Good head unit with 4-volt preouts (won't recommend one, 'cause it's all personal preference) : ~$300
The goto
www.thezeb.com and get these off the specials page:
PPI 4-channel PPI4480 Amplifier (60x4): $278
MB Quart Ref. 3-way components: $284
(put the tweets and 4" mid in the door panel, 5.25" in a kick panel)
Finish it off with a good set of 6x8s in the rear doors, with low pass filters setup to get rid of the high stuff (keep it from ruining your front imaging). Shouldn't cost more than $150 for them
Leaves you $200-500 for installation hardware and labor. Enjoy
BTW, I just ordered the Nakimichi components from them on sunday and got them today, excellent service.
BTW, you mentioned you wanted a good amount of "tight" bass without subs. Won't happen. You main speakers aren't physically capable of delivering real bass without distorting badly (IMHO), it just won't happen. If you want any real bass, you'd have to do something like install some 8" mid-bass drivers in your rear doors, or get a small (8" or 10") sealed sub box and put it in your trunk, powered by a relatively small amp (100-200 watts RMS). That will give you a good underlying bass to your music that you can't get from regular speakers. Adding subs to a stereo won't turn your car into ratteling bass-trap, it's just how you've got it tuned (I'm running 800 watts to a 12" sub, but it's all tuned beautifully to compliment the mids and highs in my stereo, although if I wanted to it could make my windows shake with the press of a button). Just my $.02
Doh! One more thing I mentioned. All this cool stuff is only gonna be as clean as the patch cables you run. Those cheap patch cables that they sell in amp installation kits are noise-prone simply to get you to spend $50 on a good set from the store. Get the "Stinger Bullet Series" patch cables from
http://www.audiophiles-online.com. They're just as good as those $50+ cables at less than half the cost!
[This message has been edited by Steve Bassen (edited November 29, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Steve Bassen (edited November 29, 2000).]
