After replacing the speakers...what's next?

I'll be replacing the stock speakers with the Kicker CS series this week. I already bought a 4-channel amp for the Kickers, but I'm wondering whether or not to replace the head unit instead. Eventually I'll be doing both, but can only afford one of these upgrades at a time.

I'd love to get multiple-band EQ, Apple CarPlay, and some of those features that aren't currently available on my non-JBL 6" head unit, but I'm always hesitant replacing a stock receiver, afraid I'll lose steering wheel controls, dimming, rear camera access, or some other bell/whistle I'm already grateful to have.

So...new receiver or just install the amp? Thoughts?

 

Go with the amp for now, but I would also run rca cables from your headunit to the amp (not plugged in though) When you do upgrade the headunit, thats one less thing you need to pull carpet up for. I say this because your going to need to run speed wire from your oem headunit to the amp and back to the headunit, while your running that wire, rca cables can be run right along with the speed wire.

When you do replace the head unit, you just need to remove part of the t-harness you made with the speed wire and splice that into your aftermarket headunits harness.

But really its up to you, Im not a fan of most of the aftermarket headunits out there because they are designed for standard double din holes. Our trucks have a larger than double din, so anything you put in will be smaller than the OEM headunit (unless you go with a android headunit or the halo9 from alpine)

 

Dang, you pulled your carpet for your wiring? Could have just ran them under the panels to save the headache.

 

Hard to do when you have 10 channels of rca cable and 8 pairs speaker wires plus 4 gauge power wire. I wanted to keep the rca cables away from as many power wires as possible, so they run down the center of the truck. The speaker wires run on either side of the truck and the power wire runs down the passenger side.