Hey, Duranike --

Sounds like you're on the right track, and Festus is being amazingly helpful and generous with his time! (note to Festus: Keep up the good work. It's people like you that really make these forums helpful.)

I have a suggestion: visit a local professional audio shop, talk to the installers, look at the work they've done, and get ideas. These guys work on stereo installations all day long, day after day, and have really good ideas on how to deal with creative installations, and are usually proud enough of what they've come up with that they will be glad to share with you.

My current stereo installation is an example of their type of creativity: It is a total stealth system in a Taurus station wagon. If you look in my car, the only thing you will see is an inexpensive Panasonic CD plyer. Everything else is totally hidden, and not one cubic inch of usable interior space is taken up by the stereo system -- not passenger space, not cargo space, not storage space. The system is IASCA competition quality - I'm currently ranked #1 in the state in my power class, and #1 in sound quality regardless of power class. (Ow, that hurts my arm, patting myself on the back like that... ;-) At my first competition, one of the competitors looked in my car, and told me "Spectator parking is over there..." But I couldn't have done this kind of installation without a lot of help, ideas, advice, and labor from my stereo shop. We never did anything "spur of the moment" but always tried to come up with a couple of different ways of accomplishing what we wanted - and then thought about it for a day or so before getting out the saws and drills.

I guess what I'm saying is.... don't rush it. Take your time. Look before you leap. Try to come up with alternative procedures and pick the best one. Don't "mickey-mouse" it because you don't have exactly the right part or tool. If it takes a few days extra and a few dollars more, it will be well worth it in the long run. An extra $100 spent, amortized over five years of enjoyment, comes to about a nickel a day.

I'm guessing you'll have your empeg up and running long before I have mine -- I'm #8741 on the waiting list. But I already know many of the things I will do for my installation (including things like a heater to pre-warm the unit, because it gets 40-50 below zero Fahrenheit where I am; a solenoid locking device to prevent theft coupled with breakaway screws on the mounting handle; how I'll run the RCA outputs to my amplifiers, etc.)

Re: #7 in your list of questions... My stereo shop calls those things "Steal Me Stickers" and won't put them on anybody's car unless the owner absolutely insists on it.

Enjoy your empeg. If you think about it, drop me an e-mail and tell me how you like it.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"