You also have to consider that for a lot of poor people like me, the cost is more than just the Empeg.

Okay, right, that's a given. But for the purposes of my calculation, amplifier cost is also a fixed variable that can't be changed.

In fact, I'm kind of cutting my throat because unless I buy an uber-expensive amp that I can tune WAY down, the voltage that is going to be sent through to my crappy factory speakers will slowly kill them. I'll have to replace them down the road, and that's further expense.

That's not the way amplifiers work. A more powerful amplifier actually increases the life of your speakers as long as you don't turn up the gains too loud.

See, a cheap low-power amp will clip the signal when you turn up the volume. This is what is bad for the speakers. A more powerful amplifier gives you more headroom so that you can send a cleaner signal to the speakers without clipping.

And amps don't have to be expensive to be gain-tunable. In fact, nowadays you're hard-pressed to find any amplifier that doesn't have crossovers and gain adjustments built-in.

Pay for installation. I could probably be able to get away with just installing the Empeg into my car, but there's no way in hell I'd be able to know the first thing about installing an amp into a car that's never had one.

Okay, installation is an issue for those who aren't comfortable with it, agreed. Again, that's a fixed cost factor which can't be changed by Sonic|blue.

If it's any consolation, I've installed amps in a few different cars. And while it's a lot of work, it's nothing that's particularly mind-bending. The only difficult part is getting the proper panels and bits of carpet lifted so that you can run the wires. And that's going to be different for every car, so even most stereo installation shops are flying by the seat of their pants to do those. You can get all the necessary wiring and connections in a kit from Crutchfield, along with a worth-its-weight-in-gold master sheet that shows you how to dismantle your dashboard.