Americans love trucks. Whether they're for carrying stuff, commuting, or just cruising, pickups are so popular that they've been the best-selling vehicles in the US for almost 30 years. For this installment of System Builder, we picked the '06 Dodge Ram 1500 ST Quad Cab (sticker price: $22,050) for an audio-system makeover. The base model comes with a stock CD radio and four speakers, so we asked two shops — one in the big city of Chicago and another in the bayou country of Louisiana — to come up with $1,500 and $5,000 sound-system upgrades. One thing's for sure: Each Ram overhaul sure packs plenty of jam per dollar.

$1,500 Upgrade

The Setup

$160 Eclipse SE8495 6x9-inch four-way speakers (front doors) $100 Eclipse SE8355 5.25-inch three-way speakers (rear doors) $40 PowerAcoustik NB-1 1-inch tweeters $300 Two Rockford Fosgate P210D4 10-inch subwoofers $200 Custom subwoofer box $280 Planet Audio VX2004 amplifier $40 Two PAC SNI-15 line-output converters $90 Hooker Audio amplifier installation kit $20 Stinger Bass Blocker capacitors $270 Installation labor and materials $1,500 TOTAL

Troy Bienvenu, owner of Music Vision in New Iberia, Louisiana, says he finds himself doing lots of OEM upgrades these days. "We mainly specialize in systems at around $2,000 and down," he confirms. For the Ram's $1,500 upgrade, Bienvenu dropped aftermarket speakers into the factory locations in the doors and added a set of tweeters to the A pillars. "We put the tweeters up high to help raise the soundstage," he notes. "They're surface-mounted, and then I'd pass the wire behind the A pillar trim panel."

For low bass, Bienvenu would build a custom box that fits underneath the back seat to house two 10-inch subwoofers. "All you'd see is a little bit of carpeting," he explains. "It integrates into the truck very nicely." A four-channel amplifier that powers all of the speakers (and takes the signal from the Ram's stock CD radio after it passes through a line-output converter) would be hidden under the driver's seat. "That leaves the passenger's side open if the owner ever wants to add another amplifier," Bienvenu observes. "It also has more room than the passenger's side, and it's easier to work on, especially when you're trying to dial in the setting on the built-in crossover."

Bienvenu would also add passive filters to fine-tune as well as protect the speakers. "I'll put a capacitor on the 6x9s, the 5.25s, and the tweeters to filter out any unwanted low frequencies," he says. "Plus, if the customers play with the crossover on the amp, they won't destroy the speakers."

As for future upgrades, Bienvenu says that adding a good aftermarket head unit (read: receiver) would bump up the price another $200 to $300. "Then," he adds, "you can add satellite radio and, depending on which radio you choose, an iPod." But of course.

$5,000 Upgrade

The Setup

$350 Alpine CDA-9857 CD receiver $449 Focal 165 V2S 6.5-inch component speakers $179 Focal 130 CA1 5.25-inch coaxial speaker $500 JL Audio 300/4 amplifier $550 JL Audio 500/1 amplifier $575 JL Audio SB-D-QDRAM/10W3v3/BK enclosure with a 10-inch subwoofer $30 Alpine KCE-4221 iPod adaptor cable $119 Sirius SIR-ALP1 tuner $699 SAVV LOH-5090 DVD overhead console with DVD player and 9.5-inch screen $124 Two SAVV VAC-IR25 wireless headphones $200 Dynamat Xtreme sound-deadening door kit $80 Dynamat DYNAXORB sound-deadening material $120 Stinger amplifier-installation kit $150 Installation accessories $875 Installation labor and materials $5,000 TOTAL

We asked Sean Young at Sound Decision in Montgomery, Illinois (just outside Chicago), to take on the $5,000 upgrade for the Ram, and he put together a system that combines format flexibility, top-shelf brands, and back-seat video. Young's proposed system would start with a new head unit that tunes in terrestrial and satellite radio, spins regular or MP3-encoded CDs, and can control an iPod from the front panel.

From there, the audio signal would travel to a pair of amplifiers mounted under the front seats. "The amps are low-profile, so they fit easily under the seats," Young affirms. One amplifier would be assigned to the new speakers in the factory locations — a set of 6.5-inch components up front and 5.25-inch coaxials in the rear. "They just drop right into the stock locations," Young says, "and that saves labor costs."

The second amp would drive a 10-inch subwoofer in a prefab enclosure that's designed specifically to fit underneath the passenger's side of the rear bench seat. "For the ease of fit and the price, it works great — we couldn't build a quality fiberglass enclosure that cheap," Young observes. "Plus, it doesn't affect the functionality of the vehicle at all."

To make sure the owner gets the most out of every note, Young is a firm believer in adding sound-deadening material to a vehicle. "Anytime we do a speaker installation above $200, we highly recommend a full-door application," he notes. Finally, an add-on overhead console that contains a DVD player and a 9.5-inch screen and a set of wireless headphones would create a convenient back-seat theater. "The motorization on the one we'd use is awesome," Young grins. "You can adjust the angle of the screen to reduce glare. Plus, when you turn it off, it folds into the console, and when you turn it on, it returns to that same angle." Looks good to us.

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