Car Audio: 2-ohm vs. 4-ohm speakers

[speakerman39]

As a customer, when I buy online, I realize that I am pretty much "on my own" if something goes wrong. And, of course I don't expect warranty work from a local B&M if I don't buy it from them.

That's the risk/reward of buying online! I save $, but I risk more hassle for that $.

I am also very supportive of local business, but I will purchase online when I see a large price difference. But, if I go into a B&M and spend my time demoing their gear, then I don't go home and purchase online. That just isn't fair to the local business! Now, if I audition many pieces of gear and find many items that I like and maybe consider a future purchase, then I will absolutely buy from that store. But for future purchases, if I know what I want due to previous time and auditions (after I have supported local business), then I may consider online purchases based upon those previous experiences.

Perfect example, I recently purchased a new bike. I have been looking at some excellent bikes online that are not available in my local market, at very similar prices or better prices than I could get locally. However, after spending about an hour in a local bike shop one Saturday morning, I pulled the trigger on a bike order to be delivered and assembled at the bike shop. Only after talking to the guy for about 45 minutes and me specifically asking how long he had been there, that's when he said "I'm the owner". The bottom line is that I bought into that bike shop just as much as I bought into that particular bike! The reason was simple, I liked the vibe there, the owner loves bikes, and I believe that he genuinely wants his customers to enjoy biking, not that he is simply there to put a buck in his pocket.

Furthermore, the particular style of bike that I wanted has only been on the market for a couple of years, and this was the 4th bike shop I had gone into, and none of them yet actually had stock of this style of bike. So, it was becoming clear that this was going to be a special order just about any way I sliced it. That is where the value of a supportive local business really comes into play. But, since I had to order on blind faith, I got a very good deal on this bike!

Yes, we all like a good deal. Price sells no doubt. But, some customers come into our shop, demo said gear, and then go online and find it cheaper. Buy it, and then come back in and ask us to install it for them for near to nothing. Classic story that played out every single day.

We installed said gear but at a higher cost. If they had just bought from us to begin with they could have saved money on the install. But, when the customer had issues with their gear that they bought online we once again assisted as best as we could. But, not for free. No matter how we explained it to them, most customers wanted to argue about us doing so.

I have seen customers come into our shop and ask me what is the model # of such and such. Many would take pictures with their phones. You spend half a day with someone showing them various gear all for them to go online and buy it cheaper. Then, they have the audacity to come back and expect us to install it for pennies on a dollar. My boss was not going to have it.

The funniest part of it all is when you hear a customer say oh I could install it myself, but I just don't have the time. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that one, then I would be a very wealthy man. Another one is when a customer goes out and buys a $90 K automobile and fusses over $10 he feels we over charged him. I am like really? Simply put, a dash kit for a $90 K automobile is going to cost significantly more than a $20 K vehicle. Like I said, I am glad I am done with it.


Cheers,

Phil

 

[speakerman39]

@speakerman39 @highfigh

Somewhat related, and shady as hell! The bottom line is that I would avoid the store-supplied WiFi to avoid this sketchy practice!

https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/15/amazon-online-shopping-control-in-stores/

I do not own a smart phone and would not have one if it was given to me. From what I have seen, they are more problematic than they are anything. This is one of the reasons why. That is, the link posted above. I am making it just fine w/o a smart phone.


Cheers,

Phil

 

[slipperybidness]

Yes, we all like a good deal. Price sells no doubt. But, some customers come into our shop, demo said gear, and then go online and find it cheaper. Buy it, and then come back in and ask us to install it for them for near to nothing. Classic story that played out every single day.

We installed said gear but at a higher cost. If they had just bought from us to begin with they could have saved money on the install. But, when the customer had issues with their gear that they bought online we once again assisted as best as we could. But, not for free. No matter how we explained it to them, most customers wanted to argue about us doing so.

I have seen customers come into our shop and ask me what is the model # of such and such. Many would take pictures with their phones. You spend half a day with someone showing them various gear all for them to go online and buy it cheaper. Then, they have the audacity to come back and expect us to install it for pennies on a dollar. My boss was not going to have it.

The funniest part of it all is when you hear a customer say oh I could install it myself, but I just don't have the time. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that one, then I would be a very wealthy man. Another one is when a customer goes out and buys a $90 K automobile and fusses over $10 he feels we over charged him. I am like really? Simply put, a dash kit for a $90 K automobile is going to cost significantly more than a $20 K vehicle. Like I said, I am glad I am done with it.


Cheers,

Phil

Yeah, that is just poor decisions from the consumer.

If you take a lot of time from a vendor to demo, and make a purchase, then you are morally obligated to purchase from that vendor. I guess too many people have a weak set of morals.

This is where we really start making a distinction between cost vs value!

I even take it a step further. I always ask the salesman if he works on commision. If he does, then I only make the purchase from the person giving me their time. I have often told the salesman, "I'm gonna go have a look around at your competitors, but if I come back here to make a purchase, then I'm coming back to you, so that you make the commission".

 

[highfigh]

It is very much the same today. People buy from online retailers then come to our shop for service when something goes wrong. They get upset b/c we charge them for what we do. Likewise, the same can be said when they buy online and come to us to install it. We charged more for installations when product is not bought from us. That really gets customers in an uproar.

Once we install gear we did not sell and they need service, all we can do is check our install. If it is product issues, we explain b/c we did not sell them originally not much we can do for free. Oh boy talking about getting upset. We gladly assisted in these situations but not for free. If it turned out is was our install, then we took care of that. So, I know exactly what you are talking about. Just glad I am out of it for good!


Cheers,

Phil

At the last place I did car audio which, ironically, was the place that used to come to Milwaukee for their big sales (they drastically changed their tactics), the sales people were 'encouraged' to sell 3 or 5 year extended warranties with as many items as possible. I don't think they're needed for many items, but for something that will be in a somewhat hostile environment (like a car), I think it's a good idea, especially since ours covered removal and reinstallation IF it was originally installed by one of our shops. One round trip almost paid for the 5 year, so that was a good deal. If it has to come out again, the customer has won.

The problem at my location was that the two main pinhead sales droids couldn't bring themselves to sell these and one sold fewer installations than anyone else in the company. I don't know why they kept him, but they did. The reason they didn't sell these was always the same- "No money! They got no money!". I begged to differ. When my shop installed equipment he sold without install, I made a copy of the invoice and discussed it with him and he stuck with his story every time, even though the installation labor, parts and accessories sometimes totaled over $500. No money, eh?

The problem with them not selling installation is that when something was installed by someone who didn't have a clue and found to be inoperable and it was returned within two weeks (almost all amplifiers worked perfectly- they just needed 12VDC on the remote terminal), they were sent to the service department for evaluation. If they had no problem, the sales department was charged $19 and it was sent back to the original store to be put in the 'open box' display, at a discounted price. So, the company lost the installation price, the $19 and the difference between the sale price and the discounted price, usually 20%. Those were great deals for someone, but not the company. The sales idiots couldn't even be swayed by the fact that they lost the commission on outright returns and never earned the commission on installation labor, extended warranty and parts/accessories profit. They basically refused to sell these- one refused to sell the extended warranty on religious grounds- Muslims believe that insurance is gambling and the other is just an idiot. They lost more commission on what they didn't sell than they made on the equipment.

Someone crunched the numbers and found that if the equipment sold by the company was installed by one of our shops, it had a .1% rate of coming back as defective and if it was installed by someone else, the return rate was 42%.

Those two should have been fired, but the one couldn't, because HR would never have been able to defend it, even if they said he didn't do his job at the expected performance level.

 

[awdio]

No, your car will not catch fire, but the power available to the rear speakers has been halved.

Most likely your radio does not contain an inverter to increase voltage to the audio system. So if there is no inverter then the maximum rail voltage available to the rail voltage of the power transistors is 12 volts. So this is where the low impedance of the drivers is an advantage. Power delivered is the square of the voltage divided by the impedance. So for a two ohm speaker we get a theoretical maximum of 72 watts into the 2 ohm speakers, but 36 watts into 4 ohm ones. The actual power able to be delivered will be a bit less.

The bottom line is that you have lost 3db of output to your rear speakers.

Not necessarily. You are assuming the radio will double the power into 2 ohms. It's a cheapy as stated by owner so doubling power into 2 ohms from 4 ohms is highly doubtful.

 

[TLS Guy]

Not necessarily. You are assuming the radio will double the power into 2 ohms. It's a cheapy as stated by owner so doubling power into 2 ohms from 4 ohms is highly doubtful.

You might be right, but as this was the factory installation, it would be reasonable to assume that the amp load would be mated with a speaker load that gave maximum output.

Car audio is different from home, and I have noted the car gear is deigned to give max output with a 12V rail voltage for obvious reasons, unless an inverter is in the picture.

 

[Pogre]

Yes, we all like a good deal. Price sells no doubt. But, some customers come into our shop, demo said gear, and then go online and find it cheaper. Buy it, and then come back in and ask us to install it for them for near to nothing. Classic story that played out every single day.

We installed said gear but at a higher cost. If they had just bought from us to begin with they could have saved money on the install. But, when the customer had issues with their gear that they bought online we once again assisted as best as we could. But, not for free. No matter how we explained it to them, most customers wanted to argue about us doing so.

I have seen customers come into our shop and ask me what is the model # of such and such. Many would take pictures with their phones. You spend half a day with someone showing them various gear all for them to go online and buy it cheaper. Then, they have the audacity to come back and expect us to install it for pennies on a dollar. My boss was not going to have it.

The funniest part of it all is when you hear a customer say oh I could install it myself, but I just don't have the time. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that one, then I would be a very wealthy man. Another one is when a customer goes out and buys a $90 K automobile and fusses over $10 he feels we over charged him. I am like really? Simply put, a dash kit for a $90 K automobile is going to cost significantly more than a $20 K vehicle. Like I said, I am glad I am done with it.


Cheers,

Phil

"I don't have the time" is a crappy excuse to pay someone else to "install" a system. For me, that's part of the fun.

 

[speakerman39]

At the last place I did car audio which, ironically, was the place that used to come to Milwaukee for their big sales (they drastically changed their tactics), the sales people were 'encouraged' to sell 3 or 5 year extended warranties with as many items as possible. I don't think they're needed for many items, but for something that will be in a somewhat hostile environment (like a car), I think it's a good idea, especially since ours covered removal and reinstallation IF it was originally installed by one of our shops. One round trip almost paid for the 5 year, so that was a good deal. If it has to come out again, the customer has won.

The problem at my location was that the two main pinhead sales droids couldn't bring themselves to sell these and one sold fewer installations than anyone else in the company. I don't know why they kept him, but they did. The reason they didn't sell these was always the same- "No money! They got no money!". I begged to differ. When my shop installed equipment he sold without install, I made a copy of the invoice and discussed it with him and he stuck with his story every time, even though the installation labor, parts and accessories sometimes totaled over $500. No money, eh?

The problem with them not selling installation is that when something was installed by someone who didn't have a clue and found to be inoperable and it was returned within two weeks (almost all amplifiers worked perfectly- they just needed 12VDC on the remote terminal), they were sent to the service department for evaluation. If they had no problem, the sales department was charged $19 and it was sent back to the original store to be put in the 'open box' display, at a discounted price. So, the company lost the installation price, the $19 and the difference between the sale price and the discounted price, usually 20%. Those were great deals for someone, but not the company. The sales idiots couldn't even be swayed by the fact that they lost the commission on outright returns and never earned the commission on installation labor, extended warranty and parts/accessories profit. They basically refused to sell these- one refused to sell the extended warranty on religious grounds- Muslims believe that insurance is gambling and the other is just an idiot. They lost more commission on what they didn't sell than they made on the equipment.

Someone crunched the numbers and found that if the equipment sold by the company was installed by one of our shops, it had a .1% rate of coming back as defective and if it was installed by someone else, the return rate was 42%.

Those two should have been fired, but the one couldn't, because HR would never have been able to defend it, even if they said he didn't do his job at the expected performance level.

Our shop went way beyond extended warranties. We guaranteed our install for as long as the buyer owned that specific vehicle. That's right, we guaranteed our work/labor for life. If someone had something installed and bought a new vehicle, we simply re-installed it to continue the lifetime warranty. However, when installing from the original vehicle into the newer vehicle normal rates applied.

If we did not sell the product, then we still installed and guaranteed our labor. However, if the customer had issues with their product we did not sell, then we kindly double checked our install for free. If it turned out our install was not the issue, then we charged for trouble-shooting/fixing said issues.

The thing customers got confused about is that labor warranty is NOT the same thing as product warranty. If the product was bought from us, then we assisted with said warranty. As you well know, warranty never covers shipping. Even then customers would get upset just b/c our shop collected shipping charges.

If said product was NOT bought from us, then we would assist with obtaining warranty as much as we could for a fee. Sometimes that is a good way to secure more and new business with a customer that did not purchase gear from us. Our guys were always cleaning up someone's mess. To that end, burnout settled in rather quickly.


Cheers,

Phil

 

[speakerman39]

Not necessarily. You are assuming the radio will double the power into 2 ohms. It's a cheapy as stated by owner so doubling power into 2 ohms from 4 ohms is highly doubtful.

Pioneer decks seems to work well at 2 ohm stereo w/o too many issues. Can't say that for most of the others. Even then, Pioneer decks would shut down until proper temperature was restored of driven too hard at 2 ohm stereo. Just wiring in a set of tweeters for the front for most decks. Pioneer had no problems with that for the most part.

Cheers,

Phil

 

[speakerman39]

"I don't have the time" is a crappy excuse to pay someone else to "install" a system. For me, that's part of the fun.

Yeah, I heard it all the time. It was just amazing. Just a classic scenario I dealt with on a daily basis. Even have customers calling asking us how to do installs b/c on youtube it is not so clear. I am like really? The world is full of all kinds......LOL!!!!!


Cheers,

Phil

 

[Pogre]

Yeah, I heard it all the time. It was just amazing. Just a classic scenario I dealt with on a daily basis. Even have customers calling asking us how to do installs b/c on youtube it is not so clear. I am like really? The world is full of all kinds......LOL!!!!!


Cheers,

Phil

I have to admit, I thought you were talking about installing a home audio system. Car stereo is a different animal. I did do all of my own installs, but I would not call any of them "fun".

 

[MrBoat]

Yes, we all like a good deal. Price sells no doubt. But, some customers come into our shop, demo said gear, and then go online and find it cheaper. Buy it, and then come back in and ask us to install it for them for near to nothing. Classic story that played out every single day.

We install a lot of marine electronics and are a full service marine everything shop. Customers do this to us as well. I would say that at least 75% of the time they deliver it having been opened, missing the pertinent paperwork, templates, cables, hardware, what have you. My boss often offers his dealer wholesale price anyway, to avoid this and just to sell the install. Especially if they are buying a tower or tee-top from us anyway. We're not really into that middleman markup nutshell game. We sell skilled labor and engineering.

I do all the metalwork design, fabricating and welding. I have to know what electronics are going in so that I can design the plumbing accordingly. Hard to tell in the photo but everything is interfaced with the Lowrance, even the bilge pumps, sound system etc. I have to design the plumbing so the riggers can get their wires through no sweat (because I like them) and without damaging insulation. This thing ended up having a butt load of LED lighting, misters and everything but the kitchen sink.

I can't even count the amount of towers I have had to build around speakers and drink holders.

 

[highfigh]

Our shop went way beyond extended warranties. We guaranteed our install for as long as the buyer owned that specific vehicle. That's right, we guaranteed our work/labor for life. If someone had something installed and bought a new vehicle, we simply re-installed it to continue the lifetime warranty. However, when installing from the original vehicle into the newer vehicle normal rates applied.

If we did not sell the product, then we still installed and guaranteed our labor. However, if the customer had issues with their product we did not sell, then we kindly double checked our install for free. If it turned out our install was not the issue, then we charged for trouble-shooting/fixing said issues.

The thing customers got confused about is that labor warranty is NOT the same thing as product warranty. If the product was bought from us, then we assisted with said warranty. As you well know, warranty never covers shipping. Even then customers would get upset just b/c our shop collected shipping charges.

If said product was NOT bought from us, then we would assist with obtaining warranty as much as we could for a fee. Sometimes that is a good way to secure more and new business with a customer that did not purchase gear from us. Our guys were always cleaning up someone's mess. To that end, burnout settled in rather quickly.


Cheers,

Phil

The extended warranty only covered the equipment (5 yrs parts, 3 years labor for actual repairs) but we had lifetime warranty on the install, too. If someone monkeyed with it, if the car was damaged in a crash or anything else that altered it not in our shops, it was void but if it had a problem of our making, it could be repaired at any of our shops and if it came to the original one, the original installer fixed his own problem. If someone else did the work, they were paid and the labor came out of the profit of the original installer. It was good incentive to not screw up- we had remarkably few re-works. Our lifetime installation warranty covered any equipment we installed- if it failed, they paid for removal because they couldn't have the extended warranty on outside equipment but if it failed on initial install, we told them before it was mounted and usually let them bring it back and we'd finish it without drilling them for a whole job since it was almost done. Our install rates were lower than many places but, having done that job for 20 years, I have to say that we did a lot of very good work.

We hosted a lot of IASCA events and our cars performed extremely well when judged by people from the outside. One time, I did a Pontiac GTA and when I was finishing and needed to adjust the Alpine parametric EQ, I found that all of the RTAs had already been taken to the tent for the contest, so the manager (who's also a long-time friend) and I went in and did it by ear. We compared our opinions and after about 15 minutes, decided it sounded better than expected because of the speaker configuration- it had the formed door panels and the car owner didn't want holes, so we went with 4x6 in the dash, 6x9 full-range in the rear pillars and Infinity Kappa subs in an iso-bandpass in the rear well. I have heard few cars with that kind of imaging. It scored 37/40 in the RTA test.

The guy won a few awards, but he hated the sound, so he bought an MTX Bass Disc, went to a remote corner of the parking lot and blew the crap out of his subs. He then went in to return them and the corporate installation manager backed him up, instead of us. Effing jerk!

 

[highfigh]

You might be right, but as this was the factory installation, it would be reasonable to assume that the amp load would be mated with a speaker load that gave maximum output.

Car audio is different from home, and I have noted the car gear is deigned to give max output with a 12V rail voltage for obvious reasons, unless an inverter is in the picture.

The power supply in high power amps always has an oscillator and some provide a lot of power. Real power, and they often draw a lot of current, which presents its own set of challenges. Many installers don't/didn't understand charging systems and the system wouldn't perform or sometimes, because they didn't know that the power cable is supposed to be fused at the battery, many cars burned to the ground. Still happens, but I don't see it because I don't do car audio anymore. Many of the better amplifiers in the '90s used MOS-Fets for the output and at that time, they needed ~80V on the rails.

 

[speakerman39]

We install a lot of marine electronics and are a full service marine everything shop. Customers do this to us as well. I would say that at least 75% of the time they deliver it having been opened, missing the pertinent paperwork, templates, cables, hardware, what have you. My boss often offers his dealer wholesale price anyway, to avoid this and just to sell the install. Especially if they are buying a tower or tee-top from us anyway. We're not really into that middleman markup nutshell game. We sell skilled labor and engineering.

I do all the metalwork design, fabricating and welding. I have to know what electronics are going in so that I can design the plumbing accordingly. Hard to tell in the photo but everything is interfaced with the Lowrance, even the bilge pumps, sound system etc. I have to design the plumbing so the riggers can get their wires through no sweat (because I like them) and without damaging insulation. This thing ended up having a butt load of LED lighting, misters and everything but the kitchen sink.

I can't even count the amount of towers I have had to build around speakers and drink holders.

Very nice work. You have skills my friend. Looks like a lot of work to me. We also sold our installs/labor on a regular basis. The idea is that the customer buys some of our gear, we install it, and then take care of any issues should they occur. The key is to explain to each and every customer the difference between product warranty and our lifetime warranty on labor.

Over time custom installs have b/c very rare. Most of it is prefab and simple decks, amps, and etc. Everyone wants custom work, but nobody wants to pay for it. Of course, we did keyless entry/remote starts which were more popular during the Fall/Winter months. We even starting tinting windows and sold Weather Tech. Anything like that to make a dollar. Sure don't miss it as I was so burnt out.


Cheers,

Phil

 

[highfigh]

We install a lot of marine electronics and are a full service marine everything shop. Customers do this to us as well. I would say that at least 75% of the time they deliver it having been opened, missing the pertinent paperwork, templates, cables, hardware, what have you. My boss often offers his dealer wholesale price anyway, to avoid this and just to sell the install. Especially if they are buying a tower or tee-top from us anyway. We're not really into that middleman markup nutshell game. We sell skilled labor and engineering.

I do all the metalwork design, fabricating and welding. I have to know what electronics are going in so that I can design the plumbing accordingly. Hard to tell in the photo but everything is interfaced with the Lowrance, even the bilge pumps, sound system etc. I have to design the plumbing so the riggers can get their wires through no sweat (because I like them) and without damaging insulation. This thing ended up having a butt load of LED lighting, misters and everything but the kitchen sink.

I can't even count the amount of towers I have had to build around speakers and drink holders.

Interface between equipment- NMEA2000?

Have you worked with much from Garmin WRT their GPS and the AIS pieces?

Am I correct in thinking that the platform is below the sightline of the pilot when they're at the lower helm?

 

[highfigh]

Sure don't miss it as I was so burnt out.


Cheers,

Phil

At one point, my friend and I (we EQd the GTA) were talking about how long we had done car install- all we could do was estimate because we didn't have documentation, but we both have good memory- he had done it full-time when I was splitting my time between sales and install, so he thought he had done about 10K installs and I was around 7K. I said "No wonder I'm tired!".

 

[slipperybidness]

"I don't have the time" is a crappy excuse to pay someone else to "install" a system. For me, that's part of the fun.

How about "it's too freaking hot outside, I'll pay someone to do it?"