I haven't heard the Monsoon, but I don't think it'* much better than the BOSE of previous years of Bonneville. The BOSE in our Bonneville sounds really bad.. it has excessive mids, poor highs, and little bass. After upgrading the speakers in my Aurora with Infinity Kappa Perfects, but kept the stock headunit, it will absolutely blow away the BOSE in every way... With an aftermarket headunit, it'd be just that much better too... I never was too impressed with the BOSE in our 00 SSEi, it just sounds really flatt, and at higher volumes, it all falls apart. Just my opinion.. My aunt'* 07 BMW 330Xi has a much better sounding Harmon and Kardon system in it.. Just my opinion, again.

yeah, harmon kardon kicks *** no matter where you find it. thats some REAL premium stuff right there. even my little desktop speakers that came with my computer sound awesome, and theres really nothing to em, they just sound good.

The Monsoon system in the 02-03 ssei'* and 04-05 gxp'* consist of a 440watt peak power output into 8 speakers with active crossovers built into the amp. The sound system consist of 2 rear deck 6x9 subs
2- 5.25 rear door midrange
2- 6.5 front lower door midbass
2- .75in upper door tweeters

The bose system in the 00-01 ssei has 150 watts peak power output into eight speakers in to the same locations as listed above. the amp is a 6 channel amp.

If you compare 00-01 bonneville ssei to a 02 or above, you can defianetly tell a difference between the 2 sound systems, the biggest difference is that the monsoon has better highs and better bass response.

Also the bonneville se and sle came with the standard 100 watt 4 or 6 speaker option depending on if the se came with the tweeter option.

Before you do that, you may want to try this option first before ripping out everything. I have a set of infinity 6x9'* reference series rated at 300watts peak power per speaker or 100watts rms per speaker. So just for the heck of it I hooked them up with plug in connectors from circuit city and it was amazing the speakers throbbed and pounded like no other. I am also thinking of doing the midbass drivers in the front doors b/c they have a tendency to pop and crackle sometimes under songs that dont have good bass, very weird to me. I did look at the front door speeakers and the problem they used cheap *** paper as the speaker material compared to a poly type material for the rear subs. I think if you put better quality speakers first you might be impressed. My monsoon sounds really good except for the midbass drivers.

so with the factory amp, the infinitis sounded good then? hmmm. if you were to replace the head unit, the monsoon amp is still functional, correct? so the amp could still push the 6x9s, and you could gt better, cleaner power sto the rest and replace them with something not so.....papery.

anyone know how many watts that amp is supposed to push? enough to do more than just 6x9s? is it bridgeable? i wonder....

Any aftermarket speakers will need atleast a new head unit to drive them. The Monsoon amps/factory cd player wont have enough juice to sufficiently drive the new speakers well. They'll have very little bass.

I'd suggest getting a new head unit first. I'm not usre how the monsoon is integrated into the car in the 00+ so it may be easier to just wire in new speakers as well.

Another note, front speakers in practice should be your "main" speakers, with the rear 6x9 being rear fill. It will setup a soundstage infront of you, as opposed to sounding like you have a boom box in the back seat.

right on. ive been installing stereos for a while now, so im all good with most of of the basics. ive just never worked with the monsoon amp, and also the security system in the dash for the head unit. as far as i know, it has to be done by someone licenced that has the programming code (lame) and thats something i cant stand abot newer cars!!!! not only is it a total pain in the a ss to work on the motor, you cant even do your own strereos anymore. blah...

The only security system per say on the 00+ factory stereos is the fact it reads the vehicles VIN number through the computer bus. So an OEM radio has to be "programmed" for that vehicles VIN. There is no reprogramming needed to install an aftermarket head unit.

huh. i guess ive been misinformed on that one then. stupid best buy....

Have you ever heard the Shaker 500 system in the '05 and above mustangs?
the mustangs also have a shaker 1000 system. I think you my want to take a listen to one of those sound systems before you say ever factory sound system sounds like garage. I do agree aftermarket is the way to go. In my former 92 ssei I had a alpine deck with the v-drive amp built in it rated at 60x4 going to infinity refernece series 2003 models all the way around and it sounded incredible. everyone thought I had like 12 sitting in the trunk the infinity'* hit so hard with that deck and the bass was on -2.