Love my car, but the stereo is definitely lacking. Since I know nothing (well, almost nothing) about car audio, I was hoping I could get some recommendations from some experts (that's me playing to your egos )

I am not sure even how much money I should spend and am just beginning research. I just want a little more bass (crisp stuff, not the stuff that makes your car sound stupid driving by) and a smidge more volume and clarity in the midrange. What do I do?

If you don't feel like responding fully could you just drop some quality names for stereo equipment so I don't get taken at the audio shops. Thanks.

 

dude, set a price so that you don't go over. trust me, you may want something decent now, but when you go to buy it, you'll find that you suddenly need a lot of things you never even considered b4! BUT, to start you off:

hu- jvc, blaupunkt, kenwood, alpine ...it's a matter of taste
midrange- infinity references
2ch. amp- kicker, rockford, alpine, (anything underrated)
sub- infinity perfect, a/d/s, fusion powerplant, alumapro alusonic (all pretty good sq)

with the list above, look to spend about $800+ or so. but i've stated this b4, do it right the first time and you should be okay. try to tell us more of what you want, how much you wanna put into the system ($$$) and i'm sure more help will come.

 

I have about $500 to spend. what should I get first?

 

Speakers and a 5ch amp if you want a basic system ($500)Speakers and a 4ch amp to start a more elaborate system ($1500+)

MB Quart, Infinity, DEI Studio, Boston Acoustics...

DEI, Rockford Fostgate, PPI, JL, JBL....

Since i get gear at cost and do this for a living, i've spent about half of the retail + installation price

 

Not to disagree with mazdaspeedwest, who does stereos for a living, but I would go for a new head unit first.

You'll be very surprised how much better the stock speakers will perform with a better headunit powering them. Your $500 can go a LONG way when buying a deck - you'll probably end up with a good amount of change left at the end - maybe even half your money.

Plus, with a good deck, you can always upgrade the speakers, and do amps/sub later on. Putting any kind of amp in right now requires more work when hooking up to the stock deck - you have to get the signal to the amps thru the speaker wires, rather than RCA cables - more work to install, and not the best way to do it - RCAs are a much better way to go, and with a new deck you will have that in place for future upgrades.

Just a quick example of how this works well: My fiancee's mother has a Chrysler Sebring, and the stock CD player just quit working. For her birthday, we got her a new Kenwood CD deck - nothing fancy, probably one of the cheapest they make - about $150. I installed it, and the sound quality difference in her car is amazing. It's no competition setup, of course - she was happy enough just to have a functional CD player again - but she's thrilled at the extra volume and definition the music has now. I was surprised myself.

Just MHO, but I say spend half (or a little more) of your alotted money on a deck - put the rest aside for the future stuff. Fact is, for a "starter" system, you could get a nice deck, a small amp and modest sub for maybe $700 - $800 and be VERY happy with the results. I spent about that much on my "starter" system (now mostly in the closet, of course), and I installed new speakers all around, got an MP3 CD head unit, and a very low budget amp and sub.

BTW - do your own installations - it's rewarding and fun., and can save you some bucks, too.

 

in my post, i said speakers and AMP. thus the stock HU is strictly a source unit. The install is actually easier, as the dash is not even touched and the long wire/cable runs are drastically reduced. All you need is a power wire from the battery. The line out converters can tag the rear speaker wires, your RCAs will be short runs (even as short as 1 foot) and the addition of a remote turn-on module can also tag the same rear speaker wires. The longest part of the install is peeling off the door panels.

True the sound won't be quite as good as a direct RCA feed from the HU, but i seriously doubt you'll hear a difference without some test equipment.

Yes the stock speakers will perform better with more power, but they are only rated as much as the stock deck can put out, so with the addition of more power, they become very limited, very fast.

 

are hifonic amps any good?

 

Yeah. But the head unit they put in these things is a piece of crap. He should start with a head unit and get rid of skippy. Start replacing speakers and stuff later. Just don't think that buying the most expensive head unit out there is going to make your system sound awesome. Buy something with some RCA outs (for your amp later) and then start working on the rest. And avoid Sony like the plague. I've had nothing but trouble from mine.

 

i will agree with you whole heartedly on that.....avoid sony... sony is aweful!

 

they aren't as good as the older stuff, but still pretty good nonetheless. i was thinking about some zeus amps when i first started building my system.

 

I was thinking about getting a pair of Kicker CompVR woofers, a KENWOOD KDC-MP819 CD/MP3/CDR Car Player, and a HIFONICS Z700 5 channel amp. What do you think of starting out with these parts?

 

that kenwood is a great head unit, im not a big fan of kickers, but.... the kicker comps are supposedly great subs

 

my brother ran the comp vr's in his mustang for a little while b4 someone gave him two rockford 10's, they hit pretty hard and sounded okay. it sounds like a pretty good setup. are you within budget? that's always important unless you have so much money you can actually wipe your @ss with $100 bills...

what spkrs are you going with? i'm a fan of dual amps vs. one 5ch amp, only because sooner or later you're gonna want more from your sub(s) and will want another amp anyways. if you're staying with the stock spkrs, go with a good 2ch amp for the sub and run the spkrs off the hu. when you upgrade your midrange, you can buy the second amp at the same time.

 

I am thinking of buying a hifonics amp from this guy on ebay and told him I was wanting to run 2 12" woofers with the amp and he suggested I use a stiffening cap with it. What's that? Does that mean the amp is underpowered?

 

stiffening caps are like "wells" for your power. it stores the juice and delivers when it's needed. the more power your system requires, the harder your alternator works (dimming lights etc.) some would say a cap is useless as you should upgrade the alternator instead, but i run a 1farad cap and my sounds are just fine. i think the rule is 0.5farad per 500w, but i could be wrong.

two 12's huh? well with that much bass, you'll be upgrading your spkrs soon, then your amps and then it starts all over again... i don't know what you want from your system, but if you're not planning to get those mids and highs sounding cherry, two 12's might be a bit much...unless you're a basshead!

good luck on your sounds!