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Been out of the car audio game for awhile so I just have some basic questions here about my 2001 Civic. I already have 2 JL subs and an Alpine amp. I'd like to replace the rest of the stock speakers and the head unit. As far as speakers go, it seems like the Polk db675, Kenwood KFC-1789ie, or the Infinity Kappa 652.5i are all good bets. Any recommendations? My front speakers can be 4" or 7", would I be stupid to get 4"? Is it a must to get an amp for these speakers, they're all above 50watts RMS but I'm not sure how 'necessary' an amp would be.

My old head unit was a sony that had specific preouts for the subs, I'm having a hard time finding preout information on any new units, do they come standard now or what? Is it typical to use preouts for all of the speakers now also? Any suggestions? Doesn't need to be 'state of the art', just needs to be reliable.

Thanks for your help, I appreciate your time. You can see how lost I am!!

 
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Well maybe someone else can drop some more knowledge on this...

But all i know is that just abt every aftermarket HU ive come across has the inputs for your subs, they are called RCA preouts. Only stock ones dont. There are 2 preouts on the HU and there will be two which connect back to the amp. Pretty simple. Just need to buy the RCA wires, can be found at radio shack, future shop, etc. Check the length though, make sure you get some that are long enough to connect from your HU to wherever your amp will be stationed.

As far as speakers go, ya just get a hardness and hook it up. they have harnesses at futureshop for 7thgen civics, they are like 15 bucks, and eliminate splicing wires.

Hope that helps you a bit.

 
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You don't have to get a harness. You have several options for connecting the replacement stocks. You can solder the wire to the leads on the speakers, I never do it that way, but some people do. You can buy some of the crimp on connectors that match up to size (very common way to do it). Or, if you're gonna amp them, you can run new wire, and then do one of the two options I mentioned above. The harness is quick, but you can hook them up a whole lot cheaper. As for the sub and amp. You can buy a ilne out (high level, whatever you call it where you're at) and hook it up to the stock HU. It converts the speaker wire to RCA's for hooking up your amp. And I haven't seen a new HU in a while that didn't come with pre-amp outs. Most of em' have 2-4 sets of pre-outs.

 
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My old HU had a specific preout just for the sub, it was really cool, in the settings like balance, fade, treble, etc... there was one for 'Sub', which controlled how much power (or volume?) the sub would get. Just added another place to fine tune the system. The unit was a Sony from about 5 years ago.