First off Im not sure how much you could save, it all depends on what you get, what the stores cost is, and what the retail price of it is. They wont just give it away at their cost, otherwise they wont be making any money, but with a package they have more room to play with certain items as compared to others, which is how they can give a good deal when everything is combined. In most cases, when you get everything together, they are able to give you a pretty good discount. If your doing it like this, I wouldnt worry about price matching because they will beat any competitor price anyways - maybe not with the exact item, but by saving you money with the total combined...
That being said, definitely go with the 4 gauge kit. If you are going to go with 2 amps, make sure you get the amp kit that has a distribution block in it and extra wire to hook up 2 amps. I know Monster carries a kit for this, not sure about Stinger. Or you could just get the distribution block and extra wire separate, your salesman and installer can help you out with that. The 4 gauge wire will allow a lot of power to go back to the distribution block, where the wires would split off into two 8 gauge sets to go directly to each amp. With fairly small amps like you were looking at this wont be any problem at all. When you get into more powerful equipment you may want to look into upgrading that - I run 2 sets of 4 gauge wire, and an 8 gauge wire in my car. Your car shouldnt have a problem, but you may want to ask your installer to upgrade your chassis ground to a 4 gauge wire as well - there may be enough in your amp kit to use, or get them to cut a foot or two off the shop roll for a couple bucks. Upgrading that ground will help you out big time, and you may want to consider upgrading the 'big 3' - the chassis ground, engine ground, and from the alternator to + battery post, all with the same gauge wire you are running to your amps, but that shouldnt be necessary unless you go with more power..
You asked what I get for PSP. Typically, I will try to estimate how long I plan on having the product for, and then get the warranty for that amount of time. For my equipment, I got 4 years for my amps and speakers, and went with 2 years for my deck. For my car audio, I have got it on everything, yes, but for some of the other products I get, it depends on what it is.. But thats just my personal preference.
Without an amp, I would actually suggest a set of MTX speakers. They have a low price point, and a great sound. A speaker rated close to the rater power of the deck will sound a lot better then a 300 watt speaker running on 20 watts, just because the lower powered speaker is using its full potential. But always make sure you listen to it first before you buy. Go in store, tell your salesman or installer what your thinking of doing. Ask them to allow you to test out all the speakers they have on the board. Use the same deck that you bought, and bring in your own music - your iPod if they have the cable set up to use in store since I assume thats what you would mostly be using. Start off by turning off all the amps and no sub, and try out each set of speakers. Listen to just the front speakers, just the rear speakers and both.. Then put on the sub and amp combo that you are looking at, and do the same thing.. Find out which speakers sound the best without an amplifier and listen to a couple different genres of music on them to get a feel for it. Next, turn on your speaker amplifier - you dont need the most powerful one out there, just a basic one that will add some power to your speakers, 50 watts or so. Now do the exact same thing all over again. You will probably find that you like a different speaker this time, so at this point its up to you to decide if you want to use the amp or not. Its a tedious process and you will spend some time there, you may want to go later in the day when it tends to be less busy and you wont distract as many other customers, because you are going to want to turn that volume up quite a bit. Your ears will hold the answer for you though, get what sounds best to you. If you are in your car as much as I am in mine, you will want the best possible sound
-Stu
MECP Certified Advanced Installer
AlexMOD
competitor)
The 4 channel speaker amp is a bit more expensive for install since they need to run new speaker wire from the amp to each speaker. Since you already have the power wires all ran, when you decide to get that 4 channel amp, ask your installer if they can knock a bit off the price since they dont have to run the power wire. They may just give you the price of a basic amp install. Glad to hear you got everything picked out though, just in time for summer
