eBay is a flea market. Would you trust anything you buy at a flea market? or even a flea market where you can't examine the merchanise before purchasing? Couple months ago I bought a DEI backup siren for the alarm I've been planning to install. The listing showed a current model siren, what I received was a 7 year old model. I contacted the seller and she insisted that what she did was not false representation and acted like she was doing me such a great favor by offering a refund sans return shipping cost. Unless it's a durable item represented by good photographs, my advice is to flee from eBay.

Crutchfield has great customer service. But, their prices are nothing near street price (unless it's on sale). Usually slightly lower than MSRP and not much more. Sounddomain.com's service is not nearly as good, but they do have better prices. If you look around hard enough you can find some incredible prices online, but beware. Many of these discount dealers aren't authorized dealers and will not honor warranty repairs. If they do, it's a real hassle to ship the item back and forth.

For example, I bought a Yamaha 5.1 Receiver from etronics.com 2 years ago. While it was the best home theater receiver I've ever owned, it quit after a year. When I tried to have it repaired, I found out etronics wasn't an authorized dealer (which explains the $100 price difference) and what warranty I had with Yamaha was basically void. Etronic did take it back for repairs but failed to repair it correctly. The receiver became a pile of junk.

Buyer beware.