Head Unit: Alpine CDA-9835 with KCA-420i iPod Interface Controller
I upgraded to the Alpine (from an Eclipse 5303R) in August, 2004. There were 2 main reasons for choosing this deck: 1) The display is awesome, very crisp looking, a must have when you play MP3 files. 2) Alpine announced that their decks would be able to control the iPod from the deck. This was HUGE for me. I have a 10GB iPod and this beats any other mp3 playing solution hands down. When I want new music, I just throw the music on the iPod and browse to it with the deck. 10GBs in one device is much better than 700MBs of MP3s on a single disc, or even an MP3 CD changer. Super easy to manage!

This thing has a ton of bells and whistles and sounds great too. Three 4v pre-outs (front, rear, sub), motorized face (which isn't as smooth as the Eclipse I had, but it'll do), adjustable crossover, 5 band parametric eq and tons more, here's the tech. specs for it.

As for the iPod Controller, it's not perfect but it works well. There's definitely nothing better out there (for now, at least). You can browse by artist, playlist and album name. The deck (2004 and previous years) merely sees it as a CD changer. You "change discs" to select what list you'll browse. Unfortunately, since it was an afterthought, when you first browse you start off in the "File browse" mode, which is wrong because you're really browsing "folders" (playlist, albums, artists). After you've selected something to play and want to look through the songs, you have to go into "Folder browse". A little backwards, but you get used to it fairly quick. The mp3 bitrate and sampling rate are lost in the display, but that's not a big issue. Occasionally, it'll show a blank list when you go into quicksearch, so they have a few bugs to work out. If your deck has the quicksearch buttons, it's more than likely that the controller will work for you, even though Alpine says that it's only for 2004 and up. Check out the review at playlistmag.com.

Components: DynAudio 240GT
DynAudio makes some awesome speakers and these are no exceptions. I have much better mid-bass and much smoother tweeters now than with the Infinity's. My main reason for upgrading from the 60.3cs was that I couldn't stand how harsh the tweeters were anymore. On most songs they're fine, but when you play music which has high notes (Christina Aguilera, Vanessa Carlton, etc) they become a bit hard to listen to at somewhat high volumes. I listen to all sorts of music (jazz, pop, techno, classical, etc) and they all sound awesome on them. You can get more info about them at DynAudio's website.

Components Amp: Zapco Reference 350 (1/2) Zapco Reference 350 (2/2)
Ahh, Zapco! These people make some amazing, clean power amps! They are rated to be one of *the* best out there. I used to have an older Studio 100, which was only giving me 50W x 2, so I decided to upgrade the power. This amp gives me 100W x 2 @ 4 ohms. Not only does it sound great, but I think it's also looks beautiful! One of the best looking amps I've seen. The look is new to 2003, and the technical specs are pretty much the same as the previous reference amps (used to be called AG). The reference series was introduced in 2001 to replace the old Studio series.

Subwoofer: 12" Eclipse Aluminum 88120 DVC
Mmm, bass! And lots of it. This amazing amp provides some great sound, it has a nice balance of SQ and SPL. I put it in a sealed enclosure since I listen to quite a bit of techno and wanted to get some tight bass; it sounds great with all types of music though. It's a little bit on the heavy side, weighing 30lbs, but it sounds amazing. I have it wired for a 2ohm load (dual voice coils), and powering it with 500W - ~775W, depending on the voltage being supplied by the car.