Yes they are that bad. As far as having a budget, why would you spend 300.00 on a nice 4 channel amp when instead you can spend it on a good HU and I'm almost certain it will sound better. Yeah, you can say well the amp is providing 50 watts rms to the spaeakers and the HU would only be around 15 rms, but like T-red said, it's all about the main source. Let me give you an example. in one of my previous cars, My system consisted of a jvc "lower end model POS " HU, a soundstream ref 300 amp running a pair of mb quart coaxials and a pair of clif designs components at 2 ohms, and a soundstream ref 700 running 3 JL 10 w6's. Now it sounded pretty good as far as the bass goes, but the clarity just wasn't there. So, here's my point, I switched out the jvc cd player and put in an eclipse "don't remember the model #" and I couldn't believe the difference. Every speaker in my car sounded completely different. The results were truly amazing, and It wasn't because I added any power, it was just alot better source.
