A friend of mine wants to upgrade her '03 Accord system for clearer sound and more bass. She has some stipulations that I'm trying to maintain. I'll lay it out for you and let you all review what I recommended and give you the opportunity to make corrections/improvements as those of you more experienced might provide.

She wants to spend less than $500 for the whole setup. She also wants to keep the stock head unit. She has a 2003 Accord 4-door with 6-speaker setup.

A guy at an audio shop said he could improve the stock treble clarity with some 'trick.' I told her to make him show her the improvement on a car that's already been done.

For her speakers, I recommended:

Bass:
MTX T410X3A. Trapezoid box enclosure featuring 3x 10" Thunder4000 MTX speakers. 150 to 600 Watts RMS, with a peak of 1200 Watts, with a single speaker connection at 4 ohms. They are on clearance sale from Crutchfield for $179.99.

http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi...avf=Y

Amp: Sony Xplod XM-D400P5. A simple 200W single channel mono sub amp, rated to provide 200W at 4 ohm impedence. $250 from crutchfield, but easily found on Ebay for under $120.

http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi...avf=Y

This would give her plenty of bass, with room to improve on the amp, and not break her budget. It would also give her nearly $250 bucks to work on the stock speakers for treble and mid-range if she were not satisfied with them.

She's not going for show/competition quality, but just an affordable bass and system upgrade.

Please feel free to make improvements/suggestions, and add additional recommendations, but please stay within the parameters she's already requested. Thanks.