hey guys,
I'm starting my second stereo instalation. (the first was a 99 grand voyager :@}. I have a panasonic head unit that puts out 50w to 4 channels rms, but also has gold plated 4 volt preamps if I were to add a speaker amp. In addition to that I have a jl 250/1 amp mated to a jl 10w3v2. I also want to install front and rear speakers. The car is my new (used) 98 v70 t5 and I have a couple questions:

First, I listen to a wide variety of music - Phish(Jam), Mars Volta (Hard rock/ metal), Atmosphere (Rap), and Rush/Floyd/Zepplin(classic rock). those are the extremes(I guess). I am looking to set up a wide frequency stereo with all components equal. Basically i'm not looking for ear piercing highs or wildly strong base. I'm looking for Very clear sound through the spectrum. highs mids base.

1 I have to run power from my subwoofer amp to the battery and need to get through the firewall. does anyone know an easy way through, preferably without drilling.

2 Speakers - I thought about building kickpods for the front but space is very limited. the passenger side isnt too bad but on the drivers side the hood release gets in the way. I looked at the bottom of the door pannels and theirs a lot of open space for a speaker cabinet but building into it seems difficult. my plan now is to install either 6.5" or 5.5" component speakers in the stock locations (dash and top of door). My question is do kickpods really add that much midbass over mounting in stock locations and are they worth the design/build time.

3 Speakers - I'm pretty picky about sound quality but not an audiophile. Is the 50 watts per channel from my head unit enough or should I get speaker amps. If speaker amps are the answer, how much power.

4 Subwoofer - I hear that jl seriously underrates their amps, could I add a second 10w3 to my 250/1? I have to build a new box too, and i'm planning to port it. My first box was basically a sealed rectangle and I want to get a little wild with this one, any thoughts?

5 I have read about needing a code for the stock head unit, what does that mean? Should I find the code before removing it?

I'm asking a lot of questions, dont feel like you have to answer all of them. I'm new to forums so i'm really excited to hear what you have to say, any direction or opinion is very appreciated. THANKS

yeah dude about your radio question (#5): if your battery dies/you unplug your radio, you have to enter a 4 digit code to make it come back on again, otherwise it won't do anything, it'll just turn on and read "CODE" on the screen. at that point you either type in the code (using numbers 1-6) or you're screwed. lol.

and also, with regards to the kickpods, they're not worth it, IMHO. i've had them in a few cars and they sound great until you have somebody riding with you. 9 times out of 10 the person that's riding with you will be somewhat lounging, causing their right leg to totally block a kickpod speaker, cancelling out that clarity that you installed the kickpod to get. make sense? it sounds good to have kickpods, but i think for normal usage, i'd be much more inclined to go with component speakers that have crossovers and seperate tweeters that you can mount wherever you want (for example, put the woofer in the door and the tweeter on the dash. punch AND clarity).

and as far as midbass goes (still on kickpods), that's really dependent on what kind of speakers you use. for example, for crystal treble and not a whole lot of dinero ($$$$) i recommend the Infinity Reference series speakers. whereas if you were really searching for more low end out of your components as opposed to letting your subs do all the beating, HIGHLY recommend the Polk DB series. very, VERY clean sounding speakers. a little more on the costly side, however, costing marginally more than most other brand name speakers. you get your money's worth, though.

also this may sound ridiculous but give it a try. since you aren't simply raptastic and actually enjoy what other types of music has to offer, check this out; neat trick i discovered. instead of installing dedicated subwoofers with subwoofer specific amps, you should really look into speakers instead of subs. now don't stop reading, i'm making a valid point! say if you wanted a 12 in your trunk. instead of maybe buying a 12 inch sub, buy a 12 inch speaker. and run your RCA cables, ground cable, ACC cable, and +12v battery cable exactly the same way as you would run them on a normal setup, except instead of using subs, use speakers and instead of a subwoofer amp, use a 4ch speaker amp. the result is loud clean bass throughout the entire range of bass, as opposed to nice clean really low frequencies, and no upper mid-bass frequencies. i did this with a Clarion 4channel amp, two Cerwin Vega 12" speakers, and a double-ported box in a '92 Mitsubishi Eclipse and i literally blew the entire rear hatch (rear hatch panel, rear hatch itself, rear hatch glass, and rear spoiler) off of the car while listening to Taking Back Sunday's newest album (track #9 if it matters). all it amounts to is a deeper, more supported undertone in your system. pronounced, clear bass. i'm an audiophile, can ya tell? lol.

i could go on all night :beer:

:thumbsup: Andrew