2004 Dodge Stratus Stereo Wiring

Here's a fun question for you audio gods to wrap your minds around.

I have a 2004 Dodge Stratus Sedan, and here's the speaker layout

Doors: 6x9

Rear Deck: 6x9

Dash: 3.5

Now here's the system I'm buying, now I'm sure you'll have plenty of comments on this, but through all my research on the internet and on here I've found this to be the type of system I like, it's built for SQ not so much SPL, thought I'm sure it can get loud.

Now the idea I had was to wire the rears and doors to the 2 amps and put the 3.5's in the dash directly into the head unit amp, or should I wire the 3.4' into the same channel as the doors (in other words, 2 - 4ohm speakers into 1 channel)

Here's the system run down (all being bought at www.etronics.com)

Door and Rear Deck 6x9: Infinity KAPPA 692.5I 6" x 9" 2-Way (110 watts RMS)

Dash 3.5: Infinity KAPPA 32.5CF 3 1/2" 2-Way Loudspeaker (35 watts RMS)

Sub: 1: Infinity KAPPA PERFECT 10.1D 10" Dual Voice Coil Subwoofer (350 watts RMS)

Amp for Sub: Alpine MRD-M501 12V Mono Amplifier (450 watts RMS @ 12.2 volts)

Amp for Rears and Doors: 2 x Alpine MRV-T320 2 Channel (80 watts x 2 RMS @ 4ohm,110 @ 2 Ohm)

Head Unit: Clarion DXZ745MP AM/FM CD/MP3/WMA Player

Total cost of this system: $1,239.92 (before shipping)

My advice is to take a listen to the components at a store before you buy.  You can't really tell how a speaker sounds until you hear it!

If you're going for SQ I'd do one thing different right away:   Put a 6.5" component set in the door 6x9 location and forget about the dash speakers.  In my experience speakers in the factory dash locations are REALLY hard to make sound good.  You get all sorts of high frequency reflections off the glass and things just don't sound right.  If you get a good component set you'll have the advantage of a higher quality crossover and the ability to set the tweeters up correctly. 

I have a sebring sedan (same car basically) and put a 6.5" component set in the door 6x9 location and couldn't be happier. 

If you like Infinity, I've heard their components are quality.  Other than that brands like Memphis, MB Quart, Diamond, and Eclipse make great quality speakers at decent prices. 

I'm sure others on this board will comment that less known brands like DynAudio, Adire, Image Dynamics and Seas are very high sound quality brands as well. 

I can only speak for hearing Rockford, JL, Memphis, MBQuart, and Diamond components lately.  I didn't like the JL or Rockford at all for sound quality.  The Quart, Diamond, and Memphis were very close.  You'd need to demo them to pick which one you prefer. 

Kfir, I actually went back out and looked things over, putting components in my car is going to be a pain in the arse, so I'm sticking to the original idea off the 6 speakers since that's how the car was designed, plus Dodge use this same infinity layout for it's high end audio upgrade (Though I doubt they use Kappas). The way I look at it, if I like it, great, if not then I can always fall back to buying a set of components. I greatly appreciate your advice though. But back to the same initial question now...

Should I wire the 3.5's with the door speaks into the amp or wire them to the HU's internal amp?

I am with DY on this one.  I am a firm believer in the Head Unit being the key to an SQ system, the clearer the signal from the head unit, the better!  Also, I would advise to go for a 4-channel amp as well, just less wiring to deal with.

Well as of right now I don't have the 3.5's in there, the ambition was to do just that, bring the sound stage forward since the rear deck having 6x9's seem to bring it back there. As for the Clarion HU, I actually stumbled upon that while at tweeter doing just as you suggested, I was checking out the Eclipse HU's and noticed that I enjoyed the sound quality of the Clarion more, had a smoother sound, not as harsh. And the reason I'm using the 2 Alpine amps for the front is that 1, like the sound quality, and 2 it's far more coast effective, I can get those for $129 apiece as opposed to the cost of the MRV F540, plus the place I'm getting this from is out of stock on them. Thanks for the heads up on all that though. But what would you recomend for the head unit in the same price range as the Clarion? name a few if you could just so I have more options.

Thanks again

Kicker amp instead of Alpine for an SQ system?  NO.  Alpine will be far, far cleaner. 

If you liked the sound of the Clarion, then go for it.  Like I said, they are decent decks and their quality has improved a lot in recent years (McIntosh heads have been made by Clarion since 1990 and some of their quality rubbed off on their main line.)  If you liked it better than an Eclipse, then what can I say since Eclipse would be one of the decks I would advise you to go listen to! You already did the absolute best thing you can possibly do, which is to go shopping and actually LISTEN to the equipment.  Bravo.