SQ system that won't take up a lot of room?

I concur with forbidden - 50 watts to your fronts and rears should be more than enough for what you want to do.

Head units - Alpine is still a good brand, maybe Clarion also. I was impressed with the Kenwood Excelon's from a few years back, but don't know much about how they are now.

As far as running wires from the trunk to the doors, you'll have to unscrew the plastic around the door frame to allow you room to work, then feed the wire under the carpet up toward the front. Kinda hard to explain, but it's not to hard once you've done it. Behind the rear seat is not sealed completely off from the cabin, so you should be able to find a crevice through which to feed the wire to the front of the vehicle.

Coaxial speakers (what it sounds like you want) - you could get Alpine Type S coaxials to match what you have in the trunk, if you're into the whole "branded" concept (all things being from the same company). Those shouldn't break the bank.

Hope that helped some.

Oh Micah, now I'm concerned.  I thought your friend was good with this stuff, but your questions make me think it's his first install (or he has speaker wires hanging all over his car).  I don't know what your budget situation is, but you should seriously consider having a pro install this stuff, it will make a world of difference in sound quality & how long it all lasts.

Your system choices look fine so far, but if it were me in your shoes I'd forgo the sub & sub amp altogether & go with a simpler system installed by a shop.  Cost should be even less, and it's easy to add a sub later on.  For head units, I like the Panasonics for the money - good quality & great value.

For speakers, there's no replacement for going & actually listening to them - actually no excuse not to.  There are HUGE differences between speakers, you really need to find the ones that "fit" your ears.

No prob on the sub/amp power difference.  Just turn it down before you hear distortion, that's what cooks speakers, not too much power, usually.

What car is this going into?

It's going in a 2004 Eclipse.

i'll check into the alpine type s speakers like Para. mentioned. i'll have my friend match an amp up for me when I get the speakers picked out. so the sub/amp combo. is more likely what i'll get. i just need to find a good cd player with speakers and amp. i'll let him figure that out for me, since he seems to have good taste.

he's got a 2001 (i think) Blazer with two JL Audio (not sure what type) 12's with a JL audio amp. Infinity Kappa's ran off the cd player, but he's gonna add a 2nd amp to those, but never has yet. (Thats how I heard of the Kappa's since he said they're good speakers) and he has a Pioneer cd player. I believe it's the DEH-P9600MP. he doesn't have wires hanging all over the place. he actually did a good job on his install. he did all of his stuff so I trust him on picking out my stuff and installing it. he's gonna show me how to hook everything up cause I wanna learn. so i was asking for myself about the wires, so sorry for the confusement. he showed me a couple Pioneer cd players on ebay that were good. the P80MP, P7600MP, P7700MP. he's a big fan of the pioneer cd players if you haven't nocticed. haha. he told me alot of brands to stay away from. Legacy, Pyramid, audiobahn, and some others i can't think of. and anything that wal*mart sells. haha. and ebay will be my cheapest route to get all my "bigger" equipment. (Sub, amps, speakers, cd player, etc.)

I like how his sounds, but sometimes it gets "too" loud for my liking. i'm basing his sound from the sound I want inside my head. but trying to explain it on this forum, which I hope I did a decent job doing. but so far it looks like i got everything picked out besides the important things, which i'll check into/ask about the alpine type s speakers with matching 4-channel amp. i'll update you guys on what happens. thnx for all the help, i appreciate it.

***EDIT****

after looking on ebay, i found alpine SPS-690A 6x9 3-way speakers, 50wrms. and Alpine SPR-17LS 6.5" component speakers, 70wrms. Would 50 in the rear, and 70 in the front sound crappy? or would it be ok? Should I run all 4 speakers off an amp, or just the front door speakers since those are more important?

on ebay it said 250wrms but on the box in the picture it shows "250w peak - 50w rms".  Are they 50watts (rear) / 70watts (front) combined together or that many watts a piece? just curious.

Yeah, speakers don't have "watts," it's just a recommendation as to how much power they're built to handle.  Virtually any aftermarket speaker like you're looking for will be fine with 50wpc, so don't worry about that.

Ebay's great if you know what you're looking for, bad news if you don't.  Right now your only basis for comparison is this guy's system which sounds seriously bass-heavy to me.  Go to Best Buy or Circuit City and waste their time for an hour listening to different gear & configurations.  It's really tough to make good decisions until you know what sounds like what.  Try to build your system there on their soundboards.

I think you're better off with a front 2-channel amp and powering the rears on the deck.  Pioneer decks are fine, I don't think there's anything special about them over anything else.  As long as they sound comparable, I pay attention to how easy it is to use b/c I don't want to think about it while driving.  Volume knob instead of buttons, lg display, etc.

thanx for more replies, i appreciate it. i also have another question to ask about the door speakers and the amp for those. i'm gonna use the cd player for the rear speakers, which will be the alpine type r 6x9 and the doors will be the 6.5" type r's as well. i found an amp (on my own...if i'm correct lol) that will match up the wattage to the door speakers. the door speakers are 70watts rms and they're 4ohms and this amp is an Alpine MRP-F240 and the specs. on it are.

and lastly, i dont think anyone answered this previous question, if i gave the sub 50 more watts than what it's rated for (300wrms - 4ohm) and the amp will be 350wrms @ 2ohms, which I can only power the sub in a 2 or 8 ohm load. (from what my friend said) Will it be safe to give it 50 more watts?

tnx again guys!

All that will work, but for what you want to do I think 40wx2 to the fronts is plenty - balance, remember?