Learned sages, help a brother out: I need suggestion, top to bottom, for a new sound system for my vert. I do not thump bass or whatever, and I am not looking to win any shows with it. I want clear, decent audio, with a decent HU that will take an aux plug in. I have 2 door speaker spots and 2 back spots, so I guess what I would need is a suggestion that includes 4 speakers, amp and head unit. Thanks, guys!

 

Ive always been partial to Kenwood or Alpine head units. Even the cheapies sound pretty good at around $100, and will have an aux input on the front. You can get an even better one these days for under $200 that will not only hook up to your ipod, but will stream pandora and has built in bluetooth and be xm/sirius ready. Personally, thats the way I would go. Kenwood and alpine also make some good speakers and amps as well. If your looking for nice clear sound, i would replace all the factory speakers and hook up a small 4 channel amp to drive the new ones. You might look into a sub though with a small amp, because alot of times with aftermarket component dpeakers, youll lose most of your bass, and while you dont want it booming, im sure you still want a little. A small sub with a couple hundred watt amp, tuned properly will fill in your sound without drowning out the rest of the music. Good luck and happy hunting!

 

the vert needs special speakers for the back (ive never found any that work) or the hydraulics will catch the magnet and destroy the speaker. i used some 6x9s and some 3'' wood screws, the magnet cleared the rams and the interior panel looked just fine. i wish i had some pics to show you

 

Me too! This is proving more difficult than it should, IMO.

 

memphis makes really nice interiors

 

Block off plate where the radio used to be. Bolt on a set of headers and full exhaust through a set of nice throaty mufflers and youll never want to listen to the radio again.

 

Thats pretty much what I have going on. Most times you can barely hear my radio unless its up full blast

 

I prefer the option to do both myself.

This is like asking which pen to buy dude, the thing to really take from this is the brands. Kenwood, Alpine, Boston Acoustic, Polk, Infinity all make good sounding mid range speakers. You want 6.5's two or three way's in the front, and 6.5S's (S for small) in the back, again 2 or 3 ways. Now no matter what you go with here, you're not going to get good low bass, probably not even good mid bass because of the way the camaro's are open behind the speakers. But you can get good mid and high treble. To find speakers that fit the back, look at crutchfield.com and use their "what fit's my car" app to see what speakers fit in the back, and then buy then somewhere else because crutchfield is overpriced. I did this when I put mine together and found three way Rockford Fosgate for over 75% off what crutchfeild wanted for them.

For a head unit, just depends what you want as far as features. Almost anything will fit in the camaro with an adapter kit, which you'll need, and an stock wiring adapter. Don't really need the adapter, but it keeps you from having to alter the stock harness in the car. The camaro will take a single DIN and some DIN and a half size receivers. But like I said before it depends on the features you want.

And you don't need an amp to run the front speakers, most HU's are 50 watts max power and that's plenty to get loud sound that you can hear up to around 90-100 MPH before the air sound just overpowers it. Look for speakers that match your HU's power output and you'll be good. And also look at the db's the speakers are capable of, the louder they can go means the louder they will be. So don't pay $100 bucks for some speakers that only go 87 db's when you can spend the same money for ones that go 91 db's. That's really going to be the only difference between good quality speakers.

Now for bass, since you're not really going to get it from the mid range in the stockers you kinda either go big or it's not going to matter. Two eights will not make enough bass to hear with the top down, but you can sorta feel it. With the top up it'll sound great. Two ten's will be a little better, but not really worth it with the top down. Two 12's overkill, let me tell you, because you can hear it a good amount with the top down and it'll shake everything with the top up. I can vow for that. So it really depends on how bad you want it if you see where I'm going. If you don't have passenger you could take out the back seats and build a box there or just drop a bass tube in the seats.

 

so the 6.5S has a shorter profile to clear the rams??? man this would have been great to know before i put 3 sets of 6.5s in my vert only to have the top destroy them.

 

Yep it does. I just went ahead and got two sets for the stock spots. I would say the RF set I got had a good 1/2" clearance and they sound great.