need your opinion on a number of brands

Eclipse Fing own IMO. Too bad they are expensive and generally ugly. I got mine for the performance, not the looks. Everyone of the brands you have mentioned above are low end brands. I got to be honest with you, you will be dissapointed with any of these products. It's worth it to spend the money on a decent brand.

well, it looks to me like you found an m&m electronics magazine???1.soundstorm a rip of soundstream...garbage3.boss   have had good experience with amps, they arent bad for a lower end brand. wouldnt recommend any of their other line of audio4.visonik   had a couple subs....garbage5.spl also known as soundstream, is now garbage, old stuff is great though. they were bought out by another company6.volfenhag   garbage7.lanzar   vibe amps are excellent8.crunch   ehh, they're ok, as far as the amps go9.pyle   garbage

Eclipse ugly eh, lol.....I'll agree they aren't the prettiest things out there, but its like my installer told me. If you want "pretty christmas lights" in your car, go buy a Kenwood or Pioneer or Clarion or what not, if you want a good quality radio buy an Eclipse. Now before i piss off everyone i am NOT bashing any of the radios mentioned, my installer is..lol. I will give him credit though, I've used Alpines which i loved, even had a Panasonic which was decent and is now in my wifes truck, but sq wise, they cant touch the Eclipse. Money wise, I gave $280 for the Eclipse. The Alpines and Kenwoods were between $400 and $500 so which is more expensive.

Most of the top components in car audio look like the cheapest crap you have ever seen. I guess when you have a top quality product you don’t have to make it look nice for it to sell. But I see an awful lot of crap that looks like it’s the best stuff on the planet but sounds like sh*t (not to mention any names).

wmosher wrote: 5.spl also known as soundstream, is now garbage, old stuff is great though. they were bought out by another company

you need to read a bit more, and more importantly you shouldnt say things you havent verified...Soundstream did have a line of subs which used SPL in the name, but Soundstream is still around, and as their own name, not as SPL...they have gone downhill a bit, but are still better than anything else mentioned in this thread...

You are correct Big Purds. Soundstream SPL subs were available through the late 90s up till a year or 2 ago. They are AMAZING subs. I have 2 15s running custom installed in my 95 civic hatch. They say 400 watts, but Im running about 1000 a piece and they love it. I hit 153db this summer... pretty damn impressive for 5 year old equipment. Like Purds said, SPL is not soundstream, they are a different company. Soundstream has become a bit of a lower end audio line, thanks to being bought out by the same guys that own Boss, Pyramid, and other CRAP audio companies. Thankfully though, Soundstream has just gone under restructuring. I can't wait to see the new stuff. The stuff the last couple years isn't great, but like he said, still better than any of the other brands you listed. If you want incredible quality, and don't mind buying used stuff, get some of the older Soundstream stuff. It's cheap compared to buying new stuff, and it's worlds better.

well, damn...maybe i am wrong about the SPL being soundstream, but i argued with one of my friends for over an hour, he said that SPL is a name under soundstream. could be wrong, for all you critics out there

He probably saw the Soundstream SPL subs and thought SPL was the company. On the subs the letters SPL are really big... he probably didn't even see the soundstream above it.

Just to clarify that they are not the same. Soundstream's website: http://www.soundstream.com SPL's website: http://www.splusa.net

lol bberman I cant agree more with you in alot of instances...cosmetics can be very deceiving...there are getting to be more and more subs that have these huge ass magnets and heavy rubber surrounds just like the top quality subs and when you put them in a box and start giving them juice, they pop and fizzle just like the rest of the budget audio brands...