The stereo setup in my dakota is lacking a little.

Anybody have any suggestions as to how I may be able to upgrade a little, nothing to make my ears bleed, while keeping the stock deck?

 

It's been my experience, especially when it comes to Mopar vehicles, that the stock deck and speakers areterrible. I replaced my deck with a cheap pioneer and the sound was already much better but you can tell the speakers aren't the best. If you dont want to put a different deck in I would simply get some new speakers but I wouldnt be able to tell you how much better it will be without a new deck. Just my .02

 

you can get a lot better sound out of a stock deck
replace all of your speakers with a quality set. and install an amp

 

there are ways to hook up pre-outs to stock decks and add an amp. i dont know how, but i know you can. ask at a car audio place.the sound isnt as good, but for the average everyday guy like me, it is good enough. i have always said, you can have an average deck and still get good sound if you dont scrimp on good speakers.

 

when hooked up right through speaker level inputs, adding an amp will give you very high quality sound, even through stock speaks, but stock isn't reccomended.

 

i just got done redoingmy entire system...i installed a set of kicker 6.5 inchss series components in the front doors and a set of ss series 6.5 inch mid-bass woofers in the rear doors. those are the top of the line speakers. i also have a 650.4 amp on them and a kicker tcvt 10 inch slimline sub. i have an alpine 400 watt amp on the sub. i have a tsunami 2 farad capacitor to keep juice going to everything. im running a panasonic cq 8303-u deck. i have competion rca cables going to the amps and 14 gauge speaker wire to the speakers. power the cap and amp is supplied by 4 gauge power andground wires. it was a time consuming process but it was well worth it.

 

nice,
wait till i get my twin RF punch 12's in.

 

i know...luckily since i work at circuit city i got a fat discount on them. i want to get a tahoe so i can put a couple of l5's in it and blow the roof off. lol

 

Replace all the speakers...

 

i used to have two of them square subs back in the jeep man that is ridiculously loud