wondering how to get started upgrading

[danielb927]

i have a 1990 protege SE so i'm looking to upgrade to a new stereo with a cd player first. i was wondering what suggestions you experts had on what was good, for not a whole lot of money hopefully.

after that, i thought i'd probably upgrade the speakers, especially the back ones since right now they arent connected and they arent in great shape even if they were. again, suggestions for something with good sound without speding a huge amount of money. also, does anyone know the dimensions of the stock speakers?

i'm not really trying to get into a huge project here, i dont really want to hook up a monster sub in the trunk or anything, i'm just looking to have better sound than stock. any help here would be appreciated, as i know nothing about sound in a car except that you hook the wires up and it makes noise

[firelizard]

I really really love my Pioneer Premier headunit. I know two other satisifed Pioneer owners as well, one of a slightly fancier unit and one of a lower model straight-Pioneer. My Pioneer rear 6x9s (probably your rear size too) are decent for the money, though a small sub really helps them out, especially since my rear deck is a flimsy rattle-prone piece of crap.

[jackscort]

I upgraded the speakers first

[whistler]

The 1st gens have 5.25" stock speakers all the way around, but can fit upto 6.5" with almost no problems.

[chuyler1]

On older cars such as yours, start with a new head unit. Pick out one that has the options you want now (mp3 playback, sat radio, aux-input for ****, etc), and a few additional options in case you want to upgrade later (rca outputs, eq bands, etc).

The next step would be to upgrade speakers and possibly add an amplifier. A great combo is a set of nice speakers for the front (50-100w/ea), a small 8" or 10" subwoofer (150-300w, 4ohm) for the rear, and a 4-channel amp (30-75w/ch) to power everything with. Research RMS power ratings not MAX power ratings. You can bridge the rear channels of the amp to send more power to the sub. For example, a 50x4 amp can send 50w to each front speaker and 200w to a subwoofer.

Everything above can be purchased for $500-1000 and it is easy enough to install yourself.

[danielb927]

anyone know if the pioneer DEH-P3800MP is any good? found it on ebay for not a whole lot of money, but i wasnt sure, it looks like it has an amp with it maybe? or is that just a preamp or something like that? like i said i dont know much about car audio at all

[nicodeemus]

The Pioneer 3800MP is a decent starter deck. It plays MP3 discs, has decent deck power, wireless remote and 2 preouts so that you can add amps later on if you like. Make sure you're not paying too much for it. You can buy it new from almost anywhere for $130 (even Wal-mart).

[purewhitemp5]

Just be aware that the front mounting depth is extremely shallow. you can put any speaker you want in there , but only certain ones will allow you to roll the window all the way down.