Okay, I absolutely LOVE my new G35 coupe to death. Everyone I show it to loves it, and is absolutely crazy about the looks, expecially since I am 17 and drive one of (if not the) hottest car in the school. But besides that, there is only ONE thing I dislike about this car. The "Premium" sound system is a joke. I knew coming into this that any BOSE system is overrated, overpriced CRAP, but I was never expecting it to be this bad. Granted, I do have very high standards but the audio in this thing is horrible. I can barely stand to listen to it anymore. Everything about the car is impressive, from the looks to the ride and everything, besides the sound system.

Someone had suggested that I start out with an amplifier, and that should increase the quality of everything from speakers to subs. I will eventually probably end up replacing everything, but what should I start out replacing on a budget to increase sound quality. Would a new amp help, and if you can, please suggest some good ones. I was reffered to Phoenix Gold, but there are many models and such out there, and I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to car audio, so help me out there. Right now, I have about $400 that I am willing to spend, and then slowly upgrade over the months, so any suggestions are appriciated.

Thanks.

 

If you have only $400 to spend, my advice would be to save that money and continue to save. IMO, I wouldn't do incremental upgrades as it will cost more in the end for installation. Also, you don't want to piecemeal your upgrades where one set of components don't sound good with another set of separate upgrades. A good decent complete system over haul will run you about $2-3K. $400 doesn't really get you anything.

BUT.....if you insist....
1. Add 10uF cap to stock tweeters ($0.99 each at RadioShack) and/or
2. Add Infinity Basslink and splice off your rear speakers (~$299 on ebay) or
3. Upgrade your front components ($200-500).

That's all pretty much $400 will get you. Simply upgrading the amp will only produce more crap sound...the reason? The stock speakers suck and are the main culprits to the bad sound quality, so just upgrading the amp and keeping the stock speakers will not improve things and certainly dissapoint you.

Again, I would save up and do it all at once, I always advise against incremental upgrades on the G.

hope this helps....
doc