For all of you who care, good old Bill Crutchfield is now offering Alpine!!

:cool:

Bought mine at the Crutchfield store last thursday.....Alpine stuff should be in next catalogue to come out in May....on the Website now..

Cool, they get to rip people off with another brand. Over priced badly and sometimes grey market stuff and bad install advise. Skip to plan B.

Example:
Pioneer DEH-P7400MP CD/MP3 Receiver
MP3 & CD-R/W playback • detachable fold-down face • Organic EL display • 22 watts RMS x 4 • MOSFET50 • Supertuner III • XM Satellite radio-ready • Easy EQ • Sound Focus EQ • optional AUX input • remote • changer control
Crutchfield: $329.95 http://www.mmxpress.com: $274.95 http://www.pricegrabber.com: $246.55 http://www.sounddomain.com: $279.95
You get the idea.
Figure about a 20% mark-up on everything if you're lucky.

Wow!!....that wasn't my experience with em at all....install advise was right on for me.....Few places were 10 or 20 bucks for the Unit I was looking at (Circuit City....15.00).....cheaper but with no support, no wiring harness, no extra install hardware for free. Sounds like you had a bad experience with em?....You can get Alpines anywhere :)


[Modified by vette5, 1:59 PM 5/8/2002]

I just remember one person after another coming into my shop year in and year out with the wrong equipment (speaker size, compatability issues, reliability issues) saying they got it from crutchfield and can you fix it. They sell alot of crappy brands like JVC, Jensen, etc and they don't distinguish them from alpine and pioneer. Lots of ripping off going on. As for installation help, they use a book that tells them the speaker sizes, etc. It is about 80% accurate with problems usually happening when they update an interior but not the body of a car. For example, they often tell late model C4 owners that you need 4x6 speakers for your dash.
Lastly, they put together the "installation kit" which is some cheap wire and a bargain dash kit. Its junk you need to replace anyway with good quality parts. Never been suckered into dealing with them though. I'd be more inclined to take advice from Miss Cleo on a sterio install.

I have to go with 92TripleBlack on this one. When I was replacing my Blose, I found Crutchfield to be much more expensive, than my local stereo store.
I have never had a problem finding the connectors to wire an aftermarket HU to the factory wiring, which seems to be a big advantage for some people. Any decent Car Audio store will carry them.
I didn't use them, because I was not using the stock wiring, but there were available.
The local store was/is about 2/3rds of the price of Circuit City/Good Guys.

When I was looking at replacing my blown 4x6"s Crutchfield/Circuit City/Goodguys were almost double the price of what I got them for at the local small shop.
It has always baffles me a bit when people don't look locally, and instantly bring up Crutchfield or the BIG name appliance stores. I have saved a bundle by using the locally owned. I had a speaker go out, and they replaced it on the spot while I waited, even though I did the install myself.
If you educate yourself a bit before you buy, you will fnd out pretty quick, which of the locals are hacks, and which are good. They are definitely some bad locally owned places, but as stated educate yourself and you can discover pretty quickly, who is good and who is bad.
I helped a neighbor with a new HU, replacing a Circuit City install, boy what a hack, wires cut, and spliced using wire nuts and black tape. Crappy routing of the speaker wires. I was amazed at what I saw.

I am looking at a Clarion 725 HU, and I can get it locally for $260 Crutchfield wants $299... let me think....where am I going to buy it....




[Modified by Grzldvt, 9:10 AM 5/8/2002]

they charge full retail doing mail order, i honestly don't know how they stay in business. around here we just use there catalogs for pictures of what we want to buy from other places. :)

Sure you can probably find a lower price at another store, but you have to figure in the customer service aspect. Crutchfield offers free install kits, free speaker mounting ring kits, fast reasonable shipping, and a 30 day money back guarantee. I doubt your local shop offers a 30 day money back guarantee. The deck installation kits are just as good as the kits you get elsewhere. Some people are willing to spend a little more money to get better service.

With all of that said, I've purchased a lot of expensive car audio equipment and most of it was purchased at local shops. Over the years I've purchased some amp wiring kits from Crutchfield and a few amps and Infinity speakers that were on sale at Crutchfield and have been happy with all of my purchases.

My wife recently surprised me with a new Wega TV for my birthday and had Crutchfield ship it to our door. There is no way she could have gotten that home by herself and we are also happy with that purchase.

YMMV.

Kit price =10-20$ Everyone else has shipping and returns. My old local shop offered free money back for 30 days, free exchanges for 90 days, and free removal of equipment and reinstallation of original system when you sell the car. We also had a 3 year guarentee on all equipment we installed and replaced faulty equipment regardless of reason for failure(child sticking hand into speaker or pouring coffee into a changer for example)

Crutchfield has three things going for it: Advertising, a paper catelog, and installation kits. They have nothing else.
They pay for all these with higher prices. Not worth it to me when I can get exactly the same service, guarentees, etc. just about anywhere for less. :rolleyes:

Yeah... but Crutchfield is just a "WELL" known company and they are able to charge closer to MSRP and get away with it ....

Yeah right! :lol:

Man, that is one hell of a local shop!! Local shops near me do not offer that type of return policy. I recently upgraded the front-end components in my daily driver and spent $2,500 for an Alpine CVA-1006 in-dash monitor/receiver, Alpine TV Tuner, and Alpine 6 disc DVD changer. I got the parts from an authorized Alpine dealer on Canal Street in NYC called Uncle Steve. I had to haggle big time to get the price I got. Online mail order prices for the same parts were higher than I paid, and online Alpine parts do not come with a manufacturers warranty. I checked numerous Alpine dealers near my house in NJ and they could not match the Uncle Steve prices, and the NJ dealers were not offering 30 day money back return policies. Uncle Steve in NYC told me I had 10 days to return the parts, after that it was manufacturers warranty only.

FWIW - I've heard plenty of horror stories about Uncle Steve and I would not use them as a mail order vendor.