I'm going to change out my speakers in my shaker500 with some infinities but I have a quick question.... Are the stock front speakers in the shaker500 a component system or is it just a regular speaker with a tweeter off to the side? Do the front 6x8 speakers in front have tweeters in the middle of it to? Thanks Kevin

 

Front stock speakers have an enclosed back and have the tweeter off to the side. I installed 5x8 Kenwoods (in doors and rear deck) and they fit perfectly.

 

You need a coaxial or a plate mounted speaker with a tweeter. Also, despite my name (from a former sponsorship), Infinity's are not the best choice, especially for their price.

 

What are the best choices, say for low, mid, and money-is-no-object price-points?

I went with your advice on the replace-the-HU first, so might as well let you be my audio guru

 

Don't know about guru, but I'll help wherever I can

The Infinity speakers have TERRIBLE low range abilities, and the upper end can be very harsh. For an expensive drop-in, the Boston SL80's are nice, but need more power than the head provides.

Let's see, for the cheap side of things, a direct replacement that doesn't require any hacking:
Pioneer coaxes are always decent, and work well off deck power. They're nothing super special, but they'll sound very pleasant under most circumstances.http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/CarAu...roductID=16664

For the "mid level", maybe a cheaper component setup. You can put a 5" and tweet on a plate and drop them in, or Kicker sells theirs with the plates, and they sound decent to boot. OR, there's always using a 6x8 midrange and placing the tweeters up in the A-pillars

which you can also do with any other size midrange you can wedge in there. I'm using a 5.5" Scan-Speak mid driver and have the tweets mounted as above.

There are lots of options, I just hate the sound of the newer Infinity speakers. I'm not just hating, either, 'cuz I'm using 2 of their amps.

OR, we could put together a DIY setup for pretty cheap that will outperform car-specific stuff costing 4-5x as much (like I did).