Shop said they dont use DD1 or Oscope to tune. they do it by ear. Should i trust them?

[sbg]

Kinda funny best shop in my town has a dd1 and has never used it. And they have had it for like 2 years. Guy who owns the shop told me. I tune by ear same way o been doing it for 25 years.

[Aj11]

all the shops around me use the ear-O-meter as well. i went to them when i was gonna run 2 Amps to one sub. i asked how much to use there oscope so i could match my gains? they stood in awe. i asked again, still nothing. so i explained what i was doing in full detail. another long pause then he said oh we do that by ear.

what? are you kidding me?

no we've been tunning by ear since we've opened.

really? you guys should get a oscope or a dd1 it would make your life allot easier!

what's a dd1?

seriously? you don't know what a dd1 is?

no...

it's a distortion detector Steve Meade makes them..

(before i could Finnish)

who's Steve Meade?

that was the last time i was there. about a year ago now.

and as the Man himself said, if your tunning by ear your not getting 100% out of your gear! what's the point of spending thousands of dollars on your gear to get anything less then 100%?

[Jhunt94]

I live in South Georgia and I hear about subs, that have been installed by shops, popping left and right. You would think they would realize that they aren't doing something right. The sad think is that I'm probably the only one within 50-100 miles with a DD-1 and I don't even do installs or anything for other people, well occasionally lol

[Karkov]

Sucks that in this day and age shops are still like this. I remember getting a local shops help in the very early 2k's and even possibly late 90's and even back then i believe it was an O-scope they used to help me, and I live in small town USA so wtf....

[Kranny]

"tuned by ear" heres the photo i was talking about

[jdshott]

i have to agree with a few ppl here . Meade knows his shit . its not just a sell point . why waste thousands of $$$$$ and skimp on the install. so i say runnnnn from this shop .Or allow them to do the install and waste your money.

[noobslayer77]

OK. I wanna thank everyone for the feedback. Its been tremendously helpful. I won't be competing with this car. At least not right away. Maybe if i feel like its loud as shit and i wanna see what it does on a meter. I may just buy a DD1 for myself. Let them tune it by ear or w/e, and just not blast it until i have the DD1 and can adjust it properly. I just don't have the time to install this stuff myself. I did my last install but that was before i took a new job in the oil field. This shop did my friends car and it was very clean, and it sounds very good, but i'd be interested to run the DD1 to it and see how its actually tuned. I'm going to run 1 1200/1 to both w7s at first, let them break in for a month, then come back and add a second 1200/1. I was under the impression that that amp has a set infrasonic filter at 30hz. but someone on here in another thread told me that its selectable. Not sure about that. If not, I might go with a 1000/1v3 because i think they have a selectable infrasonic filter.

[PolishThunder]

This is an excellent topic, I cant believe shops don't even bother to invest in an o-scope or dd-1 at all. At the very least they could charge a little more to get a proper tuning, I mean that's still a shitty thing to do but way better than not tuning properly at all. The tools a pretty cheap and it takes a few minutes max to do there is no reason not to do it.

[JP-12]

One next to me does it by ear too, They set my old Kicker subs and amp like a year ago when I first got my car and I had to go back and bitch at them cuz they weren't about to replace the sub that THEY set up and blew, I didn't touch anything but the volume on my HU, and I used to be scared that something would happen if I went over half so I never did. Lol.

Some shops are hella shady. That same shop will tell 5 different people waaaay different prices for equipment. Even if the same person goes in twice and asks about prices hell still try to make up some reason for it being more expensive than the last time you asked. Dude laughed at me like I was retarded when I asked about Soundqubed and DC! Said he'd never heard of it. But yet he has what he claims is the BEST boxes and trying to charge like 150$ for a prefab. When I asked what it was tuned to he said it doesn't really matter cuz it's a ported box, so it will sound the best.

I was confused... Hope he wasn't serious..

[noobslayer77]

this shop im considering have been very knowledgeable about everything. I'm going to see whatsup with them, because they have done some really nice installs, i've seen their work. They guarantee if anything they install breaks they replace it for free. I don't have any other options in terms of shops around my area. the last shop i talked to the guy recommended running 4 gauge wire to a 3500 watt amp and 200 amp fuses. So that is a no go. The other shops around DC and VA didn't impress me. They weren't friendly and also didn't use DD1 or oscilloscope.