watts sounds good BUT I've never had a vehicle with this much cargo space before. 

I've had 2 thoughts on this so far.

Under seat subs in the middle row OR a pair of 10s in a ported box that will have be to moved whenever I need to get sheet goods or other large items.

Under the seat style are relatively ok priced with 50/50 this is great or this is garbage reviews. I don't know how rear HVAC works, and I have kids, so might not be the best option. 

Buying a package or piecing together amp box and subs will allow a bit more customisation for similar money, be a pain to move around, but it's a known result and setup for me. 

Pawn shops and Craigslist are empty, I don't do faceplace, so new seems to be the way I'm going to have to go. 

Possibly related, I'll be upgrading the head unit that it has. Current has some old single din, I'm looking for a double din with video in to connect a backup camera to. Right now, Boss seems to be the cost to quality leader coming in at a third the cost of a similar Kenwood or alpine. I've seen some off brand units do good work until they just randomly stop, so $50 China special is off the table for a head unit. 

Any discounters or wholesalers online to look at? Maybe an outlet store? Or is it just crutchfield, Amazon, or manufacturer direct, where Amazon wins on price 8 times out of 10?

Not necessarily the end all be all, but check out steve meade designs on youtube. He does a ton of amp and speaker tests, including some extremely cost effective options. Lots of good info, and google should be able to help you buy it. I've been out of the car audio game so long my last stereo came from audio king. 

Crutchfield has always been my first stop for car-audio.

I thought Boss *was* a $50 off-shore special brand.

They're mostly home audio oriented, but I think I'd be asking over at the Parts Express forums for a recommendation on a sub driver / box combo for whatever space you can find for this.  They're usually pretty cost conscious in their suggestions if you mention that it's a design requirement.

I trust Crutchfield.  They will not be the cheapest.  Some of the stuff you find on Amazon will most assuredly be junk. 

I've been buying off and on from Crutchfield for over 30 years.  While I think their new catalog is absolute crap next to their old ones, I have always felt that their quality and customer service are worth a premium.  And I'm pretty cheap.

Only good experiences I've had with crutchfield are the clearance section.

I've gotten wrong cables and adapters after paying twice what best buy or Wal-Mart wanted for the exact same thing under the false impression that it was better cause it was from crutch.

They're an information resource to me, especially when they're asking $600+ for the same exact brand and model that's available for $250 elsewhere.

Sonic Electronix is kind of a a bargain version of Crutchfield.   Lower prices on some items, but not nearly as much hand-holding and they carry both decent stuff and crap so it is up to you to know what is what.   

I will be interested in hearing what you end up with, been meaning to upgrade my Excursion from a single-din Kenwood to something with a backup camera too.   

one word

Excelon

The way kenwood digitally manipulates the sound is impressive.

Every time I've shopped at not Crutchfield I have regretted it.  I'm a cheap bastard, but the support they offer is worth the uplift.  I bought a new cheap headunit for a conversion van once and apparently either Ford or the upfitter had put in some sort of extra amp or something.  When it didn't work, I called their tech support line and they told me it required some sort of extra BFM box to go between the head unit and the speakers and they shipped it out to me at no extra cost.  I think that box was another $50 or so if I bought it on my own, so that was nice.

I just put the $200ish Boss double-DIN in the wifemobile a couple months ago.  External mic, Android auto, camera input.  I coupled it with a parking brake trickery thingamabob from Amazon.  It may not be top-end anything, but it does it job really well and if I could stop buying tires, fixing oil pressure, and other stupid repairs for five minutes I want to put one in my Excursion as well.

In reply to SEADave :

Once I pick it up next week and see what kinda shape everything is in I'll get a thread going. I haven't driven it or even opened the doors yet, just have a deposit down.

Probably just going to replace all the 5x7s with new 5x7s, most likely the boss double din, then see how it sounds and go from there. Thinking wired license plate frame backup camera if I can find one with decent night vision. 

I've seen some write ups of people doing subs in the rear doors, but they're 15 year old write ups at this point, so not even sure the stuff is still available to buy. Lots of good car audio from back then is now either ridiculously priced "vintage" or straight up disappeared from the face of the earth like it never existed in the first place.

R/carAV

More info than you probably need from there.  I would shy away from mounting subs in the back doors as you will greatly increase the weight of the doors with an appropriate enclosure and they are already heavy enough to hurt when the wind catches them, or you park on an incline, etc.

From their common recommendations, Morel make very good sounding separates for not killer money.  

I've always had great experiences with Crutchfield.  I just bought some speakers for The Wife's Prius and the speakers were reasonably priced ($45) and came with an adapter ring and cables/plugs to plug it into the factory wiring.  Also full instructions, not that front door speakers are typically difficult.

One solid option if your speakers are easy to install and don't require adapters is to look up speakers on Crutchfield or a similar site, check reviews and find the one you really want, then search for that same speaker(s) on eBay or Amazon and find them for a better price.

I think the back doors are not ideal for subs.  They are made of some composite plasticy material and don't seem like they would be a very good enclosure from an acoustic point of view.   

What would be trick is to put something into the center of the spare tire on the driver's side.   Seems like you could put a decent sized sub in there depending on the volume of enclosure needed.   Or just do two 12's in a box and remove them when you are hauling stuff.   

Is there space under the middle seat for a box?  I think I'd go looking there for a sub box placement.

If you are buying (for instance) MTX or Kicker from Amazon and it's half the price, it is NOT MTX or Kicker.  It's a chinese company that has poorly copied the logo and put it on a piece of junk.

Hands down, bar none, Crutchfield is the way to go.  They are like the WalMart of home electronics, and I don't mean that in the underpaid, generally-careless employee way, I mean to say that they have it all, they have it in stock, and although you might find it for $3 cheaper somewhere else, why kill yourself looking?  Crutchfield folks know their stuff in the same way that Tire Rack people know tires because they are constantly educated on products and testing them for themselves.  Also, they don't work on commission so there is zero pressure.

Customer service is way above and beyond.  Returns are easy, warranty can all be taken care of in-house with most brands, I just can't find a single thing bad to say about them.

I usually deal with Hogan or Daisey.   I have had hour-long conversations with Hogan where we dug into stuff deep, he offered counterpoint and hands-on experience, and then he sent an email with all the products we discussed and the pros/cons.  Never a question about "when were you looking to buy," or "I can offer you 10% if you buy right now."  It was just a conversation with a pro with no expectations.

The only other store I use is woofersetc.com, and that is only because they have some killer deals on refurb, open box, and closeout audio, and they're one of of a few online retailers who do CDT audio.  (love their speakers)

For bass, you either need volume (space) or engineering.  Some of the under-seat boxes are terrible, but some are great.

You also need distance.  Facing the boxes backwards where they can use the space and reflect back will pay huge dividends in "room gain."  It's also partly why home theater sounds so much better than car audio.  You have lots of room volume and more distance between you and the drivers.

Excursion... you might get lucky and there is a pre-engineered cargo-area box or sub system.  Maybe one that fits over/around the rear wheel wells?

I'm in a similar situation with my Express van.  I'm having trouble finding adequate acreage without occupying cargo floor space.  I might be able to do a couple 10" on the driver's side by cutting away some of the bulky trim at the back, but no one makes a specialized box for an Express van.

So Car Audio has adapted a new idea. Many of the "small good guys" are simply selling direct. 

Personally in the last 3 years since diving back into the pool I have found a few cheap and/or good suppliers:

Sky High Car Audio. Cable and component sales. Very good customer service. Competitive pricing. 

Trauma Car Audio. Amplifiers designed by a guy that repairs amplifiers for his primary job. Built in Korea. Excellent build quality and will EXCEED performance rating. My 1000w amp made over 1200 at 12.5v 1 ohm. Their coolest feature is a seamless Bluetooth integration that allows you to run other amps downstream from RCA outputs. So you want a dub amp and a four channel amp in your classic Monte Carlo? Bluetooth to the sub amp and RCAs to the four other channels, all get digital quality sound. I will ONLY buy their amps or Razorback (mentioned later)

Massive Audio. California designed Chinese built amps and subs. I've abused an EX5 amp, two powered subwoofers, and two giant motor SummoXL 10" subs. I love their subs. 

Razorback us a start up. Korean build on amplifiers. They are a step above Traumas amps in power output. But not much difference. Their subwoofers are hand built. They are expensive. 

Skar. Don't be afraid of the negative press this little company gets. They are cheap. They offer a mix of Korean and Chinese components. They are a GREAT value. They offer a wonderful boom kit, two SDR or EVL subs in a prefab box with a matched amplifier. You can not beat this deal. Match your gains and go crazy. 

Savard. Those who were once in the know knew the Savard name. The son has picked up the father's mantle and has built a couple of very good quality speakers. I will tell you I let go of a pair of 8" Hi-Qs before knowing what they were. One if the best value to dollar subs out there. Period. 

Check out Derek Willistons YouTube channel OldSchoolCarAudio. He mostly reviews amps but I'll let you in on a secret, he is like us. Just a dude who likes cars and music. Not a professional. Two thumbs up. 

My current build in the Silverado is the stock head unit and speakers with a Trauma 1000w, two 10 SummoXL in a ported box. It's terribly good. My next build will be a cheap Pioneer deck a Trauma Car Audio 2000w, the Massive EX5 150x4, Sky High 6.5 components, 4 Massive Audio 8" subs in a ported box in a small SUV. 

How much time do you have and are you okay with used?

I've outfitted a few vehicles for cheap with eBay sourced parts.  Traditionally I'm an Alpine fanboy, if it were a daily I'd spend the money.  I've dabbled in Clarion's offerings of amps and headunits, but prefer Alpine.  I've had a little of everything, Pioneer, Kenwood/JVC, Memphis, JBL, Boston, even Boss.

For something I'm going to spend a lot of time in, I think its worth it to have decent audio.

For something that's an extra vehicle, toy, has poor acoustics, etc. I'm a big believer in, "good enough."  In good enough situations, I set myself a budget of $100 all in for headunit and 4 speakers.  It takes some work, but it's surprisingly doable on eBay.  Saved searches with notifications are your friend.  Used, refurbished, and open box are great for this too.  I have less luck with sniping auctions, but have surprisingly decent luck with auctions that have a "best offer" option.  Low ball, someone will eventually bite.

My most recent example, I've got a ratty old Cummins powered W250 that came with a completely gutted driver door, and a single kind of working passenger speaker.  I just need to be able to hear the music over the rattly oil burner with the windows up, and I've got blue tooth in all of our other frequently driven cars, that'd be nice in it too.  I spent about 3 weeks off and on shopping eBay and making offers on stuff my saved searches would email me.

Right at $100 got me this:

That's a "mechless" headunit, i.e. no CD player, I stream everything from my phone anyway.  The Kenwood was a "factory referbished" deal for cheap, one of those pairs of speakerss I think the CS762s were new old stock, "blow out pricing" from some audio shop's eBay store, and the Stage 602s are just really cheap speakers.

When it comes to car audio, I don't skimp, so my advice is a little off kelter.  I'm a musician so I can hear cheap audio like a shark can smell blood.  If that isn't you, skip my advice.

QuasiMofo (my brother from another mother) has some good ideas, but I personally draw the line at Skar.  I have some Skar components in my van and I want to shoot them with a .50 cal ballistic tip.  They aren't as terrible as the negative press suggests, but they are pretty bad IMO.  John, I'll send you my Skar stuff when I take it out and replace it with CDT.  If you bat your eyelashes, I'll even send it to you before I give it the  .50 cal treatment.  :)

You also don't need the cream of the crop.  Bigger isn't better.  Matched is better.  Trying to drive big-magnet heavy duty speakers with small wattage is a sure-fire recipe for terrible sound.  Giving a quality small-magnet speaker too much wattage is fine... until you accidentally go too far and suddenly find an ejected smoking speaker cone on the floor at your feet.

My go-to for speakers are usually Polk dB (budget where I need to make decent sound with a lot of ambient noise), CDT (just nearly always the best), and Infinity Kappa (quality audio where ambient noise isn't an issue, like a Cadillac or a Jaguar)

My go-to for receivers is Kenwood Excelon, Alpine, or JVC.  Clarion has some redeeming qualities, but their FM receivers suck, and they tend to have wimpy preouts that pick up a lot of noise.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Yea, nobody makes custom boxes for excursions anymore. The perks of having an orphan.

II'm not against used, and I'm not looking to enter any sound competitions. To be frank, my hearing is starting to go. Part, I suspect from my mom who started losing her hearing at my age, and part from years of a few thousand watts in the vehicles and "ear plugs just get in the way" on job sites/while shooting/at concerts. So I'm not really concerned with sound quality as much as an audiophile would be. 

I just miss the back massages.

 just an example, but this showed up last week as an early wedding present. I thought no name Chinese brand, low price, low quality. It's on actually par with the $200 vizio sound bar we have for the tv area, and was a pleasant surprise. Not quite the bass, but volume, clarity, even sound direction is "good enough". Mostly it's for working around the house though. 

I'm planning to throw $500 plus head unit at this project. More money than I realistically should spend, but also less than anything really good would cost. I didn't even think about eBay, figured shipping would just kill a deal from either end.

So a great experience I had was with a very nice JL Audio 500/1 and a pair of sealed 10w6 that I got from Joey48442. Amp and subs were used in a Scooby-Doo that he bought. Too boomy for him I put them in my Cruze with a good quality 5v LOC and tuned the amp gains to a proper level. I know the box was good when Pimpish had it. But once I plugged it all in you could tell that a voice coil was fried. It wasn't his fault just crap luck. I threw $100 at a pair of Skar IX10 subs. Holy shart in the bed they were bad. No musicality at all. I was doubting my ability as an installer at this point (because I am not one). So I talked to a guy that had some experience with other setups. He happened to have just finished a ported box with two subs that his customer brought in. I was set up for a 1ohm load so he dropped in the box. The difference was so huge. Tight punchy tom and kick. Deep wallowing 808. Not to breathtaking but it was good. Then I noticed THAT THEY WERE TWO 8" SUBS! I had never been so impressed. I bought a pair of them direct and a ported box from LifeAfterBass. They were Massive Audio Summo. Fast forward and my son had the Cruze and I bought the Jeep. In it went the sealed 10" box and the bigger motor bigger throw SummoXL. The speakers worked very well musically but did not really do much below 45-50hz. Another blip and another new vehicle. The amp and speakers were all that was used as well as a good LOC and a ported truck box. After tuning the speakers now get down to the 40hz range. Of course I am an idiot and play too loud but what gets people looking is that I'm playing Nino Moscheli, Gramatik, Harry Connick Jrs She album or even the Oh Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack just as much as I am E-40, Tom McDonald or Demun Jones. When I put it on shuffle no one knows what's gonna happen.

I would sell my EX5 5 channel for a very good price shipped if you are interested. 

Specs and new price can be seen here

Figure $160 shipped. PayPal accepted. It's got some minor cosmetics but it is a one stop answer to five channels of fun. I'm not using it and I like money. 

QuasiMofo (John Brown) said:

So a great experience I had was with a very nice JL Audio 500/1 and a pair of sealed 10w6 that I got from Joey48442. Amp and subs were used in a Scooby-Doo that he bought. Too boomy for him I put them in my Cruze with a good quality 5v LOC and tuned the amp gains to a proper level. I know the box was good when Pimpish had it. But once I plugged it all in you could tell that a voice coil was fried. It wasn't his fault just crap luck. I threw $100 at a pair of Skar IX10 subs. Holy shart in the bed they were bad. No musicality at all. I was doubting my ability as an installer at this point (because I am not one). So I talked to a guy that had some experience with other setups. He happened to have just finished a ported box with two subs that his customer brought in. I was set up for a 1ohm load so he dropped in the box. The difference was so huge. Tight punchy tom and kick. Deep wallowing 808. Not to breathtaking but it was good. Then I noticed THAT THEY WERE TWO 8" SUBS! I had never been so impressed. I bought a pair of them direct and a ported box from LifeAfterBass. They were Massive Audio Summo. Fast forward and my son had the Cruze and I bought the Jeep. In it went the sealed 10" box and the bigger motor bigger throw SummoXL. The speakers worked very well musically but did not really do much below 45-50hz. Another blip and another new vehicle. The amp and speakers were all that was used as well as a good LOC and a ported truck box. After tuning the speakers now get down to the 40hz range. Of course I am an idiot and play too loud but what gets people looking is that I'm playing Nino Moscheli, Gramatik, Harry Connick Jrs She album or even the Oh Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack just as much as I am E-40, Tom McDonald or Demun Jones. When I put it on shuffle no one knows what's gonna happen.

driving around the nice shopping district with The Jungle Book playing one time I got quite a kick out of it. Adults did their best to ignore, but kids pay attention to details better sometimes - you'd see their eyes light up :)

I recently re-did (re-done did?) the arrangement in my Frontier because the Nav map was way outdated as well as the rest of the 2015 vintage app arrangement. I used Crutchfield for most of it. I went with a Pioneer SPH-10BT as it uses my phone as the touch screen. It has a bracket to hold my phone but I'm using a Nite Eyez (clone from Prime Cables) magnetic ball bracket thing instead as it's a lot less fiddly. Speakers are Alpine Type S. New subwoofer is on the way and it's an RF shallow 10 that will fit in a new box under the back seat. The factory RF "subwoofer" will go bye-bye.

Sub amp is a Boss Armor because of a review on Williston Audio Labs on YouTube saying they're well constructed and work, even though the wattage printed on the box is laughably optimistic. Plus it was cheap. I'm running the Type S speakers off the HU and they sound just fine.

The Pioneer/Alpine combination sounds better than the RF setup and I've managed to future proof for a little while. Switching to a 1 DIN has left me a spot for mystery switches if I ever need some (I don't).

QuasiMofo (John Brown) said:

I would sell my EX5 5 channel for a very good price shipped if you are interested. 

Specs and new price can be seen here

Figure $160 shipped. PayPal accepted. It's got some minor cosmetics but it is a one stop answer to five channels of fun. I'm not using it and I like money. 

I'll take it.

Shoot me a message esseeno (at) gmail and we'll work it out.