tight budget audio upgrade

What you have there is, a no-name H/U that may or may not work, and good luck trying to wire it in. An amp that may or may not catch fire. And a cheap Sony sub, which is fine.

Have you taken into consideration, wiring kit, harnesses for the H/U, installation, etc?

Maybe consider just buying a H/U for now, with a known brand, and add a sub later.

 

My opinion is don't cheap out on crap audio gear.
I have done it before once when I was broke and its not worth it, it was replaced twice in a few months, and that was from a store.

Forget the amp and sub and just buy a semi decent head unit, and maybe a couple of matching front speakers, Pioneer stuff seems to work ok for me, Alpine, Kenwood, SONY, something that people know of is usually a good start.

Budget $150 to $250 for a head unit and $80 to $200 for a couple of decent speakers.

 

Good choice. If money is tight, just do it in stages, don't cheap out, you will just end up spending more in the long run.

 

I bought a sony head unit for $99 55w x 4. -- Supercheap auto
aeropro 6x9 box's $40 --- Supercheap auto
kenwood 6x9's for $60 -- ryda
30m of 16awg speaker wire $30 ---- Bunnings


So $230 for a more or less complete system.
I bought this budget system for my boat, as nothing portable came even close to the sound quality/volume/features for less then $500.

Do your self a favour and go to jaycar and buy 1 metre of heat shrink ($3) and a soldering iron ($20).
Dont do a dodgy twist and electrical tape set up and it should never let you down.

2nd hand shops like cash converters etc... can be good for picking up cheap sub in box with amp set ups...
stay away from that amp and deck.

 

Don't always rely on eBay being the cheapest without checking out the specials... personally... I'd try to find an extra 30-40 bucks and get one with bluetooth. Hands free phone calls and audio streaming equals boss status.

This sub and amp combo is the same Money as what you are looking at...

https://www.jbhifi.com.au/gps-car-audio/cadence/cadence-x1-sub-amp-combo/52575/
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/gps-car-audio/sony/sony-xplod-cdxg2050up-200w-mp3-cd-tuner/534969/

Again... Spring a little bit more and you are going into much better quality.

https://www.jbhifi.com.au/gps-car-audio/kicker/kicker-kickpack-amp-sub-box-combo/604026/

Budget another $60-70 for power cable and rca kit. 10ga or 8ga will suffice. Don't be suckered into 4ga. Not only is it overkill but far harder to work with.

If you go for a system like this you will find you won't need to amp the remaining speakers as the headunit will most likely have a built crossover to remove bass from them and let them sing along happily with the subwoofer.

Honestly, if you had that sort of setup. You'll be pretty happy. The thing you'd consider is a headunit with bluetooth and perhaps changing the remaining speakers at a later date to get some more clarity in the system.

And if you want, the adaptors to make the headunit plug and play with no wiring involved is about $30 from memory.

 

Install is pretty easy stuff. For the head unit either get an adapter (easiest) or find the wiring colours on here somewhere and solder and heat shrink the correct ones up.

Amp, remember to run the power cable down the opposite side to the speaker cabling, even though they should be shielded.
Add the fuse as close to the battery as possible, (put fuse in last after it's all hooked up). Put the earth cable from amp to bare metal in boot.
Sub is self explanatory.

Plenty of info on here and the web for this stuff.

By the way, if your speakers are original then they are most likely stuffed and will sound like crap by now so go out and grab 2 sets of 6 inches, one set for the front doors and one set for the parcel shelf, just use the original wiring, it should still be ok.