:thumbup:
//Alpine

It's best to do at once, however you could just up the speakers for a little improvement over stock speakers.

 

Thanks for all the input guys! I really wanted to get some new speakers but whats the point if my head unit won't play my cds? The alpine 3de-7886 i have is 4 years old and i think its starting to go. It takes about 3 minutes for some cds to play, and they get stuck in the changer once in a while. I figured if i went with an mp3 cd player, i wouln't need a changer seeing i could fit 10 hours on each disc. I heard alot of good things about blaupunkt and thier san jose head unit. Its only $200 with shipping and it would give me 50 watts x4 instead of 35 watts (i like the alpine you guys were talkin about but too expensive). After that i figure some new speakers would be cool with the more power (infinity componants most likely). What do you guys think of my plan?

 

Go with the head unit first. Always start with the "brain" of the syatem the work out from there. I will tell you though..............if at all possible go with an Eclipse head unit. I had the Alpine CDW880 double din,3 disc,fold down face, cassette,and DSP unit and I changed over to an Eclipse 7301 double din 5.6 monitor unit. The sound quality is amazingly different.

 

I agree.
Eclipse is so great...but they also expensive.
Go get it if you have the money though.

 

They are a bit higher priced and they dont have all the "ooooh features" like the swimming dolphins and all that other junk but they have got the best sound quality because thats where they put their time. They have the best parts available in them and superior sound reproduction. But you can get into an Eclipse unit for around 199.00. We had the Eclipse54410 for 199.00 installed. And Eclipse units have a 3 year warranty if installed by an authorized dealer which replaces the radio with another one if it is stolen in the 1st year. They have ESN which you program a "key" cd to your radio. If the power is disconnected then you need to have that disc to get it back working. So if someone stole it they couldnt use it without taking it to an Eclipse dealer and having them call technical support, which in return will look to see if the unit has been reported stolen and who it is registered to. If it doesnt match up they get their infa and have you send it in"for recoding" but actually the begin prosicuting the theif. And they prosicute 100% of the cases. Makes it worth the xtra $.

 

If you first get a headunit you'll probably blow your speakers pretty fast. Because the factory speakers are really thin and made of paper. But if your short on cash getting the headunit will make a bigger difference compared to getting speakers.

 

So you are saying that adding an aftermarket headunit will blow your speakers fast? :nono: Thats not true. It will just have more power to your factory speakers which in most part will make them sound better. Just because they are "thin and made of paper" doesn't mean that a new unit is going to blow them fast. I ran stock speakers in my Accord for 4 years on aftermarket units and they were fine. The thing that blows speakers more than anything is not enough power, thus causing clipping and distortion at higher volume levels. This is caused by not having anough "headroom" where the power of the unit runs out or peaks. When you try to push it past that limit it causes the distortion or clipping you hear which will blow the speakers eventually.