Car audio is an exciting endeavor no matter what age you are. Having a music system in your car that sounds excellent will make your driving experience that much more pleasurable. It will make you want to drive your car even more!

If you're not looking for an overwhelming system, but are simply not happy with how your stock system sounds, you really don't need a whole lot of stuff for an upgrade.

First, you should find a deck that suits your needs. If you have a collection of CD's, make sure the deck has a CD player. If you want to connect your MP3 player or iPod, be sure the deck has a 3.5mm input and/or a USB input.

You'll also need to replace your factory speakers to increase sound quality. Most cars have two speakers in the front and two speakers in the back. If you plan on using your deck to power them, you don't need to get speakers that handle any more then 50 watts RMS.

If you're not big into bass, a subwoofer may not be required. If you do want to enjoy a "little" bass from time to time when you're cruising down the highway, adding only a single subwoofer should be plenty. No more than a 300 watt RMS subwoofer will produce plenty of bass to go well with your upgraded speakers.

You will need an amplifier to power your subwoofer. If you subwoofer does in fact handle 300 watts RMS, use a 2-channel amplifier that provides 150 watts RMS per channel (300 watts total) and bridge it into 1 channel operation mode. This may actually push out more than 300 watts RMS, so be sure to turn the volume on the amplifier down if you notice even the slightest distortion from the subwoofer.

If you're looking for a crazy set-up with 2 or 3 amplifiers, custom installed speakers and competition grade subwoofers, your best, and safest bet, would be to have it professionally installed, as this becomes increasingly more complicated.