So I don't have much money at all. My car was a gift. It didnt even run, I had to fix it. So once I did that, I wanted something loud. Not loud for the neighborhood to hear but loud enough for me. I'm a hard rock and metal junkie.
So the stock had a really low quality clarion cassette head and speakers.
I live on a small island in Hawaii where the only 2 chain stores on the island are NAPA and Subway.
Time for head units. So I walk into Napa and get the best thing they have available. A crappy audiovox. It broke after about 3 months before it broke (had it in a previous car that blew its engine). So next time I go back I find a a slightly better system and opt for it, at the islands awful rate of 200$ for a Jensen. Now I've had Jensen products before, but not car audio. (they made the best set of behind the head earphones I ever had) So I figured they would be good. And it was excellent. For about a year now. It started randomly resetting about 2 weeks ago and now it wont turn on at all (doesnt help that I punched it when it kept resetting).
About the speakers: up front I had a couple 4inch 3way Bostons. I couldnt find a good place for them to mount and eventually people ended up kicking them to death accidentally. So currently I have a pair of ho-hum Pioneers mounted on the middle dash column. I've gotten a lot of shit for this but the doors are thin with power windows and I SUCK at fabricating. Anyway they sound perfectly fine where they are, at least for my ears, which is the most important thing.
The rear is a horror story. I couldn't get any rear speakers, so I did something dumb and brought in some old house shelf speakers. They look awful but they sound amazing.
Now the bass line: Well I never could afford a sub, which killed me, my family never had anything that could produce decent bass. So one day I was at the local junkyard and spot a sub box someone left. Was a dual 12" kicker box, with a seperator between the subs and pretty large double ports on each side.. Well it was free so I grabbed it and the old ratty single Kicker that was left in it, as well as 2 JBLs that had the surround ripped to shreds. (ended up throwing away the JBLs). Since the one kicker worked and the seperator between the subs was thick and solid, I decided to cut er in half and paint the new exterior black. Worked fine, but couldnt afford an amp, I had to use an AC converter on a indoor amp. Which worked surprisingly well.
So one day I'm just browsing amazon checking reviews, and I don't notice I hace one-click buying turned on. End up getting an amp in the mail explaining why I was suddenly missing 250$. Turned out I ordered some sony xplod "class d monoblock". At least it was grey/black/blue, exactly the colors of my car. So I strap this thing in, the instructions tell me to use 4g wire, so I do, and I throw in a 60A inline fuse under the hood just in case. (hey I started out as an electrician) Anyway the old kicker can't handle this new power at all, and within a week at half power it crackles its way into oblivion. There were no marks on that sub except the kicker 'K' so I dont know the ratings and ohms even. Eventually I was taking a trip to a neighbor island and went through a WalMart. Not a great place for car audio but they had a clearance on a sub, a 12" sony xplod. I had heard some bad things about xplod but this was the only chance I'd get of affording a new sub so I grabbed it. At least its the round one and not the awful pentagonal one I've heard horror stories about. The specs claimed equal exactly to my amp. I figured that I'd have less problems with the same company and rating equipment for both. I still have this setup now. It hits very hard. I mostly listen to hard rock and metal that require long held raspy notes and this thing is up for the challenge each time. The whole thing has more features than I know what for, with distortion things and variable crossover selections and boost and all that.
So now that my head broke, I went in search of another. I got some xmas cash, but my wife doesnt like me spending on cars so it was limited. I took a trip to cardomain/sounddomain store. Picked up a 180$ panasonic MP3/CD that was on sale. All the free mounting things, rebates and free shipping made me say "Wow mebbe I have enough to buy something and get rid of those godawful boxes in the rear!" so I input my car details and it shows me what fits. I dont have much so I gotta opt for something cheap: I grab some clarion 2-ways that supposedly fit the stock mounting.
So for summary:
Panasonic Head Unit (in shipping)
Front Pioneer 6.5"s (hopefully replace these soon)
Rear Clarion 4" 2ways (in shipping)
Sony Xplod Sub Amp
Sony Xplod 12" Sub in Kicker Box (hopefully replace the box sometime)
Its total crap but I'm poor and it sounds great to me.
