Mild Stereo system upgrade - questions/suggestions

Hey guys,
I'm not any kind of stereo-guru or anything. In the past I've switched out speakers for larger ones, new head unit..pretty much the basics. When i first got my truck, I went ahead and put my good, new head unit in, as well as some rear speakers.
Heres what I've got so far:
Alpine CDA-9883 HU w/ iPod Direct Connect
Rear Pioneer 6x8 220W 3-ways

All I'm wanting to do is have a better sound than the crappy paper cone speakers..and maybe a little extra low range. Here's a couple questions...

- If I upgrade my front door speakers, should I go with the same wattage as my rears, or lower? Is it a good idea (or ever worth it), to replace the tweeters?
- I want a little additional bass..how are self-powered subs? Does anyone still install an 8" sub in the rear seat cubby hole?

Any suggestions/tips/comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

-Jay

 

if you are running everything off the HU for power, you are going to suffer some quality right off the bat.
Most speaker will run on just a few watts of power and sound good. your HU will only put out so much so matching the front and rear is not really an issue.
I would suggest getting a nice pair of tweets and perhaps a set of midrange for the fronts and some 6" subs for the rear doors.
if you want to get a little more sound quality, I would suggest getting an amp for your doors. let your HU just output a signal and no additional power, the alpines sound great when you turn off the internal amps.
3-ways in back are kind of a lost cause since the high end imaging isn't directed well enough to produce good sound. you should move them to the fronts, and use as a 2 way with a cross over, add tweets for the highs and sub the rear.
sorry for the ADD thread, my brain works a mile a minute when it comes to audio speak

 

Thanks for the reply Jester...

Unfortunately I can't currently afford a component speaker set up right now, I should have mentioned that...

So should I go ahead and move the 3 ways up front, 2 ways in the back, and maybe a sub?

 

that would be a good start for what you currently have.

 

My $.02...

6x9 components like the Eclipse SC6900 - So you have some bass w/ or w/out a sub, but you'll need some juice so...

I'm pretty impressed with my little Elf Audio E2125x micro amp. (about $150 on ebay) The Elf is essentially a knock off of the Arc KS Mini 125.2.

I bet you could fit the Elf amp and the passive crossovers that come with the components all under the passenger seat.

The speakers in your stock tweeter locations really aren't tweeters, so components are definitely the way to go, but you'll need better than HU power. Then just let the rears run off the HU power.