So the other day for my birthday, I was allowed by my lovely wife to buy anything my heart desired. I have been missing a subwoofer in the car for a long time (I like my music to sound full), so this was my wish.
In America, electronics don't get huge import taxes, so you can get cheap electronics. In Malaysia, everything imported is taxed (even if it was originally made in Malaysia, shipped elsewhere for packing, and imported back to Malaysia), so electronics are expensive.
The result is either over-priced name branded electronics or slightly overpriced off brand electronics. This is not the land of cheap electronics... Also, refurbished means used - ie not good.
So we stopped at a shop, bought a cheap amp and subwoofer for about $80 US. Both were off brands, and there was nothing special about them. I bought a small branded (Bazooka) amplifier and sub in the US on EBay for $40, refurbished, for my truck and it sounded great... I decided to save money and install it myself.
I spend about 4 hours meticulously installing it. I was careful to run my power wires separate from my audio wires, made sure all the connections were good, etc. I finally got everything ready, turned on the car and heard my beautiful amp for about 2 seconds. Then - nothing. I took it back. The shop said maybe it was my wiring, but after checking, they confirmed that an electrical engineer could hook up 4 wires. They replaced the amp and everything was good... for 3 days.
On the way to work a few days later, I noticed no bass... hrm. Again, the amp was not working. I went back to the shop, and the manager said maybe the amp was not powerful enough for the speaker, so i paid more (about $40) to get a better amp. They installed it, and I was on my way... until the magic smoke came out of the amplifier. We u turned and to the dismay of the manager, he installed another amp.
Guess what happened next? Yep, more magic smoke. Another amplifier bad. At that point we had already spent 4 hours at the shop, so we called him to let him know, but told him we would come back later. Today we went, and he replaced the amp AND the speaker (probably the culprit all along). When he put it in, the LED light indicating the amp was on didn't work, so they had to switch to another amplifier... Finally, all was good. They installed it and everything was AOK. We drove home and made it past "the spot" (where both amps had let out all the smoke).
A bit of a fiasco... 5 burned up amplifiers until finally the 6th worked. Hopefully its not false hope. Even with all that, the manager was positive and still understood that if he treated me right, I would go back the next time I wanted something (and I will). we talked for 10 minutes after all of this and he was very friendly. We are hoping that the amp and speaker behave for a few weeks so we can go visit him with smiles and then invite him out for dinner to say thanks for treating us well.
Oh, and because every time you install the amp you have to take out the seat, one of the bolts in the seat got broken, so we have to go to a shop to get it replaced... ahh.. nothing is simple in Malaysia!
