Dont You Love It When You Mention Fi

[raytard]

Honestly, from someone who works in a shop, theres a few reasons we dont know anything besides mainstream:

-Mainstream gives us perks, rockford for instance ahs rockford rewards, more rockford we sell, more goodies. Kicker offers cruises, pioneer offers free parts for show cars, DEI has the most awesome website for technical support on any car ever, with tons of tips and tricks (directechs.com), alpine, mtx, and rockford let us borrow their show cars for our shows all the time.

-Mainstream stuff has tech support, reps, and warranty, all done officially and easily.

-They have representatives. Major major deal right there, to have a human to educate you, hand out manuals, get you deals, come to shows and support their product, etc.

-We can only learn so much, customers expect us to know every model number, every dumb little technical fact, every feature, every caveat and nuance of everything we sell, you can only learn so much so fast.

-They offer training programs, Thinking back to training, most every mainstream company offers training and certification in their products. I dont mean to rip on it, but I'm pretty sure FI doesn't offer a training course on their products to educate salesmen on their products.

-Price protection, I've had reps tell me that besides crutchfield, most places aren't really supposed to be selling anything online. That gives us some leverage for when sonicelectronix has kicker boxes below cost and we can give a deal to them and still charge more because you dont get a person to complain to when it breaks online, and companies wont honor warranties without a receipt from an authorized store.

Realize, I'm not saying that DC, FI, Etc aren't great stuff, but from a business standpoint theres not much incentive to learn about them or carry it.

[galacticmonkey]

Why is it people whose only connection to any car audio is online go into shops and ask them about a smaller company then think the person is an idiot for never hearing about the company?

A shop owner in a small town should know about Fi for what reason? They dont sell them, they never will, and they have probably never seen a sub made by them. Does that mean they dont know anything about car audio? Hell no.

The more internet based companies, like Fi, DC, Sundown, etc, are just that... Internet companies. They make awesome stuff thats every bit as good, if not better, than the mainstream companies, but they just arent mainstream companies. Im sure if they got to test them and check them out they would like them, but why do they need to know about them? If they sell JL, Kicker, Rockford, Alpine, etc, they need to know about those companies, none others.

I could see if a shop owner was talking about his State SPL records and the competition scene and didnt know about companies like DD, Atomic, Treo, RE, then I would doubt he really has been to many competitions because these companies are quite common in the circuits.

Whats the big deal with JL? W7s are kick ass subwoofers. They are loud, sound good, and take the rated power just fine. Overpriced, yes, but if you got the money, more power to you. Ive heard quite a few W7 setups that were VERY impressive and quite loud.

I really think that if someone of the peoples on these sites could pick between a mainstream company and a underground company, they would pick the underground company, even if it was a lower quality product for the same price. It seems on all these forums, if you dont run an "underground" product, you're just a "mainstream bandwaggoner".

I run Sundown amplifiers, Fi/AA subs, and Powermaster for my batteries/alts. Powermaster is already a huge company. The others, not so much. Do I run them because they are lesser known? No. I run them because the owners of the companies are great guys and they have a great product. When I meet someone who doesnt know of them, I try to spread the word about them. I give websites, prices, ways to purchase them, hand out cards, etc. Asking a shop owner is he knows what Sundown is, getting a negative answer, then laughing and walking out is just pointless. Offer to show him your equipment. Let him see the quality of the product. I was friends with a shop owner about 20 mins from me and I was telling him about Sundown one day at a little meet he had. He said he hadnt heard of them. I was explaining them, showed him mine, and he loved em. I gave him Jakes contact info, and he eventually became a Sundown dealer. In turn, he did builds with Sundown, and even did his daily Escalade/Shop demo car with Sundown and showed alot of people. People who bought from him made him money, made Jake money, most likely showed their friends who might have bought a Sundown product or spread the word further.

If I just laughed and walked out, that wouldnt have happened. If you're just a dick and look down to people who havent heard about the company, how does that help advance the company? If I just walked out, none of that would have ever happened. Jake wouldnt have had that dealer, and would have lost out on all the money he could have made from it.

The companies may be lesser known and smaller FOR NOW, but if you get a positive attitude and educate people about it, maybe one day, one of these lesser known companies will be the next Kicker.

[RamenNoodles]

We arent knocking that standpoint. Yes im sure that is all good. I would love to be able to call up Fi every time a problem arises but thats why they make quality products for GREAT prices.

In the scheme of things. Most online retailers have great customer service. I know Rusty is always online answering questions, troubleshooting, giving deals, and just chatting it up. Call the owner of JL and try and get him to talk to you.

Not to mention the reason people like hate shops is because when you roll up just trying to chit chat or get something simple like some wire that you dont feel like waiting 3-7 days to get, they will sit there time and time again knocking your product and try and sell you some JL or kicker stuff. I mean come on, I dont knock anyones stuff unless they deserve it. Like yesterday I was up with a few friends at a local hangout and a guy with a 12w3 came up and was beatin so later on one of my friends asked to hear mine. He came over and seemed interested and started shooting shit with me. He was a decent guy, didnt knock my stuff especially since he hadnt heard of it before which is the main problem with store retailers. I mean my local store charges $20 fucking dollars for 2 1/0 ring terminals, for that price is better come with a BJ and 10 more ring terminals.

Im just saying, if you are going to be ignorant towards towards the products you have never heard before, then just dont fucking talk. You obviously dont know shit about it so just sit in your fucking little JL stool behind your little peon kicker/JBL/JL/Kicker computer catalog and stfu. Thats why I hate audio stores and led me to do my own learning here online.

/rant

[RamenNoodles]

And galamonkey, I totally understand where you are coming from as well. But the reason I hate the stores around here is for the reason I stated above. I wish there was a decent shop in my town that was like that. You come in with FI and they knock it because its not mainstream.

[wL<3bass]

And galamonkey, I totally understand where you are coming from as well. But the reason I hate the stores around here is for the reason I stated above. I wish there was a decent shop in my town that was like that. You come in with FI and they knock it because its not mainstream.

Thats what I'm talking about...

[dwright27]

i disagree .. My 12w7 off a 1000/1 took the beating of a lifetime... Tones 20-60 hz , tunes, sweeps, no subsonic filter on.. And it always performedvery well under any condition or daily abuse i gave it.. I love my dc's tho

you was only feeding 1000 - 1500 watts though.

which is rated power.

[Torres]

I got a Simular story I was at a drive threw this guy thouht he had beat I crank my shit 3 guys pop out wanting to see what was makin my lil truck so loud I let them see my fi's and stetsoms frist thing he said what you got this from the flea market??? I told him ya for 200 bucks lol he didn't belive that I just told him you most likly can't afford one of my amps and to look up other companys besides the main stream ones

ha he said mine was like flea market stuff too

and gmonk...i know what you're sayin and i agree for the most part, but imo there's a difference between saying 'what? i've never heard of that company before' and 'wtf you carrying that garbage for? why dont you man up and get a real brand'

[Eric B]

-They offer training programs, Thinking back to training, most every mainstream company offers training and certification in their products. I dont mean to rip on it, but I'm pretty sure FI doesn't offer a training course on their products to educate salesmen on their products.

-

Fi is internet based so of course they dont, AA is there dealer line..

[Blackedout]

None of the shops around here have heard of FI, or even Hushmat for that matter. My friends give me a hard time about FI subs too. I tell them if they want to hook it up and have some actual competition subs that slam, nothing in a local shop here will do it.

[ChevyBoy]

what the hell do you guys expect.....only some audio/forum junkies would know what half this shit is...you honestly cant expect to walk into your average shop and expect people know what is fi, dc, re, sundown, t3....etc etc etc....its a audio shop, meant for business and making money. they probably dont have the time to get involved with this forum stuff...

....but i do like informing people about 'the real deal' type stuff...its fun!

thats why everyone on this forum should respect ray and rusty and whoever else owns/owned a shop. ray runs 2, and he keeps up to date with the new brands and forums and shit online. hell, he even has his own forum. rusty just closed up, but he has his own subs. thats great. too bad he had to close up. both awesome guys that wont bash you.