terrible best buy experience

I went to best buy to buy some car stereo equipment. I recently inhereited my mom's 96 Toyota Camry and the stock receiver only had a cassette deck and the the display was broken too. So i purchased some nice speakers(alpine s series) and a nice head unit(pioneer 4700). BB normally runs the Free installation if you buy a head unit deal, so i figured what the hey let them do it and save me a saturday afternoon. When i went into the garage the guy working there, seeing that i had a unit irritatedly said " you want that installed right" and i said of course. he asked me to fill out the forms... and i understood that the intallation was free but they would try and steal my $ by the overly priced materials in the materials fee. I'm pretty experienced with car audio installations (i've done two in the past ) and realized that a wiring harness for a common car like a Camry does NOT cost $25. They also slapped on an antenna extension which I didn't need, and last... but absolutely not least as you will find out in a minute, there was a materials fee for "speaker savers". Not to get too technical but speaker savers are pretty much 'bass blockers' meant to keep smaller speakers designed for producing mids and highs away from dangerous low frequncies. A 96 Camry has 6.5" speakers in the front and 6x9's in the back, both more than capable of producing serious bass. I asked the guy why he was installing speaker savers on my head unit and he replied "so your speakers don't get blown out. your head unit is alot more powerful than your stock speakers". I told him that since Speaker installation wasn't free I was going to do them myself, and to take them off the materials fee, he kept trying to tell me they would be worthwhile for my aftermarket(!) speakers. Now I know i may not be an expert, but I totally felt that installing these parts on any aftermarket two or threeway speaker is completely unethical, especially speakers bigger than 5"! After they installed my head unit, and after i installed my speakers i began to listen and felt that these speakers were lacking... it seemed they were muffled and the bass wasn't anywhere to be found. being the absentminded person i am, i thought the speakers were at fault (despite all of the RAVE reviews from these speakers online FYI they were the alpine S series). so i spent another day taking apart my front doors and back seat to remove these speakers and i went ot best buy to get another pair of differnt speakers, pioneer this time. I installed them and although the bass response was a litlte better, something was still missing, but being the audiophile i am i thought iwas being too picky and carried on for a week. so i recently just got an mp3 player and wanted to hardwire it to my headunit's aux input which is on the back of the reciever. as i was taking apart the head unit, lo and behold, i saw the incredible speaker savers that caused me to return my first pair of speakers thinking that they sucked and were inadequate!!!!!!!!!!!!! I went back to the BB garage and explained to them that i never wanted them to install this, who pretty much laughed at me and told me they knew what they were doing. I spoke to the store manager who just said he'd " make note of the poor customer service". I guess they really cant do anything because they were installed on my car and i wasn't even charged for them. But, I am infuriated by all of this trouble and am never going back to best buy again after this terrible experience.

2 things, first what does this have to do with employment??? Second, 25 isn't that bad for a plug. The bass savers are worthless, also there is no reason to have an ant extension on your vehicle. You probably should have just installed it yourself.Certified Security Specialist

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First the harness was only 18.49. A standard price for where ever you go. The material charge wasn't for the speaker savers, it's a standard 5 dollar shop charge. Speaker savers are 6.99 per two, so if you have 4 you actually got a deal for 5 dollars. I do agree that if you didn't want them on they shouldn't of. I do work at best buy and if i know a customer has like 5.25inch speaker or smaller and listens to a lot of bass, I'll offer them. I have seen  them work. So they do something on certain occasion. Just out of curiousity, what store was it at.

Really sorry, didn't mean to post this under job postings!!! my first time here and i really needed to get my story out once again i apologize... Fastlearner, it was at best buy in willow grove, PA and yes i understand the purpose of speaker savers, but why would they put them on the components i purchased? the fact that they automatically put down the charge for speaker savers on my bill was unethical because not only are they worthless with the size speakers i got, they made me think that my first set of speakers, the alpine s series sound like crap, and put me through the entire trouble of taking htem out and getting other speakers. i really should have just done the install myself, thats what i get for being lazy i ended up doing more work lol can you honestly think of why anyone would put speaker savers on 6x9 and 6.5" alpine sps170s or sps 690s wired to a pioneer deh4700 headunit other than try to sell me extra parts i dont need(which they ended up putting in for free anyway)?

Fastlearner wrote: First the harness was only 18.49. A standard price for where ever you go.

What!?   First, I thought they were something like 17.50 at bestbuy, and that is the highest anywhere. You can get them at wal-mart for like 10 bucks. IMO, Speaker savers suck. I had a set on a pair of 4" speakers in the dash, and it caused static to be played whenever deep bass was sent through the speakers..   Sure, it saved my speakers from blowing, but it made them sound like shhh. The reason best buy does this:    1.) They do protect speakers. I don't care if it's 6x9 speakers...you can't tell me that a 6x9 is capable of playing the same bass as a 12" sub. It's just not physically possible.   But I think that if you know what you're doing, you shouldn't need them. That's what xovers are for anyway. That is rediculous that you asked them specifically not to be installed and they did it anyway. 2.) When I worked at BB, at least once a week the sales manager would come buy, take a handful of speaker savers, and try to shove them straight up my ass.   BB makes their money on accessories, not installs and radios... so they make it a point to encourage their sales reps to force customers to buy them.   

you can't tell me that a 6x9 is capable of playing the same bass as a 12" sub. -- i never said it would produce the same bass as a 12" sub. i'm building a relatively entry level system and expected my bass to be produced by my 6x9s... when i didn't hear any from the alpines i was totally like wtf. well i hope i'll be happy w/ my speakers after i remove the speaker savers.    if for some chance i did decide to get an amp to power my speakers, what would you all reccomend? i wouldn't want to spend more than $200 on it.   I think my head unit will do a decent job but these speakers can handle a little more according to pioneer: TS-A6981 6x9         Watts MAX. Music Power     420 Watts      Watts Nominal Power Handling     80 Watts TS-A1681 6.5"         Watts MAX. Music Power     260 Watts      Watts Nominal Power Handling     50 Watts for the head unit (DEH-4700)         continuous power Output 22W x 4 anyone have a reccomendation on a decent amp i can wire my speakers up to for less than $200?

Forget about the max power ratings. A four channel amp producing between 40-100 watts RMS will make a tremendious difference in volume and sound quality. There are many deals to be had on and off the net for very decent amps at the right prices. Just stay away from cheap, over-rated, to good to be true sounding amps. And as a matter of fact there are a number of threads on this site discussing this very question, so do a search here.

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Actually, your 6x9" can play the same frequencies as your sub, same with a 4" for that matter, it just cannot do it with the same amplitude. Harnesses are $15.00 CDN here, BB is IMO charging a little too much. Bass blockers are a good idea provided that the caps used are non polar and mylar based, otherwise the speakers will sound like ***.Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.