My car: 1999 GS 400, no nav, standard (Lexus) audio.

I've been considering a mild-moderate audio upgrade for awhile now, even more so now because I noticed that the left front channel cuts out intermittently. I'm not looking for anything outrageous or show-worthy; just a bit more punch.

I don't have a lot to spend, having recently remodeled a kitchen.

On my last car, a 98 Nissan Maxima, I added a Crossfile amp and a 10" sub to the Bose stereo, and was happy with the results.

Can anyone recommend a decent bang-for-the-buck upgrade? If possible, it would be nice to replace the existing rear-deck-mounted sub, if possible, versus taking up space in the trunk. I'm not sure yet of the left-channel cutting out issue is a function of the head unit itself, the wiring, or the speaker (though I'm betting it's one of the latter).

I'd like to keep the total under $1k, closer to $500 if that's even realistic.

 

I've changed my sub and added mono amp, kicker c10 sub and kicker zx100 amp, with high level output, wiring and install, all comes to $660 CND, took them 4 hours to finish and I'm more than happy with the result as I like bass more than treb, and treb I'm fine with the stock speakers.

The sub have been discussed about here for many times and it's proven to be good as it's a free air sub so you can mount it in place of the OEM sub.

Though yes the speakers sometimes cuts out a bit, that's another thing though, and rare for me, if yours cuts out frequently, you can tell them to looks at it anyways...

And yes, now I've got rattles in the back somewhere, not that much, only when I actually turn it up then there might be some rattles, but expected as I didn't do anything like dynomat at all, and I'm fine with that as I listen in mild volume.

 

Thanks for the advice! I did do a little searching in the forums for audio info, but most of the stuff I was finding was pretty high-end oriented and involved. Your set-up sounds like it pretty much what I'm looking for.