So you want to juice up that pathetic factory sound
system, but the price of some auto sound system equipment
is making your wallet shiver in fear? Don't worry, with a
little bit of smart shopping you can put together a system
that will blow your factory sound away, without spending
your entire savings to do it.
Online Shopping
If you are willing and able to install the system yourself,
and have listened to a bunch of systems and gotten an idea
of the brands of auto sound system parts you want, you can
find great deals shopping for your parts online. Even if
you don't want to do the installation yourself, the
Internet is still a great place to shop for the best deals
on name brand equipment.
Shopping Locally
Again, if you are willing to do the installation yourself,
or are looking to upgrade your existing system, you can
find good deals locally a lot of the time. Even though auto
sound system shops often have higher prices than online
stores, a good bit of the price of any auto sound system is
the installation. You can often get away with paying retail
if you do the install yourself, and get a great deal on a
killer sound system in the process. The main advantage to
shopping locally is that you can listen to the different
systems before you buy, which is just not possible when
shopping on the Internet.
Hit the Pawn Shops
If you both have a good idea of the brands of auto sound
system equipment you want and are willing to purchase used
equipment, you can shop around your local pawn shops. You
can find some really bargain-basement prices in these
shops, and usually any gear that a pawn shop buys is tested
and working. All auto sound system components, from head
units to speakers and amplifiers, are available at pawn
shops all over.
The best total prices are still only obtainable by
installing the system yourself; if you are not confident in
your abilities, it can still be worth it have even used
parts professionally installed since it can be much easier
to put different parts in once the wiring and brackets are
all in place, making it more of a plug and play
operation.
Name Brands at Good Prices
While everyone would like to have top of the line JL Audio
competition speakers or the like, the prices on the very
best auto sound system components can be astronomical. You
can easily spend over $500 on a single speaker at the very
top end. But there are plenty of quality midrange products
from companies like Kenwood, Alpine, and JVC. Stay away
from the absolute bottom of the barrel parts, though, as
they can often sound worse than your existing factory
system. You do not want to spend a bunch of money only to
have it sound the same or worse than your existing system.
The midrange products are usually the way to go for the
best price vs. performance. And with some careful product
selection and shopping, you can build a kicking system for
under $400 if you do the installation yourself.
