Humorously enough one of the reasons I bought the car I did was because it had an aftermarket system in it and I was hoping for some decent audio quality. I didn't expect amazing sound or anything, but I've pretty much gutted the entire system in the month and a half I've had it. The flip out head unit was novel, but just way too big and in the way of the dash vents when open (and you pretty much had to have it open to do anything), so I replaced with a a nice Alpine unit with bluetooth and Pandora and such. There was a monster JL Audio 5 channel amp in the truck and an 8" sub in the passenger footwell. The door speakers had been replaced with Polk Audio DXi 6.5's and the original sub enclosure had been "modified" to accept two standard 6.5" speakers which I think might be Focal brand (it has a pair of focal tweeters and crossover boxes installed in place of the stock dash speakers). The little fill speakers behind the seats are now gone (wired to the two 6.5" speakers in the enclosure), and the stock sub wiring is just unplugged.
I originally moved the sub to the trunk to get back the foot room, but since the trunk is sealed so well on the convertibles you could barely tell a difference with the sub on or off. If you opened the trunk with the music going you'd get a pretty good surprise though, lol. I decided to just scrap the sub idea entirely and replaced the JL Audio amp with a nice little 4 channel Alpine (MRP-F300) that I mounted under the passenger seat. While I don't get the same thump sensation of a sub, the sound is decently full with the 6.5s all around. The system is crystal clear though, like to the point of pain when you crank it up the trebles are so sharp. I've decided I'd just sort of surrender and let the Viper audio system have its own personality of clarity over chest feel. I'll try to repurpose the old amp and sub in my 67 Dart and let it have the thump. Putting the amp back under the seat also really cleaned up the wiring so I didn't have a huge harness running to the trunk and then back.
On a side note the best system I've ever had was in a stock 2000 Jag XKR. That car just sounded beautiful and when you cranked it up it would shake the seats. It spoiled me too much, lol. The Dart has it's own volume switch though with electric exhaust cutouts, so it has a different kind of thump.
I originally moved the sub to the trunk to get back the foot room, but since the trunk is sealed so well on the convertibles you could barely tell a difference with the sub on or off. If you opened the trunk with the music going you'd get a pretty good surprise though, lol. I decided to just scrap the sub idea entirely and replaced the JL Audio amp with a nice little 4 channel Alpine (MRP-F300) that I mounted under the passenger seat. While I don't get the same thump sensation of a sub, the sound is decently full with the 6.5s all around. The system is crystal clear though, like to the point of pain when you crank it up the trebles are so sharp. I've decided I'd just sort of surrender and let the Viper audio system have its own personality of clarity over chest feel. I'll try to repurpose the old amp and sub in my 67 Dart and let it have the thump. Putting the amp back under the seat also really cleaned up the wiring so I didn't have a huge harness running to the trunk and then back.
On a side note the best system I've ever had was in a stock 2000 Jag XKR. That car just sounded beautiful and when you cranked it up it would shake the seats. It spoiled me too much, lol. The Dart has it's own volume switch though with electric exhaust cutouts, so it has a different kind of thump.
