I have the Harman Kardon option on my R50. I think it's pretty nice sounding to be honest, but I feel like there's a lack of clarity in the sound quality sometimes. There are parts of songs I am familiar with that I can't always make out. I normally listen to music through my headphones. In my car there are instruments/vocals/harmonies that don't come through clearly, to the extent that I'd probably not even really notice them if I didn't already know they were supposed to be there, if that makes any sense.

Let's say I were to ditch the HK entirely and replace the amp, head unit, and all of the speakers. What kind of setups would be substantially better? I know there's no exact way to answer that, but any direction would help.

 

You'll need to figure out the wiring, the crossovers are in the amp, each speaker has its own cable run to the amp. There are dozens of threads about it if you run a google search.

 

If he guts the system he won't need to worry about any of that. Just run new wire to the doors. No need or reason to use the old wiring.

@OP Check out the first gen Audio section. a LOT of good info in there to get you started.

 

Yeah The first reply was appropriate; I posted in the wrong section.

This is a recurring theme with me lately; I skim so much that I can't see what's in front of me. Thought there'd be an "Audio" section underneath "Modifications", but it's separate. I'll post my question there.

"Electrical" didn't seem like the right section for this thread but I couldn't see a better option at the time.

 

The stock speaker cable is pretty beefy and is twisted pair. I wouldn't replace it unless you were running a huge multi-amp competition setup.

Have you checked in the Audio settings of the HU that it is set to MINI H/K and DRIVER:ON? For me these settings are more than adequate.