The one fault I didn't pick up on when I was checking over my Fabia I was that the speakers have blown, either that or they have the power handling of a pair of Sayno headphones. So I need to get them replaced as I depend on my car stereo to keep me sane on my 3 1/2 hours in the car each day. Now I used to know a bit about ICE years ago but I forgot all that once I started having company cars as the companies I worked for had a dim view of me swapping out stuff, I'm not sure how much I should be budgeting to sort this out!

Currently the car has stock speakers and an Alpine iDA-X300, this is hooked up to my old 80Gb iPod and does the job for now, its a bit poor at browsing through my mass of songs but I can wait to replace this with a decent double din unit. So any changes I make have to support what I have now (I suspect it has one pre out and one LFE out) and scale when I get the head unit replaced. I also want to keep it looking stock where I can, but anything in the boot is fair game as the car is only to get me to work and back so I don't use the boot, nor do I carry passengers in the back.

I don't need the install to be very loud, just enough to cover road noise, however I've been spoilt over the years when it comes to bass and mid bass so I need something with some low down grunt. Sound quality is important to me but then my Fabia isn't the best acoustics in the world so it doesn't have to be audiophile quality.

Cutting to the chase, do I need an amp or is my head unit going to be enough? What about a sub? Finally, recommendations for speakers would be much appreciated too.

Bit the bullet and went to my local ICE installer and got some advice, then had stage 1 done today. I've had some JL C2s fitted in the OEM locations for the front and matching JL 6x9 for the rear in the parcel shelf to give me more mid bass. Massive, massive improvement over stock, I still want more extension from my bass, which leads me on to stage 2:

New Double Din Unit - I want something with very good iPod support, Bluetooth, and probably Sat Nav if it isn't going to break the bank

Suitable AMP - Something to drive all four of the existing locations, and may be a separate AMP for the sub

10" Sub - spoke to the installer at length on this, I want something fast paced but will go really low without causing that "thump thump" the chavs manage so settled on a 10" in a custom enclosure with lots of additional sound proofing for the "outside" of the boot so more of my bass stays in the car. I'm not constrained by size as I simply do not use the boot on the Fabia.

Going to be a while before I get this done as I've a Turbo & Intercooler to pay for.