sound system hook up?
 

im looking to put a system in the 99 es but not sure where to begin to be honest? does this lexus have the hook ups or do i need a converter and the stock cd player is in the glove box any thoughts?

I'm in the same boat as you man, I don't know if I should get the HU I've been looking at, or just upgrade all the speakers.

In the end though, I will find a way to get my sub and amps set up... just have to figure something out.

what i did was just use stock deck and a amp that accepts line level in (JL 500/1) and use the wires that come off the stock sub, works fine and sounds great i will be swapping my hu out over the summer i think all that requires is the harnesses and bypassing the factory amp

Yeah, the harness part I'm not too worried about, Crutchfield gives you it for free. The thing that intimidates me is the stock council, the most I've dealt with is the stock HU on a Sunfire, which is extremely easy to swap out.

ES is sortof easy and sortof hard, it's easy if you know what to look for, it is more complicated that other cars, and if you don't know what you're doing, you can break stuff [which totallly sucks]

Yeah that is why I will not be installing an my new HU, and will be taking it to get it done.

If you want to put a sub and amp to your stock HU just use the one from the stock sub like Happy es3 said. I done it to my 99 es3 and it worked fine but it could be better if you did the bypass. I switched out my stock HU now and I have a double din in it and I had to do the bypass but it was all worth it. Any shop will do it for you, and it won't cost you much either. I recommend that you do the bypass. The sound quality is worth the money you pay for it.

How much are we talking to get it installed professionally?

maybe $100 or so. I got my bypass + wire harness for double din + both head rest TV's + (my) double din installed for like $120. maybe I got it cheaper because it was all together? but it shouldn't be more than $100.

Whats the difference between performing the HU bypass (for the powered Bazooka sub) and taking the audio signal from a factory sub. Also, the 92-94 ES's did not come with oem sub, so would the signal from the rear deck 6x9 speaker's work?
If not, I might as well just upgrade the speakers and not mess around with the head unit/amp.