acura818

So I call up Best Buy in the city of Burbank, California to have ( 6 ) speakers that I purchased online installed in my 06 TL. I brought my car in and in about five hours everything was installed. The store closed at 9:00pm that night and my car wasnt finished until 9:55pm. Needless to say they encountered some kind of problem that I was never told about. So I get to the store ( its night time ) therefore not easy to fully inspect my car, they take a swipe of my credit card, hand me my car keys and I drive off with a much better sounding audio system. The next day as im driving through the same streets I usually drive on all of a sudden I notice my right front tweeter just pop up right out of its socket and the left tweeter inching its way up with the radio turned off! I pull over and notice that both of the interior lids of the tweeters were broken off as if they forced the new tweeter in because the new tweeter really didn't fit and I clearer advised them that if the replacement tweeter didn't fit to keep the stock and not force/modify anything. Indeed they did force the new tweeter in causing the lid to break from the bottom and not ever become level with the dashboard. But it doesnt end here...I opened my rear door and noticed a 4 inch cut right on top of the bottom leather seat, all the seat belt buckles were not pulled out when the seat was reinstalled and the seat itself was very loose. When asked that I wanted the stock tweeters placed back in my car I was told by one of the two installers that worked on it that they were "accidentaly thrown away". I asked for the manager and im very limited in what I can disclose on here from this point on because if they do not reimburse me the estimated quote that I received from my Acura dealer totaling $ 1506.42 in damaged parts including labor there will be a XXXXX vs Best Buy court case opened very soon.
I was just fed up with the lack of clarity/loudness coming out of the TL's stock front door panel and rear deck speakers. I was fine with the bass but the clarity/loudness didn't cut it for me. Just one example...when I was on the freeway with just my two front windows open and the volume at 40 (max) i could barely hear the music and I have normal hearing. Now even with my stock tweeters but back on I notice a big difference in clarity/loudness. And when I pop in a DVD audio disk I could hear voices and highs coming from the rear deck speakers that I could never hear before. This is not an exageration. So for anyone intersted in keeping everything stock and changing just your front door panel and rear deck speakers I purchased two sets of Infinity Kappa 6 1/2 inch 3 way speakers model # 63.7i at $200/pair and I am very happy with how my TL's stock amp powers them. They have the same ohms as the stock speakers. This is how I rate my audio system when playing XM, CD's and DVD audio disks on a scale of 1-10 ten being best...before and after the 4 speaker change. Before - Bass:9.0 Treble/Clarity:6.0 and Overall loudness: 7.0. Now - Bass:8.5 Treble/Clarity:9.5 and overall loudness: 8.5. In the end the $400.00+$150.00 for instalation speaker investment was worth it for me. I'll keep you guys posted on the Best Buy issue once its completely resolved.

AMIC

That's quite the rambling post .

I'm sorry Best Buy screwed up your car. I don't trust them with any install. They employ 16 yr old kids who could care less about your car. Hopefully you can get them to reimburse you for the cost of the damages and the lost tweeters.

Kennedy

iTrader: (2)

Best Buy installers are better hackers than Kevin Mitnick...

TSXmeister

Yup!....another horror story, other automotive forums I hear the same things about these stores Best Buy, Circuit City....they don't do quality work better off going to a smaller specialty shops it may be a bit more expensive but definitely they do a better job and take good care of your vehicle - lesson learned.

jmbnova

Damn.... I have heard horror stories about them... I bought my speakers there then took them to an audio shop here in town... they installed them with no worries... This was on my Integra... so when I went to change them, I had watched everything they had done and did it myself.... I would never go to a Best Buy, Curcuit City or one of those guys just from the stories I have heard.....

Hope it all works out for you in the end.... I would have snapped their little necks...

bklynpanman

what he said.. the small specialty shops are the guys to go to..

SilverJ

Best buy no way in hell would I go there but I have had circuit city do two really good install jobs at about 1/3 of the cost of some small shops I checked.

Ive always had better luck getting large companies to make good on something they did wrong versus small shops raping you dollar wise because you are their only sale for the week.

Adamo0926

The way you are going about your volume issues is all wrong in the first place. You will never increase sound pressure levels aka volume by just changing the speakers. If the speakers are more efficient than the stock speakers, then they would sound louder with the equal amount of power from the amp. And in most cases, aftermarket speakers are LESS efficient than stock speakers and require MORE power to play at equal volume levels as the stock speakers.

The key to getting more volume is more power from the amplifier. But to get SPL's (sound pressure levels) that are great enough to overcome highway noise with the windows open is not an easy or inexpensive fix. Keep in mind that the general rule is this: To get a 3 db increase in volume you need 2 times the power. For example, if the stock system can reach volume levels of 110 db and has 20 watts per channel then you would need 40 watts per channel to get to 113 db, 80 watts per channel to get to 116 db, 160 watts per channel to get to 119 db and so on.....

And even if you can get it loud enough to overcome most of the road noise, the road and wind noise is STILL going to affect your listening pleasure because you are still hearing it. Really the best way to listen to an automobile sound system is to create as quiet a cabin as possible. That can be as simple as closing the windows when tooling along the highway at 80 mph.

In the past, when I have added aftermarket amplification, it's not just to increase SPL but also to improve the quality of the sound. Amplifier power is just as important as changing the speakers when it comes to the quality of sound. Amps do sound different and you can hear the difference. A great amp will open up the soundstage and even make the music sound more detailed when used in conjunction with high quality speakers. Conversely, a horrible amplifier can make the best speakers on the market sound like garbage.

The TL stock system is actually a very good audio system. Could it use a few more balls ? Sure it could....but the front soundstage and rear fill seems to be very accurate. I've actually had aftermarket systems in the past that didn't reproduce vocals as well as the TL's system does...which really is remarkable. Don't forget that Elliot Scheiner, a Grammy award winning producer/sound engineer, helped design the TL's audio system. He is obviously no hack. If they had designed the system with higher quality speakers (including a sealed enclosure for the subwoofer) coupled with a high quality, more powerful amplifier....it could compete with many aftermarket systems

maluskills

Great post

AcurasGhost

Sorry to hear about your install acura818, what ever happened?

Very informative Adamo0926!

That's why I will only buy material from Best Buy and then get Tweeter to do the install.

Jumpman45

Although, I wont say ALL the BB and CC stores are bad, maybe about 95%. I worked at Circuit City awhile ago and two of the installers there were two of the best/most creative installers I've seen. But, now I would never take my car to any of those shops cuz most of them are just young bucks working there and not very good.

caesartheday

Hey, I know Kevin personally and he's a great guy. He just got a bad rap!! If he got his hands on the TL computer he could really make it do wonders.
But as far as Best Buy people are concerned they know S$#!t about electronics or installations of any kind. They always recommend the most expensive, not necessarily the best, equipment, and they don't know any real specs. I'd rather go to a Mom & Pop shop anyday. Geek patrol my ass.

Sorry - I've gotten screwed a few times by Best Buy - hence the rant. Sue me

Black_05_TL_6SP

OK, first, I work for Circuit City as an installer, I do feel the pain you are going through, and personally would never go to Best Buy myself, for ANYTHING. As for the install at these larger retail stores, it is going to be based on the installers they have working there. I myself have been there for 8 years and have 10 years of experience. My Manager has been there for 20 years installing. So we do have an idea of what we are doing.

You want to know why you hear of the horror stories from these shops, because there are over 600 Roadshops across the US and lord knows how many BB shops. How many of these Ma and Pop shops are there. There may be only one. You figure the odds. I have had to fix SO MANY installs from these shops and I have seen some serious damage, things like screws in the fuel tanks, master cylinders that have been drilled into. The big thing you want to do with any car before you get it worked on, is to talk to the installer or installers to find out there knowledge level. Given, alot of them are young and won’t take the time working on your car, but then there are people like myself. I do all my work on my TL myself; I have also built a show car that took first in my class in all the NOPI events I attended.


Again, the reason you hear these horror stories is based on the fact of how many there are. I someone had a horror story about one of the small shops in your local area, do you think that someone in another state would really care?? As they would never be in that area so therefore never use that shop.

It’s not always the whole company that is the problem, it may just be that one installer you had the unfortunate of getting. But believe me, the small shops have the same amount if not more problems then the large ones.

If you think about it, CC does over a million installs a year compared to the 1000 to 2000 a small shop "might" do. There are going to be problems, that is unavoidable, as things happen and we are all just human. The big difference is, that if you move in the next year or so, and you need to get your system worked on, you are going to have to take it to someone and pay for that, unless you are going to drive back to where the shop you had it installed is located. That is to say that the shop has not gone out of business, as I have seen that happen to.

Just to give an idea of how great a job the small shops do. I had a customer come in to get a stereo and speakers installed in a Maxima with a Bose system in it. Here dad, who she lived with, work for one of the Ma and Pop shops as a installer, but could not figure out how to install a stereo in the car do to the Bose system in it. This is something simple, but I see things like this all the time. So please do not insult me by saying I do not know what I am doing, and don’t always believe all the "stories" you hear. With the Internet things have a tendency to spread alot faster then what they did before. Because one person has a bad experience, does not mean that you will.

Get to know the person who will be working on the car, even if you only have 5 minutes to talk with them, it can tell you alot.

Jason

HiTEC

I wouldn't let those monkeys touch my car.

JMLAudio

Jason do you have a link to the pictures of this "show car" you built
thanks

Black_05_TL_6SP

<----------This is the car over here.

These are the only pictures that I have in photobucket right now. I no longer have the car, I sold it last year in the winter so I could get my TL. I did all the fiberglass and carbon fiber and carbon kevlar work myself, not to mention the work on the outside of the car and to the engine. There where very few things I didn't do myself to the car. At the time, I had not learned to paint yet, and I did do the head swap or the clutch and flywheel. It was a 1997 Prelude Type-SH.

JMLAudio

Jason,

Thank you for the prompt response