Romasi

First, nice forums here. A lot of good information, yet after searching around, I need some advice.

I purchased a 2004 Honda Civic last fall, and because I hate local radio and spend a lot of time in my car commuting to work, I am looking to replace my head unit with one that is satellite radio ready.

Now, the sales person at crutchfield recommended an expensive kenwood (email is down, else I would look for the model number) and I have seen recommendations for Alpine and Pioneer. (And Eclipse, which I have yet to see sold anywhere.)

Okay, my questions ....

1) If I do not plan on replacing the stock speakers or adding any additional amps or other extras, at what point will the benefit of the head unit features be overkill for the car? For example, would a $180 receiver sound the same as a $550 receiver with these speakers.

2) Is it a mistake to go through the effort of replacing the headunit and potentially installing a satellite radio tuner/antenna without replacing some speakers, etc.

3) I am not experienced installing devices or performing educated car maintenance. Yet, I am handy enough that I can build PCs, etc. Should I be able to install a headunit, XM/Sirius tuner and antenna myself, or am I asking for trouble.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

Trailz-EX

HEREs the deal.. you can run your $550 head unit with factory speakers.. i replaced the 6.5s in my doors with polk audio 6.5s for about 100 bucks sounds great, easy to do as well.. the speakers in the back deck(6x9) i left stock cuz i was too lazy to rip everything apart to get them out, they dont sound bad, but not the greatest... so, you can run factory speakers with your new radio, the new radio will put out more power so they will sound a little better, but if you like it loud sooner or later you will have to replace them. i have ad mine in for about 4 years now, so more on the later side of replacing them.. all and all if you want to get the full potential out of your new head unit, change those stock speakers.

I would recomend kenwood over anything, especially the excellon series radios..
Eclipse radios are just awsome but are very expensive.. thats why you dont see them anywhere. On top of that they are not preamped, so you will have to run seperate amps for your mids and highs(the factory speakers would deffinately have to come out). they are very loud radios though best sounding aswell.

As for th install.. its fairly simple. just go to your local best buy or audio store and purchase a mounting kit and a wireing harness.. the harness will hook up to the wires on your new radio, they are all labled on the radio and the harness.. just soider all your connections and make sure that you use electric tape to insulate the connectoins.. now getting the kit together is easy follow the instruction for your car.. getting the old radio out can be tricky, have a friend or someone who has some experience to help you dont want to ruin that new dash by scratching it or breaking a holding clip.. the wireing harness and fitter kit should all together run you about 40 bucks if not less.

hope this helps out... enjoy your radio

..::91TEG-G2::..

also look at price of the satellite radio.. you have XM and sirus.. XM is 9.99 a month and sirus is 12.99 or something like that a month..

me personally, i've only owned XM and i love it. i had a sony HU and i liked it, it was my first deck.. 54X4 watt's u couldnt go wrong, but then i upgraded to the Alpine IVA-C801 HU with the flip out 6.5inch screen and i love it,

installation is very easy, and if u dont know exactly how to do it, just get a manual, they work wonders and give u very good step by step directions on how to remove everything and put it back, all the tools that you'll need and lots more.

i personally like panasonic (they make bulletproof decks, very good HU's) and alpine.. now sony makes good decks, but dont buy there speakers. on the eclipse decks, trailz said it right, also they dont come with as many features as you'd find in ur kenwood, sony, panasonic, pioneer, alpine, clarion decks. no detatchable face, no pre amps, and others.. but very good decks.. just over priced for what they dont have.

so at the end, its all up to you... just do your research.. you can also go to circuit city and see if they have the same deck that your interested in there site.. they have customer reviews of there products and its very helpful...

speakers do matter believe it or not, sure factory speakers will sound with more tune and watt's going to them, any speaker would, but its the technology that the factory speakers dont have, like upgraded voice coils, cone, surround, position of mids/highs, magnet (big part in speakers performance) and sound accuracy.. but again its up to you, i recomend not buying sony speakers like i said.. u can get kenwood, pioneer makes a good set, boston acoustic's also have a very good line of mid/high sounding speakers...

just keep us posted on what you choose and what ur goin to get.. let us know how u feel..