zoomin

Here's my situation.

I know quite a bit about home audio but I know nothing about car audio.

I have a 8000km road trip coming up three weeks from now and I want to upgrade the stereo.

'95 Saab 900 S 2-door hatchback.
4" OEM speakers in dash.
Spaces for 6.5" woofers in doors but they are empty.
6x9 OEM speakers behind back seats.
Old 8" bazooka tube, powered (250w ?) wired through the rear speaker cables *somehow*.
OEM Clarion 6 disk changer in trunk operated by the head unit.

My budget is $2000.

I have been to 5 places in town and they all have given me different advice?!

One shop I went to said that my budget was not big enough to do component speakers and that I might as well get a new HU and some 6.5" coaxials and be done with it. He said that there are no HU available that can properly power good quality component speakers and good quality component speakers start at $500 - anything less than that is a waste of money.

Another shop said that I should get a new high powered HU and some expensive Focal component speakers and that would be great; more than enough power form an Alpine 4x50 HU for the Focal separates he said (keeping my old bazooka tube and the old 6x9 in the back)).

Another said I should throw out the old bazooka tube and get a new sub, amp and component speakers, all lower quality to fit my budget. Bas it the most important thing and the bazooka is too old and no good, he says.

Another said I should keep my OEM head unit, use some weird box that takes the speaker level outputs from HU and run them to a new amp for new component speakers (keeping the old bazooka tube and OEM 6x9s).

I am confused.

Your advice appreciated.

Other notes:

I am interested in SQ first and foremost, not high volume levels, or disproportionate bass. I am an old fart - so when I say my tastes do not include disproportionate bass, please believe me

I do have over 10k in my home audio system so I do know good sound when I hear it (Arcam, ATC, Denon). One place I went to they played me some $600 J&L separated through a $800 J&L amp and it sounded terrible - hurt my ears.

I do have an iPod and would like to incorporate that in some way (losslessly compressed); Auxiliary line in could be adequate though, but the Alpine HUs i saw with the iPod link were pretty cool.

I do sort of like the idea of going stealth by keeping the OEM head unit and not jazzing the dash up with blinking lights, etc, but not if this is going to *really* negatively impact SQ. The OEM head unit does have a proprietary output that I could work with to provide a single line out to go to amps.

There is a local HiFi place that also does car audio that I am going to check out on Monday- hopefully they have some good advice.

MR2NR

iTrader: (66)

Add me to MSN if you have it, forbidden@telus.net. Maybe a small road trip for you is in order.

zoomin

I work out of Nanaimo - Parksville quite often so you just might see me this week coming up.

zzzzzzz

iTrader: (5)

if i was in your spot i would run up to MR2NR see what his input is
i have used him befor

but a new Clarion deck will not work with a 1995 OEM Clarion 6 disk i think

i would look at a 3 way speaker ( focal had a nice 3 way with a 4" mid)

there is alot of decks out there that are not big $ that you will be happy with

look at if you can get last years amp for less then this years amps