what brands are best to carry

I have been out of the audio world for 5 or 6 years and i have a body shop in a small town and want to add on car audio. i have set up a dealership with a distrubiter and and going to buy into one brand right now seems i have more call for amps and subs than head units. so my choices are audiobahn,clarion, alphasonik, xsite, or kicker. i was getting ready to buy into clarion but i heard some things i didnt care for and if i was buying decks i would rather xm not sireus. please help.Brian Gordan

Out of those brands, Clarion and Kicker are the only reputable brands. Clarion makes solid head units and Kicker makes solid amps and subwoofers. Audiobahn and Alphasonik are the same crap, that i would not touch ( i speak for pretty much everyone on this forum)m, however little teenagers love flashy chrome, so you would sell those brands pretty easily. And in my very biased opinion, XM sucks and will never be a subscriber. Sirius is the way to go. Jazzy

But Jazzy, XM has BASEBALL...............................There is no such thing as free installation!

i like xm.  i think lower end middle of the road and high end is needed in a car audio shop. some thing for everyone. but thats just me. but you can start with middle of the road stuff like kicker and clarion, even alpine they have xm and a wide range of equipment. from entry level up.

why not carry both xm and sirrius. Shouldn't you be thinking about the customer, not our personal opion. Not all your customers will like xm, i've had plenty complain about them. Without offering sirrius you could be losing a lot of customers.

I'd never buy Audiobahn, but there are plenty of people out there that will and do. I'm going to sell what people will buy, even after I tell them right from wrong. As far as XM or Sirius, like said above, why not sell both? Thats like saying Directv or Dish Network. Some like one brand and some like the other. '85 Toy

i hade a guy tell me that the bigger the voice coil on a sub the better the sound is that true. clarion only has a 1.5 inch on there srw1285 12 inch subs. Brian Gordan

bry_gordan wrote: i hade a guy tell me that the bigger the voice coil on a sub the better the sound is that true. clarion only has a 1.5 inch on there srw1285 12 inch subs.

I believe this a miconception. Larger voice coils are often able to handle more power, but sound better, no. There are many facets to this situation, but on a general note, voice coil size will not make a speaker sound better.

Clarion we use for head unites, and we sell kicker, alphasonik, JL, directed for speakers/amps. People speak of alphasonik as crap because they never used it, i have installed 40 of there amps and i have yet to get one back, i even wired one temporarly at 1 ohm and the speaker had a bigger RMS, lasted 3 weeks and didn't even heat up. If i rested my hand on the JL running the door speakers(This one was in specs) i would burn myself. When i took it out after the new amp came in i had it sold 3 days later and its been 4 months and heard no problems. Basaclly with kicker, jl, and aplhasonik you will be able to fit most reasonable price range for what ya need in speakers and amps. But you will need more then clarion for head units such as pioneer, JVC. Oh ya don't carry sony its absolute crap and on ocassion refuse to install it out of principle since i know i will be getting yelled at 4 months later or so.

godblessdremil, was the Alphasonic a class AB amp or class D monoblock amp?There is no such thing as free installation!