curiosity questions about "stock" systems

[highteknology]

so yesterday i got my new copy of FHM, in it they had an advertisement for the new eclipse (which i think looks pretty cool). it said that you can upgrade the system to a 650-watt rockford fosgate system. i know that i have seen other car ads that say something along the same lines...right now the only other one i can recall is for the focus a while back, you could get a Sony Xplod system (whoopty dee doo)...my question, and i'm pretty sure i know the answer is, how much does this "upgrade" cost and how good is it really, what all does it come with, does the company actually know what they are doing or do they just select stuff at random (does the amp actually make a good match for the sub, does the box fit the sub specs, etc.)???

[sr20de4evr]

couple of things

1 - never believe the wattage rating on stock systems, they normally take the peak power handling of all of the speakers in the car, add them together, and that's the number they advertise. It has absolutely nothing to do with how much power they're actually receiving.

2 - Most of the time when a brand name like Sony or RF are slapped on the upgraded system, all that's there is the name, at most you'll have 1-2 pieces of the system actually from that company. Everything else in the system is from the same company they use for all of their other stereos, for Nissan it's normally Clarion's OEM line, they supply the speakers for the base system and the upgraded "RF" system for most of Nissan's models. Not sure who Mitsu uses, but Clarion is a pretty common choice, and you can bet that out of everything in that system, only the amp and maybe the headunit are made by RF, everything else comes from elsewhere.



I'm not sure if that one sounds good, but normally they don't take the time or money to position the speakers right, power them adequately, or anything else that makes for a decent sounding system, I wouldn't expect too much from it. I'm not sure how much it costs, but as it is with every upgraded OEM stereo, you could easily beat it for half the cost by going to the aftermarket.

[PaulD]

yep, OEM knows EXACTLY what it's doing ... making money hand over fist. As sr20 pointed out, sound quality is not high on their list of priorities - look at what they are doing to prevent you from upgrading. They have a different set of priorties when they pick out something like a headunit .... it's more like the military. It has to be reliable, replacing skipping CD players by the 100's or 1000's would be VERY costly. It has to be simple to operate, even with gloves on - so no mini-buttons or organic displays. They play by a different set of rules than we do.

[highteknology]

that's what i sort of figured. all they want is money. then again though there are so many people out there that just see the name or something like that and go for it.

[mx6rrr]

Its not worth the money for upgraded systems because they way overprice them, you can go get an aftermarket system which will sound better and hit harder and it will cost same/less....Also just as a warning I dont think you can replace the head-unit on the new eclipse's...Im an installer and Ive been looking to get one of those cars also and Very strange size, Ive been looking for a dash kit for one but no luck yet....Oh and one more thing, upgraded systems usually cost more to replace also since they usually have a factory amplifier which has to be bypassed and in some cases the whole system has to be replaced (which is usually not a bad thing lol).