I know this is your business Dave, but I don't agree.
Good, I would hate everybody to agree with me and hope that everybody makes up their own mind.
The standard speakers in the Omega are much better quality than many others I have seen.
No, they are still unbelieveably naff paper cone speakers - they may do their job ok, but they were designed and installed for a purpose, and sadly that was not to reproduce accurate sounds in a car - they were put ion there because people are fickle and would not buy a car that did not have a sound system. If they were any good, there would not be a business in aftermarket sound systems.
I always feel you should upgrade a car system in this order:
Change the headunit first for something decent (Pioneer,Alpine etc).
Disagree - the power of 99.9% of head units out there will far exceed the power rating of the oem speakers. if the speakers go bang, then the head unit will follow almost instantly.
Next amp the system (30w rms per channel will be fine for the door speakers) and add a small sub.
So you have just magnified the problems above by tenfold? The speakers couldn`t even handle the power of the new head unit, and you have just increased that!
Finally change the speakers if you are not satisfied with the sound they are producing.
At this stage everything will have gone bang.
If you cannot afford to change the entire system in one go, and not everybody can, then the advice that we would offer is the following for those that are starting from scratch with both OEM head unit and speakers.
Always remember, that whatever the head unit is, the sound reproduced is only ever as good as the speakers will permit, and they can only play a sound that is clearly defined by the head unit. in other words, there are a lot of weak links. No point having mega speakers if you have a bog standard head unit and vice versa.
Add a small amp and a sub. Doesn`t have to be anything that fills the boot, but the first sounds to distort as the volume is cranked up is the sub frequencies. A small 8" sub will add a certain "richness and depth" to the sound, and is one of the reasons everybody raves about the BOSE system - (unplug the BOSE sub and it sounds truly awfull.)
I can hear the arguments now - Boom Boom Boom, I don`t want my car to sound like that
It shouldn`t - forget the sounds from the Chavs - if you have ever experienced a truly balanced sound system it will make the hairs stand up and give you goose bumps all over - Jazz and Operatic music can sound just as awesome with a sub as the latest Club sounds. Find an
established car audio shop nearby and ask to hear their demo car - and a tip would be to take along your own music
Next, the speakers. At the end of the day, its unlikely that a standard head unit will damage them if overdriven, and at normal volumes will offer loads of improvement.
If you cannot afford to buy good front and rear speakers, spend the money on better fronts, ideally component speakers with seperate tweeters and cheaper rears. After all, where are YOU sitting. (Forget the arguments about sound staging etc, if you are doing this on a budget then you should be approaching this in a different way). With the majority of the sound coming from the front through the good speakers, the rears will act as nothing more than a rear fill. You would even be better off spending all the budget on an excellent set of fronts and leaving the OEM ones in the rear for now, and upgrade them later when you can afford to.
Finally go for a decent head unit - too many options to go through, but choose wisely - spend a bit of money on a decent brand - avoid the eastern imports and tacky gadgets. the rest of your system by this time will ahve now been upgraded and ready to make the most of your final purchase.
Everybody will have their own opinions on this, and that is a good thing, but please do not ignore the comments from the experts, after all, we are only experts after having done this for so long. . . . .