I disagree, there are tons of great deals on used stuff on ebay and craigslist. Just make sure its not stolen. The thing with car stereo gear is that a lot of the name brand stuff was made in the US in the late 90's early 2000's and its all overbuilt and really nice. So people think they have a 12 year old amp thats not worth much so sometimes you can get good deals on the nice stuff, when in reality a 12 year old orion or mtx or rockford fosgate amp is a lot nicer than a new amp from pyle or even the new rockford fosgate. Its all made in china disposable crap.

I paid less than $200 for the stereo in my '78 and it sounds better than if you had spent $1000 on new made in china crap. All the stuff I have lined up to put in the excursion is made in the US as well, I just haven't decided how I'm going to fit it in and what subs I'm going with. I have a slightly ridiculous collection of older car stereo stuff to choose from.

The only area where I think that new stuff has made huge strides is in head units. the iphone didn't exist 12 years ago so if you want good features like 4 volt preamp out puts, ipod/bluetooth integration, etc, you kinda have to get newer head units. But even then, most "last year" units on clearance online are just as good as the brand new ones.

 

I dont disagree with buying used. My pdx amp for my truck I bought used and is was like brand new, saved a couple hundred bucks. I just dont like the fact of buying refurbished stuff off ebay. Usually its around the same price as brand new, and I dont like that it was repaired and being resold for practically the same price as new. Last year stuff is a good way to save also like you mentioned.

My whole point is the op said he was looking for good sound for as cheap as possible. From my experience I find that hard to do. Ive wasted a lot of money on cheap speakers and headunits, so I save up before I waste money on junk. Good audio equipment overall is expensive.

I notice you keep mentioning Pyle. I used some of their stuff for a boat and wasnt happy with it. To me it seemed like real cheap stuff. Read a lot of bad reviews also.

 

its cheap, but if you click the links and see the prices, you'll understand why. I would personally go with the kicker option over the pyle, but I was just trying to offer different options for different price points.

If you notice, in my second post I note that I'd take good quality used over new stuff like pyle.

Unfortunately for cheap shaft radios with an aux input it looks like pyle is one of few manufacturers still in the game. It appears that dual quit selling the one that I have, which was $40 and is a very nice unit.