98 maxima stereo, where do i begin?

what's up people?

as you can see by my user name, i have no clue about audio systems in anyway. I recently purchased a 98 maxima and would like to have a system installed ($150-$200 range). Im not sure where to begin. I dont want to walk into a place and have them try to jerk me around and try to get me to purchase things i dont really need.

can someone recommend a system in the above price range? Would i need new speakers, amps, etc? my car has a bose radio in it. Like I said, this is a foreign lang. to me.

please help a lost guy out. if you help me, i can help you. heres a list of things i do well, LOL.

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Hi and welcome.  The first thing you need to do is decide what you want out of your car audio system.  Do you want good clean sound?  Do you want thundering bass?  Do you want it to be very very loud but you don't really care how it sounds?  What kind of music do you listen to?  These kinds of questions will determine what kind of system you might require.

Second is to decide on your budget.  With only $150 to $200 to spend you will have to be very careful what you buy and you will most likely have to learn to install it yourself.  If this figure can go up to $500 or $1000 then you are entereing the area of a nice system installed by a pro.  But for under $200 you are barely at the entry level od doing it yourself... no matter, though, it all depends on what you want out of it.  Answer that first and then we can help you out.

Cheers

is $400-$500 better??

start with your factory system and work outwards from there... what do you like? what do you dislike?   a system is only ever as good as the weakest link in the chain, so normally you look at the weakest link in your existing system and start from there.... having said that, you have a Bose system which tends to somewhat complicate things... it's not as simple to simply swap out a HU or SPKRS in a system like this... it's often an all or nothing thing with Bose....

the first thing to do though, is have a good listen to your existing system and decide what seems to be lacking or what you'd like to change SQ-wise....

from what i can tell, if the volume is high, i have to turn down the bass.

also, different songs require different levels of bass and trebile. some songs are nice, but then i notice when certain songs come on, i have to lower/increase the bass.