I have an alpine power pack in the passenger access panel and an older arc audio ks 125.2 under my passenger seat for my passenger footwell sub

 

I like my stock deck. I dont like the look of after market...

I have the factory music link installed to run my ipod from the head unit and it works awesome

If i got the power pack to drive the speakers what would be so bad about a stock deck with ipod capabilities and alpine power?

 

It's still just lower sound quality. The biggest difference you'll get is first getting a better headunit, then dropping in speakers. The stock units just aren't pushing very much power. They almost all distort at a volume loud enough to hear during top down travel.

 

Even with the alpine amp installed??
Wouldn't that bypass the factory head unit output power??

 

I agree that the stock HU is severely underpowered, but wouldn't adding an outboard amp fix that? The sound quality is pretty clean at low and moderate volumes. Wouldn't sending the high level signals to an amp like the 445U allow you to keep the stock HU volume lower and let the amp to most of the work? As long as the high level input is kept below that distortion threshold, I would think an outboard amp would work very well with the stock HU. Don't get me wrong, I love the connectivity on my Alpine HU, but I never had any issue with the SQ of the stock HU except when I had it turned up loud.

 

Yea, I would expect the factory HU to sound fine driven with an external amp - especially one that is designed to accept speaker-level inputs (or with a LOC.)

The biggest drawback for me would be hacking apart the factory wiring. And of course lack of connectivity options.

As far as aesthetics, you never need to look at the HU - that's what the radio door is there for!

IMHO, trying to keep the stock HU is more work than it's worth if you're upgrading the rest of the system anyway.

 

Fantastic! Thanks for posting these pics.

Is accessing that area as simple as removing the left side of the trunk carpeting??

Thanks again!

 

Lanzar minimax. Its OK, cheap though. $65 on Amazon
http://www.lanzar.com/sku/MNX250/100...sfet-Amplifier
http://www.lanzar.com/productlist/mnx/all

 

I don't see enough risk reward on the Power Packs to make it worthwhile. I think you'd be much better off spending that money on a nice headunit that is going to have built in USB and bluetooth as well as a nice built in preamp. I think it's a much better investment.

 

I guess for me I'd rather start with good signal run that into an amp for even better signal. Then take junk signal and run into an amp and get decent sound.