Yeah I'm pretty much at the conclusion that an aftermarket hu is the way to go.
Had a single din alpine in my mk4 with 8" components in the front and I built an mdf shelf with some QB 6x9s (yes I know the old 6x9 parcel shelf thing is frowned upon these days), no amp, and it was a HUGE improvement over stock. I didn't want for much more actually.
The whole setup was quite cheap, and did what I wanted.
Maybe I need to decide a budget and go from there with the mk5.
As much as your setup looks good Jay, I get the feeling it'd be out of my budget, with the amp, false floor etc. I dunno, maybe not.
Could do with finding a good installer near me for a good chat. Anyone recommended around Notts/South Yorks?
Oh and Jay can you recommend any head units that are oem-looking, maybe dab, good sq? Not fussed about nav, bluetooth, phone etc. Something that works really well with a 4th gen ipod nano would be ideal!
Cheers
My setup was very cheap. My mate made the sub enclosure. Paid him £60. Sub itself was £85 or something. False floor was all for the air ride and stuff, you don't need something like that.
Amp was just a cheapy MTX Terminator, something like £100. You need an emp to run the sub anyway. A mono amp is very cheap.
If you want to get the most out of the aftermarket speakers then you should look at amping the door speakers as well. I paid £80 for a Hertz 4 ch used amp, not the best but it's OK.
If you do a lot of the work yourself then you'll save money. it's not hard to cut out a false floor really :)
No HU recommendations from me only like what I have used, I'd go for a Pioneer AVH unit, no DAB on that but you can get some higher models that have DAB I think.
The setup on my rocco was a bit more, i didn't pay for jairm to do my false floor as I gave him my evoms intake when I split my GTI (let's say I paid him £200 for arguments sake).
the 12 inch pheonix sub was free as swap for my Rockford Fosgate.
I paid for the wood and sh*te, so about £30 for the wood and materials.
Associated screws etc
2 way Hertz ESKL163 setup would be like £200
I have DSK163 in the back, which were a lot cheaper, around £80 , do want to put ESK in the back later tho.
The 4ch hertz amp was 80 quid as said before
the amp i moved over from the golf (£100)
my kenwood satnav headunit was £300
so that's about £1000 with new sat-nav garmin head unit, all new high end speakers and amps, not too bad!