I'm not a corolla fan, but good one ya for modding it
brad_gpx wrote:
when you buy a new sound system for your car do they set it up first so you can listen to what it would sound like?
Any proper car audio store/department will have those stands that have all Pioneer, or all Alpine gear that you can press buttons to test different configurations of head unit and speakers.
Don't be afraid to take your own music with you either; some of those salesmen have absolutely terrible taste in music, nothing worse than bad music when you are looking for the right system haha.
Also, realise that the gear will sound markedly different in your car than it does in the show room.
In addition, if buying sub woofers, realise that the bigger you go the more space will be taken up by the box for them. Also, depending on your music don't go too big; if you like rock music or fast dance/techno music go small (10" is good) and if you like R&B or rolling phat bass tunes go bigger for the extra boom.
Smaller woofers give you tighter cleaner bass, larger woofers give you more boom and deeper vibrations usually at the cost of more distortion with fast bass rythms. That is greatly simplified because some small woofers can put out more bass than large ones, but you get the idea, basically, thumpy dance/rock music moves thump thump thump, R&B bass tunes go thuuuuuuuuuuuuuump with lots of small mvoements to make that tone. A big cone woofer will only be part way through it's travel with fast music when called upon to move again for a new thump... they can end up boomy (I'm talking about larger than 12" cones here).
Myself, I have a single 10" woofer in a small box in an inverted cone cradle out configuration and it is plenty for all music myself and the missus listen to
Btw, the bigger the boom the more likely the car is to get broken into, quick tip time:
Turn your stereo down or off when you are withing a couple of blocks of home/work
Don't crank the boom in shopping carparks
Cops don't like loud boom; if they hear it they wil likely go over your car with a fine tooth comb