System for my truck

Howdy

I got a 1988 Blazer K5. The previous owner had a 12inch sub built into the console and an amp under the seat, with 4 speakers (2 6inch in front and 2 6x9inch in back). He took the sub with him when I bought it, and lets just say that the speakers and amp that are in there now just plain suck. The back speakers dont even work and the front aren't good.

Anyway ... I want to get me a new system, preferably with 6inch speakers in the front and 6x9 inch speakers in the back. I don't really want to have to make new holes for bigger/smaller speakers but I can if I have to (pretty good with carpeting / building).

I have no room to mount subs under my bench seat. I have a console that was custom built to hold a 12 inch sub under it. I have some room in the back of my truck but I would really not like to use that area for speakers.

I listen to country and rock. I know it's pretty clashing music when it comes to speakers but sometimes I love country and sometimes I wanna rock out.

Help me out here ya'll ... any suggestions on what I should look into? Could I hook it up myself?

Some other information: passive connections in the front and back, amp wires and speaker wires already ran, don't have a reciever yet been lookin into mp3 cd players. Want something loud but still clean sounding when it's quieter. Have 3000 but don't really want to spend more than 1500 (1000 optimal)

Any idea how big that sub box is?
That will be VERY important in determining what sub to get as a replacement. If you have any styrofoam packing nuts or something similar then you can fill it up with those, then put all of them in something to measure volume (milk jugs, measureing things for cooking, whatever), then just convert the volume to cubic feet.

You have an amp powering the speakers currently? Any idea what it is, or what speakers you have?

The box is my whole console. I would guess about 1.5foot wide x1.5 foot long x1foot tall. It's pretty big. I know he had a 12 inch in it before so I suppose that will fit in there.

I had an amp powering the speakers, but the back speakers were broken, and the front needed cleaning and remounting, so all of my system is disassembled and in my garage right now.

Currently I have ...
Roadgear 80-watt 2-channel amplifier
6x9 Poineer (2)
6inch Diamond Motorsport (2)

The amp was under my seat, already has all the wires ran. The speakers were all passive connections (i think that's what it was called, passive something)

Well it would definately hold a 12, the question is which 12, because they all require different air spaces to sound their best. Some like .8cf, some like boxes as big as 3cf, just depends on the specific driver.

For a headunit, look into a low-mid level alpine or pioneer that has the features you would want. For speakers, if you really want all 4 (many people just run 2, myself included) then you could go for maybe the Focal 165A components in the front, and the Focal 690CA in the rear. For an amp you could really get any decent ~85x4 amp. If you just ran fronts then you could spend that money on some Focal 165K2P's instead (2 models up from the Access line, some VERY nice speakers), and then a 120-130x2 amp would power them well. Can't really recommend a sub until you find out the volume of the enclosure.

http://www.focal-america.com/
690ca (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3078434341&category=14942)
165a (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3078434252&category=32819)
165k2p (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3077844142&category=32819)

Alright all the info so far is good.

I want to do a 4 speaker system. I measured out the CF of my sub area and its only .798 ft^3. It was a lot less than I thought.


So ...

Head-unit
Sub with .798cf optimal
Amp
4 Speakers (2x6 and 2x(6x9))

eek that's tiny
I don't know any subs off hand that will work well in a box that small. Whatever you get you're going to have to feed it a lot of power to get any kind of lowend out of it, you'll probably want to stuff it full of polyfill also.

would it be better for me to build a box in the back of my truck? I need the space back there but if it means sacraficing my sound, then screw it. I have about a 2 foot by 5 foot space in the back of my Blazer that I can use. Possibly then use 2 subs?

Ok so I went around to some local audio places, and this is the best deal I could find;

Alpine 9811 Head unit
JL TR 650 (x2) and 690 (x2)
JL 12 inch subs (x2)
Alpine 12V amp

1000$ Cash OTD.

Is this a good deal? I'll be doing my own install. I went to Ultimate Electronics and they quoted me 1400 for the same setup.

What JL subs?

ebay prices
alpine - 240
tr650 - 105
tr690 - 50
2 jl12w0 - 100 each
amp - no idea since you didn't say anything about it

total - 600 plus amp, so around 800 max
You can also do much better than that, the 12w0 is the bottom of the line, so are the TRs, and I'm guessing that Alpine amp is pretty weak as well.

Read what I posted about 5 posts above this again, those speakers will be much better than the TRs

If I got the Focal 165A Access 6.5" set and Focal 690CA Access 6x9, what would be the best subs / amp to run with those (build my own enclosure for subs)

Any ~85x4 amp should work fine (except for the US Acoustics 4085, NEVER buy this amp).

JBL PX300.4
Avionixx AXA 440.4
I don't know many others, I haven't researched 4ch amps much

sub(s) and amp just depend on your budget and how much space you have. For starters check out
www.adireaudio.com
www.edesignaudio.com
www.respl.com
www.stereointegrity.com
www.imagedynamicsusa.com
and see if there's anything you like