People are stupid.

[KvHagedorn]

I dont need to goto a speciatly Audio Electronics store, because they usally want to rip you off by marking up the stuff reduculiously.

Have you actually compared prices on the same items or is this just a vague impression you are getting? I will match any Circuit City or Best Buy price, and give you the same low price guarantee they do. (Look at their low price guarantees though.. it has to be a local store with the exact item model in stock new in a box. No open box or clearance items apply, and if you are trying to match an internet price, they won't do that, mainly because a lot of internet prices are bogus or bait and switch scams or various other things which are often dishonest and certainly not the same as having a store to go back to for service or return or other help.)

What people see at stores like ours is a better REAL selection.. rather than having a lot of different brands which are all pretty much lower end, we have some low end, a lot of middle end, and some high end stuff. Just a little research usually reveals this. Some specialty stores (especially in your area) probably aren't interested in anything but high end business, mainly because there are so many people there that they can thrive just on that, and have no need to sell the same things Best Buy does. If you had a bad experience at a store because of this, please remember that they aren't all the same.. by any means.

Check out the website of a good locally owned retailer here in Texas that really wrote up a good message on who they are and what they do..

https://www.bjorns.com

[Jessterw]

Yawn. This argument is pointless. The amount of money people spend on items is relevant to how important that item is to their life. For some it's computers, audio equipment, models, and for others it can be cars, clothes, blow-jobs. Sometimes the amount spent on an item is merely based on the need at any given moment.

I bought a nice high-end DVD player for our living room because we watch a lot of movies and quality is important in that case. When I went to buy a secondary unit, I went to Walmart and got a cheap $50 one. Why? Because all I required at that moment was for there to be a PLAY button.

[Dr Mordrid]

And the odds are that the el'cheapo unit from WalMart will play a larger variety of content than the high end unit, and given the results I'm getting from Chinese decks at not too much lower a quality...if any

Dr. Mordrid

[Jessterw]

High-end unit plays DVD's and some video CD formats. Cheap unit plays those plus MP3 CD/DVD's and a few other things (not that I use it for such). To be fair, the former is a couple years old.

[Helevitia]

Oooh! Fun thread

I used to get pissed at the same thing that everyone else is talking about. I couldn't understand why people wouldn't build their own computers or buy the nicer surround system or do their homework on purchasing a vehicle and getting it for 1-3% over dealer cost, but I stopped wondering why because it is pointless. People will hear what they want and do what they want.

But many reasons these people have are legitiment. For instance, people wnat to walk into an audio store and buy an all-in-one device that is easy to hook up and sounds relatively decent. Guess what? That is what they sell in Walmart and Target and Fry's and...you get the point. People don't want hassles. They want things to just work. Perfectly legit to me.

[Gurm]

Its not as much as it what you get to pay for but you can get something halfway decent then blowing a couple grand on something that might overkill for your needs.

No, you're missing the point here.

People rather spend their money more "effectively" then say spending more $$$ on a name brand, just because its a brand name. Its far too complex to boil it down like you are. You can go out and blow $800 bucks on a Sony Reciever, but you be better off spending the same amount on a Martenz or Hardon-Karmon unit instead if your going to blow that much. If you only have $500 bucks, an all in one home theater is your best bet for your dollars.

I'm talking about buying the $399 all-in-one package INSTEAD of buying a $250 Onkyo receiver and a $150 set of speakers. The latter is the SAME MONEY but a better option. Even if it were slightly more, it's still so much better that it'd blow your mind.

BUT, as Helevitia just pointed out, Onkyo wasn't (until VERY recently) in the "lookit our all-in-one UBER KEWEL BOX WITH SHINY THINGIES IN IT!" market. They recently are... they sell the same stereo I've got MINUS a bunch of features, mark it up $200 bucks, and toss in $150 in "high quality surround sound speakers" and a cheezy 6" subwoofer. But that's what people WANT.

I'm not going to get into your narrowminded views about the auto industry at this point either...becasue there are several flaws in your thinking...

Really? Such as? Show me a Ford sedan that's a GOOD deal for the money compared to other cars in its class. Please. And I'm talking AMERICAN Fords, not the nice ones they sell in Europe.

[DGhost]

people are idiots, yes. but perhaps this is america and they have a right to be retarded if they want.

what would you do to fix it? take a gun to their head and make them do things your way? it would be quite convinient for your business, but not exactly the proper way of dealing with things.

[Jessterw]

This reminds me of the Mac vs. Wintel arguments concerning price and quality.

[bsdgeek]

Really? Such as? Show me a Ford sedan that's a GOOD deal for the money compared to other cars in its class. Please. And I'm talking AMERICAN Fords, not the nice ones they sell in Europe.

Your thinking is outdated by at least 20 years, US cars haven't been unreliable since the 80s. As a matter of fact, they dominated the last JD Power and Associates quality rankings for mid size and full size, not to mention trucks but that's a gimme.

See for yourself.

The prices are roughly the same. No good deals for Detroit? Hardly.

[DGhost]

This reminds me of the Mac vs. Wintel arguments concerning price and quality.

pretty much. it's a retarded argument to get into.

[Gurm]

Your thinking is outdated by at least 20 years, US cars haven't been unreliable since the 80s. As a matter of fact, they dominated the last JD Power and Associates quality rankings for mid size and full size, not to mention trucks but that's a gimme.

See for yourself.

The prices are roughly the same. No good deals for Detroit? Hardly.

Feh. Have you DRIVEN a Ford passenger car lately? Or GM? Or Chrysler, even - although their merger with Mercedes is FINALLY producing results...

I was forced, 2 years ago, to rent a car while my BMW was having body work done. (Julie spun out on ice, managed to divert into a ditch instead of traffic! Woo!)

The first was a Dodge Stratus. It had 20k on it... and I thought I'd die. Literally. It was horrifying. Granted it was a rental, but it was BAD. The car LOOKED nice, everything inside was shiny, but it ran like ass and shuddered and shook. Essentially the entire suspension was BEAT after 20k.

Then just last year I rented a Ford Taurus. It was brand new. I was the second person to rent it. 300 miles on the odometer. It was... tolerable. It was, after all, a new car. But it still felt like driving a Taurus, and I saw no indication that it was built any better than the LAST Taurus I drove.

My Aunt bought a Chevy Malibu (yeah the uber-compact reissue). Urk! Horrible little shitbox. No idea why she bought it, she ended up trading it in a year later.

The list goes on and on. THIS YEAR, there are some cars from American marques that intrigue me. I harbor severe avarice for a Dodge Magnum, and the Ford 500 ... well, ok that's just a damn Volvo S80 with FORD logos all over it.

And American SPORTS CARS have always been something special.

Now American TRUCKS... nothing beats 'em.

But passenger cars? Feh.

And the JD Power ratings? Useless, in my opinion. They consistently gave an easy-to-fix, cheap-to-repair BMW 3-series (E36, so I'm talking 1999 and older) an absurdly low rating, JUST because it was a German marque. JD Powers is astonishingly biased.

And frankly, their "how many problems in the first 10k miles" rating system is flawed. They give Kia a high rating, because they have relatively few problems in the first 10k miles. Yippee. Now try to get your Kia dealer to actually HONOR that uber-spiffy 100,000 mile warranty.

And yet you can wander into a BMW or Volvo dealer at 35,999 miles, and they'll do a COMPLETE OVERHAUL of the car if it needs it or you ask. At 1000 miles and 1 month to go on my 960's warranty, the dealer added extra insulation to the doors because Julie complained of a draft, replaced all the speakers because the radio was a bit crackly, upgraded the steering system, redid all the suspension, and gave me a brand new Cross Country to drive for a week while they did it!

Contrast that with our friend who bought a brand-new Kia, and a week later noticed that their rear strut mounts were noisy. REALLY noisy. Squeak, squeak, squeak on the highway noisy. The dealer ... MULTIPLE dealers ... told them it was normal and to go away. Wow. Nice.

Now I realize this started off as an anti-Detroit rant and morphed into an anti-Korean rant. My point is simply that there's QUALITY and there's NOT QUALITY.

Has Detroit gotten better? Sure. Just not better enough to justify the pricetag.

If someone GAVE me a Taurus, it'd be sold so fast it'd make your head spin. Just not worth the aggravation.

Also, I just looked at your link. Did you look at the "problems per 100 cars" chart? Note that GMC is the ONLY American maker ABOVE the industry average? Ford was WELL below. EEp!

[GT98]

The first was a Dodge Stratus. It had 20k on it... and I thought I'd die. Literally. It was horrifying. Granted it was a rental, but it was BAD. The car LOOKED nice, everything inside was shiny, but it ran like ass and shuddered and shook. Essentially the entire suspension was BEAT after 20k.

Then just last year I rented a Ford Taurus. It was brand new. I was the second person to rent it. 300 miles on the odometer. It was... tolerable. It was, after all, a new car. But it still felt like driving a Taurus, and I saw no indication that it was built any better than the LAST Taurus I drove.

My Aunt bought a Chevy Malibu (yeah the uber-compact reissue). Urk! Horrible little shitbox. No idea why she bought it, she ended up trading it in a year later.

The list goes on and on. THIS YEAR, there are some cars from American marques that intrigue me. I harbor severe avarice for a Dodge Magnum, and the Ford 500 ... well, ok that's just a damn Volvo S80 with FORD logos all over it.

And American SPORTS CARS have always been something special.

Now American TRUCKS... nothing beats 'em.

But passenger cars? Feh.

Thats the problem...your driving Rental cars that are POS. The Taraus has be long abandoned by Ford (since its reskin in 2000) because they wanted to put money into SUV's, where they could make big bucks. My Focus, if it wasnt a POS, is great little car that has some major bugs in it, so if your want one get it after 2003, when they had the bugs worked out of it. My Mustang was great for reliabitliy prior to this.

Detroit is showing that they can build cars (see the 500 (though a bit underpowered), the LX cars (300, Charger) and well GM...lol) again which they need to do if they want to stay in business. Oh BTW the Volvo S40 is built off the European Focus platform and has much better reliability then the older model based off a Mutisuhibihsi one.

[Tjalfe]

Your thinking is outdated by at least 20 years, US cars haven't been unreliable since the 80s. As a matter of fact, they dominated the last JD Power and Associates quality rankings for mid size and full size, not to mention trucks but that's a gimme.

See for yourself.

The prices are roughly the same. No good deals for Detroit? Hardly.

Hmm.. let me see..
I bought a brand new Chevrolet Impala in the summer of 2001. It was made in the GM Oshawa plant in Ontario, who claim to be the best in GM's operation. of issues I have had:

Under warrenty:
Blinker relay broke
power seat switch broke
gas gauge broke

out of warrenty:
ABS system down - $1200 repair, which I have yet to do
Transmission broke - $2800CDN+ tax.. this at around 90.000Km
rear oxygen sensor borked - not fixed yet
and just last week, the ac blower controls broke.

I paid $648.37/month for 4 years to have this. if only I could fit as comfortably in another car, I would never even concider buying a new american car

[Nowhere]

...
The car LOOKED nice, everything inside was shiny, but it ran like ass and shuddered and shook.
...

Sounds like all in one stereos to me

...
Now American TRUCKS... nothing beats 'em.
...

Uhmmm...Unimog?

[Gurm]

My Mustang was great for reliabitliy prior to this.

American Sports Cars have always been good. I LOVE the new Mustang, btw.

Detroit is showing that they can build cars (see the 500 (though a bit underpowered),

500 = Volvo S80 = Actual Volvo Design.

the LX cars (300, Charger)

Yep, like I said... Daimler/Chrysler partnership is finally leaking over to Chrysler.

Oh BTW the Volvo S40 is built off the European Focus platform and has much better reliability then the older model based off a Mutisuhibihsi one.

Yeah, for some unknown reason Ford sells GOOD cars in Europe. The Focus in Europe is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CAR from the Focus sold here.