Stereo & Electronics - Please give me some advice for my audio situation

I'm the third owner of my 02 WS6 coupe. The first owner changed the HU to a Kenwood KDC-135 (http://www.kenwoodusa.com/KDC-135), changed the sail panels to some Eclipse 6.5 3-ways (http://www.crutchfield.com/S-AVML5oJQUc4/p_099SE8365/Eclipse-SE8365.html) and hacked up the wiring harness to bypass the factory amp and run everything off the Kenwood HU.

For the present I'd like to go back to the factory amp for a little better sound and keep most of the speakers i have now.

I think my best option is to order either a set of bazooka, CDT or some other (recommendations?) subs to replace the Eclipse speakers in the sail panels and move the Eclipse to the doors then fix the wiring.

In the future i plan on replacing the rears then maybe a new HU.


What do you guys think about my current plan? I have a strict budget of $200 - $250 tops.

Edit: For now, how would the Eclipse sound if i hooked them up through the factory amp?

Eclipse in the sail panels on factory amp would be bad. I believe you could get the bazookas for 100 a pair from Ian at Kee Audio. From there you would be just redoing your wiring for the sail panels. And if you want the better speakers up front, you can hook those up to the factory amp but it will require cutting the tweeter input on the speaker so you have 2 inputs on each speaker (highs and mids). This will get you there for only 100 bucks, some speaker wire, and some time.

In the stock configuration, does the factory amp power all the speakers or just the subs in the sail panels?

Edit: Nevermind, i found the answer in the FAQ; it powers all the speakers except the 4 stand alone tweeters.

Is the factory amp still present in the car? I hate it when people hack up a car when the stock wiring can be left intact with no problem even on a full blown aftermarket system.

Bazookas would be fine with the stock system but if the stock amp is not present then you may want to simplify things and go with an aftermarket amp. This would also enable you to keep the speakers you have in the car but would require a little more wiring.
Either way you have some work to do to get it back to something you would want to listen to. Since it is already hacked up this would be a good opportunity to go with something aftermarket and make it sound really good. I can put something together for you. Shoot me an email: keeaudio@bellsouth.net

Factory amp won't be much if any better than a decent aftermarket H/U. Maaaaybe 1-2dB more. I vote to not touch it unless you really want to improve it, which means not touching the factory amp, for starters. I recommend you find a cheap used 3, 4 or 5 channel amp for hopefully $100 tops, get an entry-level sub like a Fi X10, put it in a stealthbox that you can hopefully find used, and move the Eclipse speakers to the front. Just run nothing in the sails, or put your stock fronts there. Probably a $300 proposition, a bit more than you stated, but would be a big upgrade. (for a 4 channel amp: bridge 2 channels for the sub; for a 5 channel amp: bridge 4 channels into 2 channels for fronts, or put your stock fronts in the sails and use a couple channels for that if you want)

The stock amp is present. They left it mounted in the car and just unplugged the harness from it and hacked it up. Whether it's working or not, i don't know.

In the three minutes in-between, I posted to have a look at the FAQ and then saw you had already edited your post so I deleted mine. Things happen fast around here sometimes (faster than my lousy typing capabilities anyways).

Is the factory amp still present in the car? I hate it when people hack up a car when the stock wiring can be left intact with no problem even on a full blown aftermarket system.

Bazookas would be fine with the stock system but if the stock amp is not present then you may want to simplify things and go with an aftermarket amp. This would also enable you to keep the speakers you have in the car but would require a little more wiring.
Either way you have some work to do to get it back to something you would want to listen to. Since it is already hacked up this would be a good opportunity to go with something aftermarket and make it sound really good. I can put something together for you. Shoot me an email: keeaudio@bellsouth.net
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