What do you guys think about clarion head units? I heard they are very good.

 

IMO, clarion looks cheaply made.

 

all the clarions ive dealt were NOT very user friendly, they may have changed, but i never will. eclipse, alpine, and the new pioneers are probably the best bet today.

 

I custom built enclosures for two 10's behind the seats of my first (02) reg cab ram. Two sealed enclosures with .8 cubic feet of air space each and subs designed for small sealed enclosures worked real well for me. They were small enough that i still had a fair amount of space left between them for storage. I went with dual voice coil pioneer subs and ran them in parallel to get the most bang for my buck with a two ohm load on each amp channel. I agree with one of the earlier posters who said there really is no reason to spend a load of cash. The quality of car audio components as a whole has increased dramatically over the last ten years.
Be sure to get a decent two channel amp for your subs and a seperate four channel amp for the other four speakers and make sure that each amp comes with a built in crossover. A low pass for the sub amp and a multi channel for the other speakers. And if you do anything at all......don't turn the gain on the amps all the way up. I can't stand knuckleheads that blare distortion. Not to mention it ruins the speakers.
The main concern for the head unit is how many pre-outs (RCA jacks) it has on the back. Be sure it has at least four (two pair) but six would be a bonus. The wattage of the head unit means nothing as you will be amplifying it anyway and not even using the head units internal amp. As for other features, it just comes down to what you like. Some people want it to look a certain way while others want it to function a certain way. It's nice if you can find both.
A critical part of the install is the wiring. Decent grade shielded cables, fuse blocks and good size power cables are a must, other wise you choke your signal and can have interference from other electrical components in the truck. It's like pushing a twinkie through a garden hose, it just comes out like crap.
I recommend you pick up a couple issues of "Car Audio and Electronics" magazine. There is a wealth of info in there every month. And you will find you know more of the right questions to ask the salesman.

Hope this helps.
Good luck and happy hunting

 

i see everyone in here talkin about jl and kicker from personal expierience i have never had a kicker or jl sub hold up to the quality of sound that i like. my personal favorite is diamond audio before my ram i owned a 1999 ford ranger with two diamod m6 10's a 7in headrest monitor fiberglassed in my dash two sunvisor monitors and two diamond audio 600.1 amps to each sub. i had two sets of diamond audio hex component sets which is 4 6" coaxial speakers and 4 2 in tweeters and and a diamod 300.2 amp running the components. when i was watching a movie it sounded like i was in a movie theatre. the bad part is that diamond is a little pricey but well worth it it is by far the best sound quality i have heard. Check the out at www.diamondaudio.com!