I have an 88 GTA. Last spring, I bought a Kenwood head unit with a satellite radio setup. I like it so much, that I'm going to put it in my wife's car and upgrade my head unit. I also have the factory 4x6 speakers up front, and some Sony Xplod 6x9's in the sail panels. I also have an Infinity Basslink 10" sub mounted in the spare tire compartment. Sounds pretty good, but I wanted to upgrade the front speakers and the 6x9's. I've been reading on here a lot and read that 6x9's aren't that great. Does this matter since I already have a sub? Should I get 6.5" speakers for the back? I already figured I'd get 4" speakers up front. Another thing I was looking at was the Q-Logic kickpanels so I could mount front speakers there. If I did do that, would I no longer use speakers in the dash? Would you guys recommend that in the first place? I've been looking at Kenwood, Rockford Fosgate, and Infinity speakers. What do you guys recommend I do? I like to listen to my radio loud, but I don't need it to be heard a block away. I like the bass kind of punchy. I probably have my basslink adjusted a bit wrong. Don't know much about it. MY 6x9's get kind of distorted at high volume. I have to turn it down lower than I would like to keep the speakers from distorting. Thanks for any info! Matt

 

If you're running your 6x9 off of the radio with no amp, ANY speaker will distort because you don't have enough power. You're driving the radio into "clipping" (distortion).You need an amp. I would recommend an Infinity speaker.

 

The kenwood has enough power to play reasonably loud before it distorts. If you want more bass than what you're getting now, you can add a sub and an amp for that sub, and keep powering your 6x9s off the head unit. Most kenwood head units allow you to run the speakers in a high-pass configuration. In other words, the kenwood has a crossover to filter the bass out of the speakers that it is powering. This is a VERY useful tool, especially for the specific configuration that I just mentioned.

When you run this sort of configuration, it'll get a lot louder than you think. The 15 or so watts that the head unit is capable of producing goes a long way when you filter the bass out of it.