The Short Version (cutting out stories of every incompetant salesperson encountered!) My reasons for upgrading my system were twofold. My car had a tape deck and I wanted to be able to play CD's. I also spend a lot of time in my car commuting to work and a number of times a year traveling to other states for visits. My home stereo is 20 years old and barely adequate. I found I didn't have much time at home to listen to CD's I bought. Therefore a high end car audio system seemed the way to go. I had two friends with Alpine systems. I figured I would simply get an Alpine head and cd changer to start and upgrade speakers and amp later. However, I began reading rec.audio.car and one poster recommneded Sony ES heads. It also happened that Tweeter was dumping their Sony ES line in favor of RF so I had the opportunity to get an excellent head unit at half the cost. I opted for the Sony ES XK-R100 for the laseramorphous head (better frequency response than the 7558 Alpine at half the price). Since it was only a tuner I would then have to get a amp and speaker upgrade. This propelled me on a two month long quest for the right equipment (for me) and the right installer. I figured if I was going to spend a lot of money on expensive equipment, best to make sure it was installed correctly. During this time I felt compelled to educate myself on the ins and outs of car audio and some of the more technical aspects in order to understand what I was buying and why. And also to make sure I knew whether the salespeople and installers knew what they were talking about and doing. During this time I found out that the average Joe salesperson doesn't know a whole lot about car audio. Especially at Tweeter, Circuit City, and Lechmere etc. I got conflicting stories about the correct size of the factory speakers. I went to a good many car audio places in and around the Boston area. I figured that between all the various places, my own knowledge, and internet/web information, I should be able to figure out things like, what the correct speaker size was, and what sort of amp to get to power what sort of speakers. I listened to a lot of speakers. You can hear what you like but really they sound different once inside the car. Which really sucks. As I was running out of money by the time I got to the sub question, I decided to forgo a higher end sub w/enclosure and separate amp in favor of the Amplified 80w Bazooka 8" which was on sale for $250!. While I simply wanted to add adequate low end fill, I am quite impressed with the quality of this little bass tube! The two places I liked the best were New England Car Stereo on Pleasant Street in Belmont (Tony was the salesperson; very nice and helpful and a good selection of high end equipment for very reasonable prices), and Rich's Car Tunes in Watertown (Jeff the salesperson and Rich were both friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful). I also liked Autosound in Watertown but they didn't have any equipment I wanted. Since they had the equipment I wanted and matched the prices of competitors or gave a 15% discount, I had Rich's do the installation. Their installation charges are quite high but like I said... You get what you pay for. Afterwards I found that while the MB Quarts sounded great in the showroom, the tweeters sounded quite harsh and irritating to my ears in my car. I was not happy and went back to Rich's to see about having them removed. Rich said that the problem could be fixed by adding the MusiComp crossovers. Im going to try that. Installation is scheduled soon. (Now 6/16/97). Ill post the result. Im also going to try the MTX4320 amp or the a/d/s P440. To protect (as well as can be expected) my investment I had them install an Alpine 8027 alarm system. I liked this better than Clifford (which I've had in the past) as it has an anti-falsing system that is better. 6/25/97 The musicomp crossovers and MTX 4320 were installed. Now the irritating highs have been dampened. The highs come thru as cleaner and subdued. While the system sounds good, I may go with a/d/s or some other speakers in future cars.
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