JL> TO> "Most people" are not audio professionals, they are
JL> TO> consumers. I have yet to meet an audio professional that has spent 
JL> TO> more  that $500 on  a car audio system.
JL> well, that depends on what you consider to be a
JL> 'professional'...
Probably someone who makes their living exclusively from doing audio work! 
G>
Having done that in the past, I can agree with you both.  I've had expensive 
sound systems in my vehicles and have had rather inexpensive ones.  The 
expensive ones, as far as I was concerned, were because the previous owner of 
the vehicle had made the mistake of buying "the name" instead of investing in 
quality.  I've had some systems that were through-togethers with Radio Shack 
10's and generic hardware equipment that would outperform and outproduce car 
audio installers "boom car" stereos that were well overpriced.  I had some of 
them even send in "spies" to my work shop to find out how my systems did what 
they did (which was outperform theirs) for such a low price.  The competitor 
even paid for a customer to have a system put together by my company so he 
could tear it apart. He didn't get what he expected:  He got literally a 
pandora's box when he took the boxes apart cause parts came flying out like 
opening a jack-in-the-box.  We had prewarned the customer to never take the 
box apart (had been forewarned by someone that the competitor would be 
sending in a customer, even knew what kind of vehicle).
JL> one of the definitions in webster's dictionary is "Having much
JL> experience and great skill in a specified role"  I tend to agree with 
this JL> and would say that many audio professionals are spending a lot more 
than JL> $500 on  car audio systems.
I've spent thousands before I knew better... Now I shop wisely and build my 
own amps and enclosures, and crossovers... and I buy wholesale on everything.
I've had my own company's enclosures, etc. in vehicles where if necessary, at 
a moment's notice, a small sound system was available for use (complete with 
Perkins-style cabinets, and professional horns and drivers as well as CS400 
or equivalent amplifiers and crossovers), just riding around in my company 
utility van.  There have been more than one occasion when we've come up on a 
street festival which needed a p.a. system and we just hooked up their feed 
to our vehicle's stereo and raised the back door of the van!  Even then, we 
only paid dealer's prices for the stuff that we bought (not the speaker 
cabinets cause they were our design.)
In short, it's not the amount of money that is spent... It is the quality of 
the audio that is emitted. Not necessarily more (as far as money spent) is 
better.
Nancy
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