Worst and Best Car Audio Brands?

Since there are so many different car audio brands out there i wanna put together a list of brands for car audio newbs. The brands will be ranked in different sections:



Horrible brands - avoid these brands at all cost, there a total waste of money.


Entry level brands - good for the first time car audio enthusistest, you get a great sound for a cheap price.


High quality brands - these are more expensive that entry level, but not rediculously expensive, since you get execellent sound that will be louder/cleaner that entry level brands.


Competition brands - these brands are the mother of all brands, prices are very expensive but if you can afford it these are the brands that win sound competitions at car shows.

I'll hook up a list in a sec....

Blazin right now :)....

* EDIT: *

HU = Head Units
A = Amps
SW = Subs
Sp = Mids/Highs
M = Multimedia
All = Entire Line

Stay Away

American Pro (All)
Audiobank (All)
Blackmore Mobile Electronics (All)
Blitz (All)
DHD (All)
Diesel Audio (All)
Kenford (All)
Kole Audio (All)
Legacy (All)
Majestic (All)
Performance Teknique (All)
Phase Linear (All)
Pyle (All)
Pyramid (All)
Rockwood (All)
Sherwood (All)
SPL (all)
Solid Audio (All)
Sound Storm (All)
Street Edge (All)
Ultra Linear (All)
XFile Audio (All)


Entry Level

Alphasonik (All)
Alto Mobile USA (All)
Alumapro (All)
Ample Audio (All)
Audiobahn (All)
Audiopipe (All)
Audiovox (All)
Autotek "SS Series" (All)
Bazooka (All)
Blaupunkt (All)
Boss (All)
Bostwick (All)
Cadence ("All" tough decision just shy of high quality)
Cerwin Vega ("All" except Strokers which go in Comp')
Clarion (A, SW, Sp)
Clif Designs (All)
Concept (All)
Coustic (All)
Crossfire "P Series" (SW)
Crunch (All)
Cutting Edge Audio (All)
DB Drive (All)
Diablo Audio (All)
Digital Audio (All)
Dual (All)
Dub Mag Audio (All)
Elevation Audio ("All" except EX Series (SW) which go in Comp)
Emerson (All)
Harrison Labs (All)
Hifonics "Zues Series and lower" (All)
Hollywood Sound Intl. Corp (All)
Infinity (All)
Interfire (All)
JBL ("All" except ??? Series which go in Comp')
Jensen (All)
JVC (All)
Kenwood ("All" except Excelon series which go in HQ)
Kicker "Comp/Comp VR" (SW) "RS Series and under" (Sp)
Kove Audio (All)
Lanzar ("All' except Opti Drive series which go in HQ)
Lightning Audio (All)
MA Audio ("All" except larger/upper model HK Series amps which go in HQ)
Matrxx Audio (All)
MB Quart (SW)
Memphis "PR Series" (All)
MTX ("All" except 9500 Series (SW) which go in HQ)
Niche Audio (All)
Phoenix Gold (SW)
Pioneer (SW,Sp,A)
Planet Audio (All)
Polk Audio (All)
Power Acoustik (All)
Powerbase (All)
Profile (All)
Rockford Fosgate ("All" except Power Series which go in HQ)
Sanyo (All)
Scosche (All)
Sony (All)
SoundStream (All)
Swiss Audio (All)
US Acoustics (All)
Visonik (All)
Xsite (All)


High Quality

A/D/S/ (All)
Adire Audio (All)
Alpine (All)
American Ba#s (All)
Ascendant Audio (All)
AudioControl (All)
Audison (All)
Avionixx (All)
Boston Acoustics (All)
Brax (All)
CDT Audio (All)
Clarion (HU, M)
Critical Ma#s (All)
Crossfire "W Series" (SW) "VR Series" (A)
Crystal (All)
Diamond Audio (All)
Directed (All)
DLS (All)
Dynaudio (All)
Earthquake (All)
Elemental Designs (All)
Eclipse (All)
Focal (All)
Fusion (All)
Genesis (All)
Helix (All)
Hifonics "Brutus Series" (All)
Image Dynamics (All)
Incriminator Audio (All)
JL Audio ("All" except lower W series (SW) which go in Entry)
Kenwood "Excelon series" (All)
Kicker "KX/SX Series" (A) "L5/L7" (SW) "SS Series" (Sp)
Lanzar "Opti Drive" (A)
MA Audio "HK2000/HK4000" (A)
Ma#sive Audio (All)
MB Quart (Sp)
McIntosh (All)
Memphis (MC Series) (All)
Milbert (All)
Morel (All)
MTX "9500 Series" (SW)
Nakamichi (All)
Orion (A,SW,Sp)
OZ Audio (All)
PHD Audiophile Sound System (All)
Phase Evolution (All)
Phoenix Gold (A)
Pioneer (HU,M)
Powerba#s USA (All)
Precision Power (All)
QAS (All)
RE Audio ("All" except MT Series (SW) which go in Comp)
Rockford Fosgate "Power Series" (SW,A)
Seas Lotus (All)
Sinfoni (All)
Treo Engineering (All)
TRU Technology (All)
Tube Driver Blue (All)
US Amps (All)
Xtant (All)
Zapco (All)

Competition

Alpine F1 (All)
Atomic (SW,A)
Autotek "MM Series" (All)
Cerwin Vega "Stroker" (SW)
Digital Designs (All)
Elevation Audio EX Series (SW)
Hifonics "XX Series" (All)
JBL "JBL/Crown Series" (A) "G TI Series" (SW)
Kicker "Solo X" (SW)
MMats Professional Audio (All)
MTX RFL (SW)
Pioneer TS-W5000SPL (SW)
Rainbow (All)
RE Audio "MT Series" (SW)
Team RF (SW)


(Updated 9/8....More to come)

you forgot some on the high quality
resonant engineering(all)
elemental designs(all)
memphis(all)
ascendant audio(subs)
orion(all)

comp
mmats pro audio
resonant engineering MT

I wont miss anyone once I make it to work, I have a dealers guide there with all makes/models etc of everything car audio related.

wait.. hold on... how r u gonna say "Kicker "Comp/Comp VR" (SW) "RS Series and under" (Sp)" the VR series is entry line,,,, now look at it ... the cvr w.e series im bout to get has dual voice coil it maxes out at 800 watts but it puts out better sound then 2 mtx subs that we listened to at the circuitcity,, now u must be smokin somethin, lol

lol@ circuit city..but thats not what this thread is about....
stay away from:
amps that imiate popular name brands ex:

legacy amps(look like sony )

rockwood(kenwood)

& stay away from blitz audio, unless you like "cool glowing thingys"

I CANT STRESS THIS ENOUGH....MOST CHEAP AMP BRAND ADVERTISE "MAX POWER" RATING..MAX POWER MEANS NOTHING, ITS JUST MEASURED @14.5VOLTS(which most of us dont have)AND AT A SUDDEN BURP.....SO AGAIN..MAX POWER MEANS SQUAT..always go by "rms"(subs & amps)

lol...its entry level....thats it thats all....

Comp/Comp VR's are not better than L5 or L7 series which is listed in High Quality....so therefore it will remain in Entry Level, a MAX of 800 watts is nothing remotely close to a RMS of 600 or 1200 (L5/L7).


...and now to do what I didnt do yesterday...update more....

So can someone please explain this a bit better, im a car audio noob and i'm about to start looking for my first system. Is this a list of the brands i should or shouldnt be looking out for?? cos from the first post it says its gonna be a list of horrible brands >>
sorry i might just be smokin a little bit too much [pic] [pic]

Anything listed from Entry Level thru Comp you'll be safe....Since you said your a CA Noob i'd stick with Entry level especially since its a lil less strain on the pockets.

You forgot the Nakamichi headunits. Serious ish man, they look like standard car stereos but they'r definately not. The quality is Crazy, probably, if not the best.

ez..

Prices are mad ridiculous tho. Here in Uk they start at £500 going up.^^^^

it has now turned into a list of horrible, entry, high quality, and competition brands.

lol @ adire audio isn't in the competition category -
they set world records boi...
you can't just lump all of one car audio company in one category.

Adire is good stuff dont get me wrong, thats why I put it in High Quality, it is far from a "competition" brand though. Scottie Johnson is the only person to have set a record with Adire subs (worth mentioning), and they werent the "normal" pick up and buy type of Brahmas that he was using when he did it. Besides Dan (Wiggins) would say it himself that Adire is not a "competition" brand, im sure he would much rather be listed in High Quality.

high quality:
Soundsplinter

btw dylan...if youre gonna put the mt's in the comp section, i think the brahmas should go too

MT's own Brahmas in every which kind of way......

Brahma EXTREMES are what Scottie used to compete with, he would not be able to use "everyday" Brahmas, which are barely rated over 1000 watts RMS.

Extremes are not readily available for general public purchases so this is why I dont have Extreme's even listed. He is one of few who own these subs.

just because the mts "own" the brahmas dont mean that they arent comp subs...lets be honest...most people that purchase more than 1 of them arent looking for a daily driver

Going off your bolded statement, hell all subs could be considered comp subs. Its a fact that more subs that I have listed in Entry Level and High Quality are used in competition more than "Comp" subs...simply because people dont know about or cant afford these "Comp" subs.

Anything sub I have in the "Comp" section is truly an SPL sub....for instance the MT that we are already talking about this sub can take thousands upon thousands of watts for an extended period of time. I have a teammate running 20,000 watts (2 Hifonics Maxximus' 10K watt amps) to 1 RE MT 18, now since you want to cla#sify the Brahma as a "comp" sub, do you think the Brahma 15 (since it doesnt come in 18) with a RMS of 600 watts can withstand 20K watts?....I dont think so, not for even 1 burp, and this is what seperates it from a true "comp" sub

the mmats jugg cant even handle 20k its only 1400 & it will still murk your average comp sub in competiton, which proves that you dont need to be able to handle billions of watts to acieve spl king status...but if a guy came to me and asked me if he should go into comp w/ his 15" adire id say HELL YES!!..but thats just me...
btw, you forgot the pioneer TS-W5000SPL..how could you forget? this baby shattered the record

Profile, its better then that. It pushes what it says!

Profile is an entry amplifiar. i have one and it bangs.