Advice for new stereo
 

I want to change my factory stereo and speakers. I wanna keep the stereo around the $400 range and side door speakers/tweeters around $200 range. Any suggestions for a good setup around that price range?

if it was me i'd look at a single DIN Alpine for the HU and a set of MTX TX6's.

Ask 5 guys you will get 5 different answers here.but everyone on this site is cool and knows his or her stuff....

as for me i went with a jvc kw-xr810 dd unit. i wanted bluetooth for hands free calls and imho it's got a decent sound and a lot of extras.. amazon has one for 209.00... as for speakers components are the only way to go.

i went with a set of jbl's can't remember which ones for around 279.00

i think i will add a sub later but for know it kicks the crap out of the stock unit

if you want a Double Din the JVC's are nice for the money, i put one in a buddy's WRX not long ago, great HU for the money.

I definetly want bluetooth feature with the HU. As for speakers i found the polk 6 1/2 DXi6500 for $199.00 not sure how good they are though :s also i would prefer not drilling holes.

best thing is to go and listen to a few speakers, everyone likes something different.

True, i'm gonna try going to best buy on my next days off, thx for the feedback!

As far as head units go, I just installed a Pioneer P4200DVD (cost $330 from Amazon with a coupon code). HU is great by itself, but the bluetooth adapter (BTB-200) that Pioneer sells is absolute crap. If you want good bluetooth integration, definitely buy a HU that has it integrated in.

Bluetooth is for sure the weak link in a lot of these units... i've listened to a bunch and to me none or as good as a direct unit from factory...

either in calling quailty or playing music back..

ford sync or even the gm products for bluetooth are alot better.

Well thats not good news, I was really looking forward to the bluetooth setup.

well there may be some good units out there with good bluetooth units...
just do your homework... it just seems most of the call quailty sucks..

i know for sure on my HU the playback quailty is a lot better when i use the iphone usb cable over the bluetooth.. luckily the jvc allows full control of the music from the head unit

My thinking is is to put in a new amplifier and connect the radio to the amplifier with a LOC. Can I just split the mono into two stereo channels and feed that into the amp? In addition I would like to have an auxiliary input so my brother could use his portable cd or mp3 player to play music in the car. What type of amp should I use to provide the auxilliary input, and how would I switch between the radio and aux input?

I second the alpine suggestion but go with the polk db's as they will be more efficent with the power a head unit will give them. Or if you want to step up the power use the alpine add on amp pack that plugs into the back of the head unit to boost the power to 50 watts RMS and than go with the polk mm series.

Will a Alpine KTP-455 amp plug directly into a Kenwood DNX 5140 HU?

Directly no, it's an Alpine piece. I would just go with a small 4ch amp, save some trouble and get better power.

check out pioneers fh-p8000bt. Ive had great experience installing them.
Pioneer USA - FH-P8000BT - Double-DIN CD Receiver with Built-In Bluetooth® Wireless and USB Direct Control of iPod

Also check out boston acoustics sc60 for a solid budget comonent set.

It will not plug in directly but it could be done. Also these little amps put out more power than what they are rated for and should not be overlooked when they provide plenty of power in a small space as aposed to a larger amp.