Opinions on my plan

[larryo108]

My stereo is currently stock and the speakers are all blown from listening to too much punk way too loud. I am researching options for upgrades and I would like opinons and some input.

Like I said, my stereo is currently stock, but the majority of my listening (radio, music or otherwise) is streamed using my phone. I have a metra connector for the auxiliary on the stock stereo and I mount the phone using a Mountek CD slot mounting kit. Finally, I have a motorola bluetooth speaker mounted on the visor for handsfree calling. I am wanting to swap all of this out and just clean up my interior.

I was thinking of using a Pioneer AVH-P2400BT. It has great reviews on Crutchfield and would serve to clean up part of the visor clutter (I'll get to the rest in a sec). With this unit I could very easily have my handsfree calling and then also bluetooth media streaming. Less wire clutter would be awesome too. The only issue I run into at that point is that I use the tomtom app on my iphone for navigation, so I would need to mount it in the car somewhere. At least for those times that I need navigation. I would hate to reuse the mountek and block the beautiful desplay on the headunit, but I am struggling to find any other mount solutions. I have looked at proclipusa, but I don't like the mount locations. I have looked at bracketron, but I think I would need something more custom. I would love to have the phone mounted above the headunit in front of the passenger air vent. Any ideas how I could accomplish this and not have it look like crap?

I plan to pair the headunit with the Pioneer TS-A1304C for the front speakers and the Pioneer TS-A1674R for the rear speakers. I am not looking for a huge mind blowing system. Just something better than stock that while hopefully not get blown in a week. Both speaker sets have really good reviews on Crutchfield again, but I would welcome any input.

Finally, I have two garage door openers on my visor. I was planning to get a homelink unit off of Ebay and install it behind the reading lights/in front of the sunroof. Is there room enough under the headliner in that area to mount the hommelink module.

Again, any opinions and ideas are welcome. I am still in the planning stages and saving stages, but want to have a goal to shoot for. Thanks in advance.

[larryo108]

OK. One more question. I hope to get some response on this good or bad. At least on the stereo. I priced all of this out on Crutchfield and it came to around 500 bucks. Still debating on some speaker baffles, but that would be negligible. This all comes with mounting kits for speakers and everything. I did actually already purchase the Metra double-din fit kit.

Now I found the same system on sonicelectronix. I don't know anything about the site, but I can get the same stuff for about 410 bucks. Significant savings right there. What it does not include is speaker mounting kits and speaker wiring. I couldn't find the same stuff as Crutchfield exactly, but I found something I think will work. I could still see some savings even with having to buy the stuff separately.

However, I feel more comfortable with Crutchfield and they have verified that all of this stuff (including the speaker mounting and wiring) work with the EP. Would do you all think about that? Any opinions.

[Draw7Seven]

To be honest I use Crutchfield for their reviews and compatibility listings and then I go buy the stuff elsewhere. They charge quite a premium for their stuff over other online vendors. And if you buy something little from them like a metra kit for the new unit or anything like that, they'll still send you the "master sheet" for your car for some instructions on installation in your car.

As far as what to buy I love my headunit's bluetooth compatibility and I mounted the microphone just above my instrument cluster for hands-free calling. My navigation (via Google on a Droid) automatically reduces the volume of the music while it tells me the next direction and then brings the volume back up-- so I'm rarely looking at the screen for the map, just listening to the directions. However I'd think with enough searching you could find a mount that will work for you, since the iPhone has a bigger aftermarket than any other item in history.

Good luck!

[larryo108]

Thanks for the input Draw. Based on that, maybe I will just buy the speaker mounting kits from Crutchfield and the actual components from elsewhere. They where the more significant savings anyway. Thanks again.