Custom Car Stereo — Local services in Charleston

Your expectations will be exceeded. If you want to know who the best is, this is it. The team at CCS pulled off what I can only describe as impossible. I purchased a 2017 Yamaha 242 LTD S a couple weeks ago and needed to have tower speakers and a 10" sub installed. The boat dealer built in the installed price into the contract so I had already "pre-paid" for this install. I was originally sent to Dealer Electronic Services (DES) but was really disappointed in their customer service. I was told that they didn't have time, that they could get to it the following week (mind you after being told they were ready), and that they had received no direction from the boat dealer. All of this was unacceptable, but I told them ok. Thursday of that week (two days later), I receive a call from DES that I needed to pick my boat up because they were leaving early both Thurs and Fri. Interesting since they HAD WORK TO DO. Nevertheless, I informed my boat dealer and they were just as upset. My dealer picked up the boat and took it to CCS (on Friday). I met with Nick Friday afternoon and walked around the boat and showed him where I'd like everything to go. He wasn't optimistic that they would be done with the whole project, but guaranteed that I would have my boat back Saturday so I could hit the water. I get a call Saturday afternoon with fantastic news - the install went so well that they would be finished by 16:00 that day. WHAT?! ONE DAY NOTICE and they complete the whole job?! How is this possible...? Well, I get down there to pick it up and it blew my mind how good everything looked and sounded. They paid attention to every slight detail. The locations turned out perfect and their cable management was excellent. They performed a demo for me and made sure everything was just as clean as when it arrived. I was also pleasantly surprised that they only charged about 60% of what the dealer expected, so I'm receiving a nice little refund as well.

Now that this phase of the audio upgrade is complete and the impossible was pulled off, my boat dealer has severed ties to DES and will be sending their work to CCS from now on. Very good call - spending $68k on a boat with a few grand in audio to be treated like a 2nd class citizen will quickly run patience thin.

CCS is now doing the tint job for the boat and I'm excited to have that project completed. I'll update after it's complete.

Extra compliments to Nick - He has treated this project and me as a priority 1 issue and resolved it to the best of anyone's ability. I'm thoroughly impressed and will only consider recommending my friends, family, and colleagues to...

Wow!!! Wow!!! Wow!!! Did I mention wow by chance? Friday afternoon at 5 o’clock. Which is perhaps the absolute busiest time for a car stereo business. Having issues with an Alpine 8” display head unit and just wanted some general information.

Better put, I was only expecting some general information and even at that lowest level of service, considering the time I chose to call, was mentally prepared to be impressed.

Was expecting the typical rushed, yeah yeah yeah, you’re not actually attempting to get diagnostic advice over the phone are you? Along with the customary response “we’ll have to take a look at it sir, just best to bring it in.”

What actually took place, and I don’t know if this is representative of their entire staff, is I was lucky enough to run into an individual called A.J. I scarcely believe that winning the lottery that day would have made me much happier :)

A.J. absolutely blew the lid off of any expectations I would’ve had by calling in and speaking with somebody at their slowest possible time, with a call reservation made ahead of time.

He is the ultimate in professionalism, combined with product knowledge and experience second to none.

He’s the picture perfect salesman, the quintessential car stereo expert you would expect to see on the magazine cover of an audio magazine!

In fact trying to attach the title “car stereo salesman” actually belittles him as he is just so much more than that.

At NO time did I feel rushed. At NO time did I feel like I was asking too many questions and trust me, I can ask a lot of questions. At NO time did I feel my questions were too stupid.

In short you have crossed paths with someone you no longer thought existed in the car stereo industry. And that is an expert that doesn’t feel like you’re beneath him, an expert that understands you do not have the knowledge he has. A top notch, almost inconceivable knowledge of available and newest products to hit the market, while taking you to an arena of equal playing field and explains it to you in layman‘s terms that you will fully understand.

To not call this company and to not specifically request A.J. would be the single, biggest mistake of your life if you are looking to do absolutely any upgrades to your vehicles audio or video system.

Yeah, he was...

I brought my 2009 Hyundai Genesis in to get the sound system fixed. I had some blown speakers.

It is an older vehicle, but I've had it for 10 years and with 187K miles it is my favorite vehicle. I worked with Bryan. He was nice and helpful. He suggested I buy the Focal 165AS3 speakers and said I could get a Bluetooth adapter (I couldn't get the head unit replaced in the car). So I bought the speakers and Bluetooth adapter, and with labor it was $1722. I initially did not like the sound at all -- but I noticed that the equalizer had been turned all the way down for treble, bass, and mid. Once I adjusted that, it sounded better, not fantastic.

The subwoofer sounded really bad, so I opted to replace that during a 2nd visit. The original quote was around $400, but the replacement subwoofer didn't sound good (they did tell me this over the phone), so they convinced me to buy the JL ACP110LG-TW1 10 inch sub. It sounds great! When I picked up the car this time, I noticed some workmanship things that needed fixing -- the backseat needed to be pushed back more, and some plastic panels underneath the driver controls needed to be popped back in. I mentioned this, and they took it back and fixed it immediately. This sub work ended up costing $1295.

Lastly, I noticed that the speakers were very harsh when playing the highs of rock/metal music -- my ears would ache when playing music at high volumes. I went in for a 3rd time and worked with Bryan to swap out the tweeters in the Focal kit I bought from them in favor of a cheaper Rockford tweeter T1TS. It sounds much better now. This work was $317. It was a little disappointing that I had to swap out tweeters from the kit that I had just bought, but I'm glad it was improved. It's not perfect, but Bryan explained that I'd need a new Equalizer to get it sounding how I want it to.

Ultimately, they worked with me and my sound is better than before. I really like the Bluetooth connectivity that I now have.

I'm not in love with my system though, especially since it was $3335 total. But it is a marked improvement. Perhaps my expectations were unreasonable -- I had planned on spending $1300 before I had...