Speaker upgrade opinions

Last head unit I had was a sony.
Decent, I was happy with it.

 

Well... so far I’ve installed the Alpine and contacted Crutchfield 5x about wiring and now it turns out the steering wheel controls don’t work and the microphone. They are taking great care of me sending me a new PAC and microphone of course. Speakers come today. Hopefully they will be smooth installs.

 

This is what I installed.
Kicker DS60 6.5" 200 Watt 2-Way +2) Kicker DS693 6x9" 280W 3-Way Car Speakers

I did not do the tweeters yet. I dropped them into the Amazon cart and my wife ordered them. Tweeters will come soon

 

Yes, that's what I wrote.

 

I used the old tweeter metal brackets as mounting brackets for the new ones. (i “hollowed our” the old tweeter). I also soldered the wiring harness from the old to the new ones and they plugged right into the OEM harness. Worked great. Sounds so good and able to get much louder and less distorted. And I’ve only tried turning it half way up. This is going to be so much nicer!!

 

My point was RMS vs Peak wattage.

 

I have sitting somewhere a bazooka and amp I could install. When it was in another car, it was overkill for me. Even turned all the way down to 1, just too much.

Something I’ve been considering is to take my grandparents old “hifi” they bought in like 71, gutting it & installing my old car stereo. I could hide the bazooka behind it. But then I feel torn about destroying something that old that belonged to them.

 

How difficult was it to remove the stock head unit? Did you find a youtube video to help you? I'm seriously thinking about upgrading the head unit as well.

 

Couldn’t be easier... seriously. You pry out the climate control with a plastic pry tool, bottom first. Then pry out the top radio/hazard air bag console bottom first.
First hit on google...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RwbuB1fVj8s

 

That's good to know. Is it better to go with a single DIN or double DIN? Any benefits one way or another?

 

Double because you able to and there is room for it and you get larger a larger screen and less moving parts.

 

I went with a single DIN Kenwood. Sadly, I'm still running the stock speakers, but omfg, this head unit breathed a lil life into these things.

 

Thought I’d post a hack/solution to several complaints of the Metra sloppy fit with the

$290 Ilx-w650 7" Double DIN Touchscreen Digital Multimedia Receiver with Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto

Ilx-w650 radio for future users. This cost nothing to do.
I used the seal of the inside of a 5 gallon bucket cover because that was all I had around the house. Not sure exactly what size black rubber hose it would be equivalent to.
Cut to size, then cut it lengthwise to slide over the top and bottom edge as a cushion and to fill the gap that exists with the Metra kit.
I also was not able to get a solid connection to the top of the dash with the Metra kit so the rubber spacer/tube was used again. No shaking, vibrations anymore. Faceplate is solid when snapped into to place.
The seal/tube roughly the size of a pencil (1/8ID/1/4”OD maybe?).

I think you could get away with going all the way around the whole inner edge of the faceplate, but there is not as much room on the outsides. I’m hoping this will not melt with the sun in Summer heat. I wouldn’t think so...

 

I used a piece of masonite to make a mount for my tweeters.

nice choice with kickers.