I will be buying me first car soon and was looking at a 97' hatch

the car only has a am/fm radio so how much will it cost to put some good...
Speakers
Subs
Amps
Deck

ultimatly I want to hook my ipod so I can play music from there

also should I pay someone to install my entire set up or is it fairly easy to do it yourself?

 

well if you want to hook up your ipod and want a pretty good headunit, then the new alpine headunits are set up so you can hook your ipod up directly to it. i really dont know how much you want to spend...i mean headunit- $200, speakers - $150, depending on what size and dow many subs you want...i mean there really isn't a price. i mean its whatever you want to spend. probably somewhere around 500-600 by the time you got everything and that would be pushing it. take a look at infinity...they make good stuff and arent that pricey. also, eclipse makes some fairly good and reasonably priced stuff. here is a site...browse around on there - www.onlinecarstereo.com and for cheaper stuff, theres always ebay but make sure you check the feedback.

 

Just put a system of headunit and amps/subs into a friends car for $800

You get what you pay for, so if you dont mind listening to cheap equipment, then you can spend $600 on a complete system

 

if you want good you have to pay for it. i like alpine head units because of the sound tuning you can due, and they look cool as hell, but i paid like 350 for mine. 100 for a set of co-axial speakers alpine type s, and 350 for my 2 12' audiobahn flame series and a 1400 watt ma audio x class amp used. i sold the subs and now i run an mtx 12 and it sounds decent, but not nearly as good as those 2 audiobahns.

and if you are a patient person, and will not ghetto up your ride by all means install them yourself. and if you need help with wiring diagrams and such ask on the forum

 

I would agree with doing work yourself.. my last Hatch I had a local car shop, Creative Car Tunes... install just my head and run the amp wiring so that i could do the rest myself.. i told them exactly what i wanted and what i was doing and they still fugged it all up.. and didnt give me a discount for waiting an extra hour plus bringing it back to fix problem..Ive seen 15 year old kids do better work than a shop charging 50 bucks an hour.

But yes you get what you pay for.. if your not sure on brands .. go to your local shops and listen to their displays and see what sounds/looks good.. Then figure in your budget.. after that.. get online and go to Pricegrabber.com and ebay to look for all those parts brand new .. check for warranty's and such on expensive amps/heads

 

thanks for the advice so far

 

Honestly, what sounds decent/good is all relative to the listener.. Do you have a car stereo shop in your town? go there and listen to some of the equipment they have there.. get some ideas, on what you would like to put in there ( some folks think one 12' is too much bass.. I personally think 8 12's is not enough
If you want just good clean sound playing regular ( pop/rock/classical etc.) music
then for most folks.. a single 10 or 12 is fine for a sub.. with a smallish amount of power..
a LOT of car audio is personal preference.. for head units, I personally like Alpine, and eclipse, for their sound quality. For Subs, I like Kicler Solobaric L7 series ( higher power handeling SQUARE subs (see my Avatar)
Amps, Kicker/Rockford/Precision power/Memphis/Directed.. lots of great stuff out there..
Good luck in whatever you decide.. If you give me a little more on your listening style I'll try to give better suggestions..

 

I work at a shop and can tell you that its no good to ask somone what the best is because the best is all subjective to the end user. I can sell you a $500 dollar pair of speakers but if you can't hear the difference between the $60 speakers next to them, then there is no sense in buying something just because its more expensive. As far as Headunits go, look for something that you will be able to build off of, you say you want to add I-pod so make sure the radio has either and ipod adapter available or an auxillary input, also look for things like sat radio ready, how many outputs you have for amps(think front, rear AND sub) so you can add whatever you want later. Remember, your music is only as good as the source its coming from. Spend more on the H/U and save for speakers later.

 

I totally agree with that last comment too.. With a crap head unit.. you can put GREAT stuff in the car, and it will still sound distorted etc.
get a good HU first

 

Agreed. The stock Civic HU's suck horribly. The headunit is definately the first thing to upgrade. I would recommend either Alpine or Panasonic (not many ppl think about panasonic, but they really have just as many tuning options as the Alpines do). Expect to pay 200-300 on ebay for a somewhat nice one. Next up would be a good set of component speakers for the front. If you want something fairly nice for cheap look into Alpine's or Inifnity's. Expect to pay up to 200 for those. Next are the sub(s) and amp. Here is where it costs either a lot more, or just a bit more. You can find cheap subs for about 50, but you get what you pay for. Stick with I'm biased towards MB Quart, Alpine, Xtant, Infinity or Boston when it comes to mid-grade subs. Usually one 12" sub is plenty to add some good thump, so then you would need to look into buying an amp. For most of those a 500 watt rms amp would do (HiFonis, RF, Phoenix Gold...etc.) and will run you around 150-200 on ebay. Expect to pay 600-1000 for a good sounding system.

The most important advice though - - Get a friend to help you who knows what he is doing (especially with the wiring for the amp/sub) and save the money on gettin it professionally installed. It is much more rewarding if you DIY.