[Drivesthebeast]

I have YET to own any component sets in any of my cars. I've always just used 2-way coaxials in the factory locations. In my 78 Zephyr, I had 2 5x7" JBL power series coaxials in the rear deck, and 3" GTO Series coaxials in the dash, with 2 10" GTO series subs in the trunk in a sealed box. I was using a JBL GTS 300 amplifier for the subs, and was running the coaxials off the Pioneer Premier deck I had in the car at the time. The sound system I had sounded better than the stereo in a couple of Lexus and Infinity cars I've been in, and those cars use seperates. Not only did I feel the SQ was better, but everyone else who did the comparison with me agreed.

I'm more or less running the same setup in my Foci now...deck driving the 5x7's, and a 2ch amp driving the 2 10's in the hatch...it cost me less than $2000 so far, and it sounds more than adequate...As pointed out, it's all about personal prefference when it comes to audio systems of any type, and some of that is sometimes determined by price (had JBL previous 2x, and spent a fortune, and the power acoustik stuff is also american made/designed, and gives me almost equalled performance at 1/2 the cost).