the guy at best buy told me to....

I dont work in the car audio department.....

Matt

laser2kgt said:

is this okay?
1. get an aftermarket head unit to power the four tweeters
2. get a 4ch amp to power the four 6x8s
3. keep the mach's box for the rear speakers and rear tweeters
4. get a sub and a 2 channel amp

suggestions?

Click to expand...

I see nothing wrong with that idea except you'll have to rewire everything...but pretty much I'm considering do the same things you have listed.

Lazer - This is what I would do if your going to use an amp to power some of your components, I would use them to power your tweeters Why? you may ask? Because your tweeters are upfront and they will provide better sound quality if powered by an amp rather then deck power.

I believe if your going to do a stereo do it right or dont do it at all, and incomplete stereo just sounds like ****...

Get a good deck, a good set of components ( tweets/mids)
get an amp to power your tweets/mids
get a sub or two
and get an amp to power those subs

I wouldn't bother with the stock amps, other then maybe to power your components

Putting the 6x8's in an enclosure that's not made for them could either help or mess up their frequency response dramatically. Also, if you run the factory tweeters along with a 4-way set in the doors, you're going to have terrible imaging. The pioneers would benefit from a 50w or so 4-channel amp, though.

Depends alot on how much you want to spend. I'd say the setup your thinging about will work just fine and probably sound good. Depending on how much bass you want a mono amp might be a better choice than 2 channel for your sub or subs. check out www.etronics.com great prices on car audio and i've ordered from them 4 or 5 times and haven't had a problem ship fast too.

Everything he said is totally correct. If you want it to sound good. The mach system is garbage if you want to use aftermarket equipment. Once you put a radio in they basicly by pass the amps anyways. But get the 4 channel amp to power all of the interior speakers. and the 2 channel amp for the subs.

You wouldn't be able to use the factory amps even if you wanted to....well, you COULD hook your aftermarket speakers to them....but the amps are rated at 6-8 ohms, and your aftermarket speakers at 4 ohms. You'll just load the factory amps & they'll shut down at high volumes. Also, your factory 6x8 drivers are only woofers---the amps are only sending them low frequencies....and the factory tweets are mid/tweets---the factory amps are only sending them mids/highs....so you don't even have a place to connect a full-range driver anyway.


As for what the BestBuy dude told you---it's 100% correct. If you want to upgrade your stereo, forget everything that Ford put there EXCEPT the rear speaker tray. It WILL give you better midbass response to keep that enclosure......look at it like this---why do you think speakers always sound better at the store? Because they're mounted in an enclosure that makes up their display.

Lastly, if you've already got the Pioneer 4-ways, forget using additional tweeters. It'll sound too tinny. Those 4-ways have plenty of tweet in them already. If it's in your budget, return them for some decent components. If not, use them with a 50x4 amp & a decent head unit, all new wire, decent patch cables, 4 guage power (from the battery) and ground. Decide if you need a sub after listening to it for a while. Pioneers tend to hit pretty low when powered properly.


Sorry---one more thing---don't buy from Best Buy unless you've got extra cash to blow---anything a store sells can be had through the internet at MUCH lower prices.

im going to tell you a really big secret...

BEST BUY SUCKS AT CAR AUDIO, none of their salesmen know what they are talking about, for the price you are spending at best buy you can get a better sounding system of better quality products. go to a car audio forum such as caraudio.com they will definitly get you started in the right direction.

Moving forward, when you decide on what you want to install, try Etronics.com as mentioned above, or do a search at PriceGrabber.com. Nine times out of ten, Etronics will have the lowest prices on what you want.

In fact, just for sh|ts and giggles, I looked up a $500 subwoofer, and saw that Etronics had them for a little over $150, while others were only $50 under the original $500, and some websites had them for more than the $500 you would pay at a store!