As someone who does this every day, I'd like to break this down and give my thoughts if you don't mind.
Back in the day, I could buy some mid level gear, install it all and be good to go. It seemed to sound incredible.
Maybe. Customers tell me this all the time, and what they end up telling me is something along the lines of "Yeah, I had some components and a 2 channel amp and a 12" sub and it was SO good". Me personally, I still to this day feel like I haven't heard a car as good as my past 300ZX. But I know one thing. Nostalgia is a *****, and lies to you. I know damn well that their basic and probably hacked install from 25 years ago didn't sound good, just as my first major install while learning how to tune probably wasn't incredible either. Don't discount that your standards have probably gone way up since then, and what you thought was great back then, wouldn't cut it for you now.
I believe the reality is that stock car stereo’s sounded terrible back then but that’s not entirely true today. Today’s stock stereos are tuned by professionals and most sound decent - may r
Yes, older OEM systems were terrible, and todays are getting better. But I'd be lying if I said any of them weren't worthy of bothering to upgrade. Not a single OEM system has impressed me to the point where I wouldn't bother swapping anything if it were my car (and I'm very tolerant of what I consider acceptable when it comes to my own personal car), and I have only heard maybe 2 or 3 that were actually decent. But, my standards here don't matter. It's our clients who make that call, and yes, more of the general population is now content with their OEM system. Thankfully, more of the higher-end cars surprisingly come with very crappy OEM systems, and those guys have money to play with.
Now it is incredibly expensive and labor intensive to purchase the equipment and get it to sound good.
It is definitely a bit more expensive and labor-intensive, but how could you expect it to not be, ya know? Newer cars are a bit trickier to work on, especially luxury and exotic vehicles. Integration is harder due to more complex OEM systems and not being able to swap radios, but frankly, this shouldn't be a problem for any professional. Not saying it isn't, but it shouldn't be.
You can spend a fortune on great gear (I have) and have a system that sounds ok or worse than stock.
Install, tuning, or integration problem. Or a combination. it is extremely easy to do better than stock. One of our common upgrades that we dont post about much is our "Stage-1" upgrade, which is just a DSP amplifier on OEM speakers. Integrate it to the OEM system, tune it, and bam. 6 hours or less of work and you have something thats much better than the factory system. Its nothing crazy, but definitely a major improvement.
Unless you are a sound engineer or eternal car audio hobbyist forget about getting it to sound great. You can pay for a tune if you can find someone that can do it but its unbelievably hard to find someone that can do it well.
Yes, it is definitely hard to find someone good at tuning. But, in modern car audio systems, tuning isnt the only factor here. OEM systems need to be integrated into properly. I have seen so many systems, from hobbyists and shops alike, that did an incorrect or flat out terrible job at integrating into the OEM system and it wont matter how good the install, equipment, or tune are. It cant be saved. But yes, for a hobbyist, this can definitely be daunting depending on the vehicle. Take my car for example (2019 Volvo S60 R-Design with the HK system). I'd bet most pros would struggle integrating into it properly and getting it to sound great, let alone hobbyists who dont have much OEM integration knowledge or experience. So this is also partially what keeps people coming to shops.. things being more complicated and they dont want to mess with it themselves and know their limits.
