For the person who doesn't know anything whatsoever about buying a car audio system, what are the components that need to be bought?

I know there's an issue with finding a system that will fit in the car, but information on that would be helpful too.

I know that people who mostly listen to rock/rap need solid sub woofers, but what would people who just listen to "whatever" music need instead?

Does jazz fall into the "whatever" category, or does it have special requirements? What about classical? ("whatever" category too? or would it require anything in particular?)

In general, any information would be helpful. Thanks.

Crutchfield has a great fit wizard to customize a system to your car. Even if you don't buy from them, you'll know what will and will not fit in your car.

Subwoofers give you the bottom end of the music. Take that away, and the bottom of the music falls out. It's like cranking the bass off on your home system. You can get smaller subwoofers that fill out the music that don't sound like a teenage kid with a badly tuned system. A well tuned system will not sound like that.

Jazz and Classical are most demanding on a system. It is the reason why reviewers use them to test speakers, headphones, and other audio equipment. Here's what I would suggest if that is really your cup of tea.

At the bare minimum, run a component setup in your front doors. They should be made up of a separate tweeter and speaker. Next, buy an amplifier that has enough channels to power the front speakers and a subwoofer. You're probably thinking, why would you need an amp when most decks are amped? Well, you want clean power so that your speakers will sound their best. Dirty power will make your speakers distort and will sound muddy at lower volumes. Finally, add a nice little 10 inch subwoofer in an enclosure that suits the area that it is going into. Your shop should be able to calculate the minimum size cabinet that you will need to allow the woofer to work properly.

Why not any rear speakers? Well, if there is no one in the backseat, why put them there? Also, putting speakers in the rear tends to screw up the sound field in the front. For best possible imaging, run front door speakers only, and then a sub.

Finally, for the deck, just make sure it has the features that you want (satellite radio, aux in for your iPod, security features, MP3 CD playback etc), and that it has enough outputs for your amps.

I personally went with a 10 inch subwoofer, a set of component speakers with seperate tweeter and main speaker. I'm using a seperate amplifier to drive the subwoofer, and another amplifier to drive the front channels. I left brand out because people have their preferences, but sticking with the same brand all round, unless you know what works well together, wouldn't be a bad idea. I'll throw out Alpine as a great brand if you need a full system that you can't go wrong with. Both of my amps are Alpine.

This is really really general info, so if there are some specifics, I will try to give my 2 cents if I'm able to. Goodluck!

Some solid info there, Fw. Thanks for the car stereo fashizzle. :)

BTW, my speed test results are 3471 for the download and 457 for the upload. The upload is way slower as I'm using way old tech: 950MHz AMD cpu, Asus A7V board, 512MB PC133 ram, and two PATA HDs. I'm going to build a new PC in short order. However, other considerations have priority right now. All in good time. :)

When I did my install for my car, I did quite a bit of research on the best configurations, but what took me the longest time to figure out was what type of sound signature I liked. I eventually settled on Polk Component speakers a Kenwood deck with a 5.0 Volt preout (important for sound quality considerations) and 10 inch diamond audio sub. Amps are Alpine monoblock for sub and 2 channel amp for the fronts. Both are from their V-Power series. This might not be for you because I always go for something that sounds somewhat neutral, neither too brassy nor too flat. A lot of the stuff I learned is still kinda fresh, but I'm definitely not a car audio guy.

I think I have one of the fastest connections in North America for home. I could get faster, but I'd have to unplug my servers at the Network Operations Center and plug my laptop in directly :lol:

That's some d/l you got there, bubba. Hoooeeee. That's fast. :D

Thank you for taking the time to offer all that information. It is helpful. I do have a question about classical and jazz (or maybe pop and "other"): Is there some element that the system needs in order increase the "evening out" of sound? And if there is, is there some rating or number that would indicate how "powerful" or effective it is?

Again, thanks for taking the time. :)