What do you guys think about doing this? I would be buying it from http://www.etronics.com/ I know of another guy who bought some speakers from there. This is the only place that I can find a Nakamichi head unit. I'm hesitant because electronic units are pretty sensitive and I don't want it to be screwed up when it gets here and only last for a year.

 

http://www.crutchfield.com/

 

Nice try, but crutchfield doesn't have nakamichi head units.

 

You get what you pay for. Nothing wrong with buying online as long as they're an authorized dealer

 

I got my headunit from crutchfield and it came packaged very nicely. I was also looking to purchase some stuff from http://www.etronics.com soon.

 

Nothin wrong with eBay either.
Bought 4 units off there and been satisfied with all.
Why are you stuck on Nakamichi?

 

Nakamichi makes some McIntosh-quality stuff for an eclipse-price. Look at their website, the THD on one of their head units is .001%. Secondly, and more importantly, they look stock and classy. So if you can give me the name of another company that makes head units that are classy, please let me know, seriously, because this is the only one I know of.

 

I've purchased from etronics and I am happy with them. You can get alot of what Crutchfield offers there for a lower price. Though Crutchfield does give you wiring harnesses and vehicle specific instructions with alot of their stuff. Though I had not gotten anything from etronics recently a couple years ago I purchased a headunit and a few other things and they sent it out quickly and packaged it well.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DraKonX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I've purchased from etronics and I am happy with them. You can get alot of what Crutchfield offers there for a lower price. Though Crutchfield does give you wiring harnesses and vehicle specific instructions with alot of their stuff.</TD></TR></TABLE>That..and their customer service is the ONLY few things appealing about Crutchfield. Don't get me wrong here...I too have ordered from them many times in the past. IMO, I just don't see any point in paying $125 for a pair of speakers...when you can buy it else where for half the price!!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by NVturbo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">That..and their customer service is the ONLY few things appealing about Crutchfield. Don't get me wrong here...I too have ordered from them many times in the past. IMO, I just don't see any point in paying $125 for a pair of speakers...when you can buy it else where for half the price!!</TD></TR></TABLE>

yeah, i got my HU there because of all that stuff, but i am buying my speakers/amp on Ebay, far cheaper

 

Speakers far cheaper with no warranty? Have fun when you blow them

 

saving a couple of bucks isnt the only thing in the world. Ill stick with purchasing things locally. People never think about how they hurt thier local economy when they buy online. Its all cyclical, if you spend less or no money in a local shop, that means when the people that work in that shop come to your work they have less or nothing to spend, it hurts your pocket in the end.
also there are not many companies that authorize dealers to sell thier products online, so chances are if you buy a car audio product online its not going to have the manufacturers warranty on it.
We had a guy bring in a kicker amp for service last week, it was purchased online, the customer now has to pay for the repair when it didnt work out of the box and kicker is in the process of giving the company the boot that sold him the product. I see things like that pretty frequently.
Nakamichi is really nice stuff BTW, we sold it years ago, macintosh radios look very retro/stock also but $$.

 

^ well said

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by incubus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">saving a couple of bucks isnt the only thing in the world. Ill stick with purchasing things locally. People never think about how they hurt thier local economy when they buy online. Its all cyclical, if you spend less or no money in a local shop, that means when the people that work in that shop come to your work they have less or nothing to spend, it hurts your pocket in the end.
also there are not many companies that authorize dealers to sell thier products online, so chances are if you buy a car audio product online its not going to have the manufacturers warranty on it.
We had a guy bring in a kicker amp for service last week, it was purchased online, the customer now has to pay for the repair when it didnt work out of the box and kicker is in the process of giving the company the boot that sold him the product. I see things like that pretty frequently.
Nakamichi is really nice stuff BTW, we sold it years ago, macintosh radios look very retro/stock also but $$.</TD></TR></TABLE>It would be a whole lot nicer if LOCAL SHOPS would stop trying to LITERALLY RAPE us decent buyers with outrageous prices. Until that day...I would NOT buy from local shops unless I am desperately in need of a product/accessory.

 

it would be a whole lot nicer if you would actually research how businesses work. there are price ranges that car audio stores, or any store for that matter, must sell in. Prices are not set by the stores, but infact are set by the manufacturers, in hopes to allow businesses to, gasp!, actually make enough profit to stay in business. a Brick and mortar business isnt going to stay afloat making 10-20% margins, there are too many costs incurred that make this a reality. Paying skilled and experienced employees fair wages, overhead such as the building, electricity (and a lot of it! remember you are talking about a business based around power), upkeep (a lot of downtime is spent on this), benefits for your employees, training for your employees, tools and supplies neccessary, technology. Most of these things are not needed by the companies that sell product online.
Also one more thing, If you think that your local shop isnt worth the extra money that you would pay to take your business to them, then dont bother them. Dont come in a test the product out, dont waste the employees time, and dont try to gain thier expertise by asking them thier opinion on how to do something or what to buy. If you want to buy things from a certain site on the net, then use the resources they have at hand to make you decisions and to build your system. If they cant help you with these things then maybe you shouldnt be buying your product from them, because they arent adding any value to the product.
One thing I have learned from many years of college about business, is that along every step of a goods supply line each person that handles a product adds value. In the case of a product like car audio, a large majority of the value is added at the end of the line, with the salesman and installers. This is the case because they are the ones who can teach you how to actually use your product and make sure it functions correct.
Oh yeah and just to give you guys a heads up, the price of copper worldwide has more than doubled since the beggining of the year, so prices on wiring and things of that nature are going to go up, expect them to double. I am sure some people on here will see this as another way for shops to "rake them accross the coals".

 

I'm not pissed about the prices, it's just that the local shops don't carry what I'm looking for, so I have to search elsewhere. No one knows what Nakamichi is. They are just trying to sell me some chrome-dome flashy-light attention ***** head unit. I want something that looks OEM and is understated, like the Nakamichi. All the car audio shop cares about is what something looks like because that is what appeals to customers, not sq.

 

My turn...
Ditto that.

Also a ditto.

I don't have a problem with people buying online, what gets me is how pissed off they get with us when they are told they have no manufactures warranty and it will cost them for us to re&re a unit, they have to pay for return shipping and insurance to the online site they got it from, [for any kind of warranty] be without the unit for 10-30 days, then really get pissed when unit is returned unrepaired because in the unauthorized dealers opinion it's not a manufactures defect.

Don't say this does not happen, it does, I have had more then a few customers left with "half priced" paper weights. you do get what you pay for. 94

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fcm &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Don't say this does not happen, it does, I have had more then a few customers left with "half priced" paper weights. you do get what you pay for. 94</TD></TR></TABLE>

Ditto that

Ya know there are some stores out there that carry what you want who have salesman who are actually into sq. I had a kenwood flip up monitor for all of about 3 weeks in my car cause it was flashy and cool, but it sounded NOWHERE NEAR as good as my eclipse CD8053, and I don't even have the balance box lol. I put the eclipse back in pretty damn fast.

The place I work now stocks mcintosh at our main warehouse, and we are working on getting nakamichi to most of our stores

 

Where do you work?

 

It's in my sig

A place called magnolia av, we do high end home and car stuff, well high end enough I suppose. Most people don't need more than mcintosh or sonus faber etc.

For car stuff we sell a lot of diamond audio though, and I'm debating whether I want to re-do my system with all diamond stuff or do a diamond/mac mix

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mrdeadman &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm not pissed about the prices, it's just that the local shops don't carry what I'm looking for, so I have to search elsewhere. No one knows what Nakamichi is. They are just trying to sell me some chrome-dome flashy-light attention ***** head unit. I want something that looks OEM and is understated, like the Nakamichi. All the car audio shop cares about is what something looks like because that is what appeals to customers, not sq. </TD></TR></TABLE>
Yeah this is an unfortunate fact, at one point my job carried nakamichi, but noone bought it because almost noone knows about it around here. We also carried focal, along with MB Quart, which we still carry. MB was the only one to survive because they were able to create product awareness. Man what I wouldnt give to have naka and focal back.
It is because of this effect that companies like audiobahn, who just chrome plate Shat to sell it, survive. If people would realize AUDIO equipment should be about sound and not about looks.