Sort of a Monster Garage'ish challenge for me. Currently have the stock Bose 6CD installed with an Audiovox 5000 Nav system in the cubby (came with the car). I want to upgrade the audio (shocker) and have a shop nearby thats gotten good reviews on their installation work. But I am looking to do it all within the confines of the existing stock interior. I actually like the minimalist look and feel of the stock interior, so I'm not at all looking for anything flashy, no neon flashing head units with blinking crap all over the place, no tearing out big chunks of panelling, no building woofer boxes in the trunk (need the golf bag room). I guess that essentially means I'm looking to upgrade the head unit, speakers, and sub. Also thinking about working a sat radio into the mix somehow.

So hit me with some ideas. I would ideally like to breakdown the pricing two ways, lets go with what would you do for under $1,000 and then over.

 

stock output to HLC to a nice amp. New components up front and a 10" in the stock location would be my suggest. Also, I don't see why people consider a 12" in the trunk a waste of space (besides losing the spare)..you can build them flush with the floor and cover them when you need to haul clubs.

 

I sort of followed that but tossed the subwoofer under the strut bar - I don't golf and there's still enough room to throw an AR-15 and a bunch of ammo back there.

I put in a Pioneer AVIC N2 as when it's closed and with the face plate removed it looks pretty darn boring looking. The 7" Farenhiet DVD screen is behind the front stock navigation door. The door speakers only show a different tweeter mounted in the stock location. The brains for the N2 went under the passenger's seat. The two amplifers when in the stock sub-woofer location - I did try mounting a free-air sub-woofer there and got less than good results ... therefore the under strut box which doesn't show too much with the rear hatch closed. I put a 6-disc CD-changer in one of the two map pockets over the shoulders. The stock "lugage cubby" behind the passenger's seat is empty except for the LED lighting I added. The iPod interface and iPod sit in the console's cubby with a nice LED light to illuminate it after dark.

Sort of a sleeper. When I take the car to 'Vegas and need the extra trunk room I simply pull the speaker box out a bit, disconnect the wires, run wire nuts over them to prevent short circuits and load up.

 

I will be puting a bass link into the the stock sub location. I'll let you know how it sounds when I'm done.

I will have xm, nav, exc and the only thing that will look non stock is the head unit.

I am also fan of the way the stock interior looks and wood like to keep it that way.

 

Do a search to look at my sub location. It is better for sound and really looks stock. I think you will like it. Look under zland and using terms like sub, group buy, & Street Noyz should get you there.