I am seeking some advice... I am giong to scrap all of my bose junk. That being said, I plan on adding one 10" sub/and a 1 channel amp. As for the rest of the speakers, what should I do? I am thinking about replacing the components in the doors w/ some aftermarket (Infinity, alpine, or JL) 6.5" components. From there I'm not sure if I should just disconnect everything else and just have the door components and sub. I am thinking about replacing the 6x9's with some more 6.5" components. Any opinions? Should I do something different altogether? Any opinions help.

 

IMO it sounds like you are on the right track. Get a DD conversion and an aftermarket head unit of your choice (Eclipse, Pioneer, Alpine, etc), change out the front speakers for a good set of components (Focal is my fav but there are lots of good choices) and then get some decent coax 6x9's for the rear. Your front stage is much more important than the rear for normal audio setups so I would not spend the extra money on components for the rear. Last, make sure and get good amps. I would not run the speakers on head unit power. Get a good 4ch amp for them and a good 2/1 for the sub.

 

I am on a budget, so here is what I have so far. I have the Metra kit, both metra harnesses (7550 and 7551 were included with the dash kit, as well as the antenna adapter). I got the Metra b/c i didn't want to mess with fabricating peices to fill in the gaps I hear the JDM kit leaves. I have a JVC Arsenal KW-ADV790 head unit. At least for the time being I am bypassing the Bose amp and running new wiring to the door components and deck 6x9's, but I may eventually add another amp to power them. I have a kicker zx330.1 amp and a kicker cvr10d4 sub. None of this is installed yet, just piling up in my guestroom closet. Any opinion of kicker? I had a kicker amp and some kicker subs YEARS ago, and they were very nice. I may them for all my speakers.

 

if you have the budget and room to add another amp for your mids, do it, dont even think about it.

What is the over all budget?
What I do is allow so much for mids
so much for amps
etc

If it were me, id go listen to as many mids as I could, they all sound a little diffrant

 

also, people will recomend stuff to you ...but your ears my not like the way the sound.

I REALLY like the sound of older Boston speakers and the newer CDT ES drivers but some people like Infinity or JL

its all personal preferance

 

I would hold off and do two amps at the same time if you can. Even if you use the stock interior speakers for the short term.

If you don't I would make sure and provision for the other amp; run two sets of RCA's (F&R), large enough power wire for both amps and make sure your speaker wires are easy to access. Just a way to save time when you make the switch.

 

I will definately go check out as many speakers as it takes to make a reasonable decision. The JVC DVD only has one set of preamp outputs, so what would be the best way to run to sets of RCA's if/when I do hook up a seconds amp? Will splitting them lower the output?

 

You can run them and leave them disconnected as provisions for the future. You can split them as needed but since you are only going to run a sub amp for now you are ok.

 

Does splitting them lower their output?

 

Thanks for the advice guys... I've decided what I am going to do. I listened to some Infinity Reference, Alpine, Polk, Kicker, and Pioneer. IMO the pioneers didn't sound very good, the Polks were OK, the Alpine and the Kicker were nice and sounded the same to me, and the Infinity (reference series) sounded best. I am going with the Kicker's - components in the doors, 6x9's in the deck, and the solve the preamp issue I am going to buy an EQ... I just hope it doesn't effect the Dolby surround sound when I am watching DVD's.

 

If you need a set of front speaker spacer, I have an extra set I never used. I will let them go really cheap. PM me if you are interested.

 

i just bought infinity kappa components for my fronts and infinity reference for the rears and i am more than pleased. you can find the kappas that are normally 260 in stores for sale right now bc they are discontnuing some of the line. i bought them at fry electronics for 155, as for the reference speakers i found them on sale for 68 at brandsmart usa. despite a lot of people hating on infinity speakers, i love the quality of the highs that come from my components. good luck with the set up, its a very fun process, but kinda costly...

 

^^^^ best information in here!!

first thing you should do is determine how much money you want to spend on speakers and your amp. dedicate ~60-70% to the amp and the rest to the speakers. when choosing speakers face away from the soundboard and have someone play some music you know have another person switch between songs that way you will be unbiased by name or price.
That's what I had people do in the 3 shops I worked at.

 

Your budget should be determined as others have mentioned.

As for components in the rear, I would pass on that as it is entirely unnecesary. Frankly, speakers in the rear are unnecessary but some people still like real fill. That said, look into coaxials for the rears and not components.

The coaxials don't need to be powered off a seperate amp, the stock one will do just fine. I wouldn't spend all that much on the rear speakers either, focus on the front speakers since that is where your stage is. You want to be facing the music, not against it.

As for the front, components are a good route to go. As for brand, it depends on your budget. Image Dynamics makes a nice affordable set, or you can go with something high end such as Brax, Dynaudio, Zapco, etc. (Don't want to post dump, but I have Zapco CK 16.2 components for sale and have recently put them up on eBay if you are interested).

As for the sub, determine how much space you are willing to use. Generally, 10" subs don't require much airspace, so you don't have too much to worry about.

I like TroyG's tip on having someone else switching the speakers on the soundboard, however, I wouldn't recommend facing away from them...you want to face the speakers to hear the sound how it should be. It's a simple test. Grab a speaker and put it in front of you, play music, see how it sounds, then face the speaker away and play music. It will sound different. Here's the tricky part, when you put it in the car, the speakers won't be facing you direcetly (on axis), so either you create kick pods, or you use time alignment, that is if you want the effect of music being played in front of you in the center of the car on your dash about eye level, otherwise, it will come from the sides and you will be able to tell that. For this, I would recommend getting a deck that has good active capabilities or a processor. If you don't want to go that extent, no need to. We all have different tastes