Finally I did upgrade the WagonR yesterday - the initial results are very interesting - good sound - here is the drill I went through.
[Recap: Consideration for the Car was more driven by the sound quality - clarity at all through spectrum...Budget although tight was a little flexible as this was going to be one time affair. The options were Pioneer 6050 Vs Alpine...Speaker selection (this was driven more by availability - as Wagon R stocks 4inch in front on dash - really not many choices) :( ]
Started at 10:30 on saturday...
1 - first was speaker selection...There were no 4 inch comps available with the guy - moreover he suggested since Wagon R has dash top mount speaker position - Components does not make much difference. Comps needed when sound stage needs elevation to listening ear position where the woofer is mounted on doors etc --- I was not in favor of any cut / splice in my car. So decided on 4 inch coax for front.
I did try out few options - Blau 4inch, Coustic 4inch (An MTX product), Ultimate 4inch (A canadian product) - Kicker (I decided not to go for that except for SW as lot of folks did not give a good opinion on Kicker regular speakers).
I did test out all 3 choices through temporary wiring. [Used fader control to switch off rear speakers. Used balance to compare between left and right - where left and right were different company's product. I tried this with and without a SW in the background] Another rather interesting observation I made was that sound improved automatically (Drastically too) when speaker was put inside the dash mount (Still not fastened)
Unfortunately Blau paled in comparison between Ultimate T2 Series and Coustic 4 inch...Ultimate gave a little rounded sound more rich with lower frequencies - Coustic gave sound which was tilted towards mid and high range...Change of song (Changed to Fade to black by metallica) brought out clean guitar sound on Coustic - the vocal and guitar sounded better on coustic...
Advantage Coustic
2 - Rear speakers there were a little more choices - Few high range like Boston, Kicker etc were thrown in. Here is where the guy suggested that to get a uniform sound signature, it is not advisable to go for different brands in front and rear - the sound matching becomes difficult. Since my consideration was front sound stage - decided the same brand for rear.
Match: Coustic
3 - Head Unit: This was more tricky part. My speaker testing was done through an Alpine 2DIN Unit that he had with him. So now it was turn to try out 2 different Head Units - Pioneer 6050 and Alpine (9884/9886/9887). I was tilting towards Pioneer due to 2 factors - Cost (At least 6-7 K more for Alpine) & features (Equilizers, Sound enhancer etc were not available on Alpine)
First tried out Pioneer 4050 (Did not have a 6050 handy) - did play few songs - ranging from Acoustic to Heavy Metal and to Hindi Oldies to Bhangara. The sound was nice. Controls were nice too. I played out the songs in 'Flat' equilizer to see 'unaltered' signature. IT sounded nice. I almost decided to give up testing Alpine - but then again pushed my self to further grind.
We replaced HU with Alpine -

- A totally different sound. A lot more clear. Nice. Rounded. A lot of folks had advised me that for simple setup it does not make much difference - rather its not perceivable mostly - and here I was where I could make a world of difference between the products. I could hear string pluck / vibrations clearly on this one. Apart from the sound, the controls are very user friendly and display is also very better.
Match: Alpine. This decision pushed my budget by at least 10k more :'( Sad part but i had to part with that money - my banks are happy now with my increased credit card spend. Alpine HU cost me 15k + 2k for Ipod speaker compared to 8.5 for pioneer...Gosh...
4 - Amp and Sub: This i what i left on the guy. He gave an entry 2 channel Amp + 10 Inch Sub (Both Kicker). I did not want to part with boot space so got a portable enclosure for the sub that can be removed when needed...
So final line up is something like this:
Alpine 9886 HU (USB, IPOD, MP3, Imprint Ready)
Front 4inch Coax: Coustic CX402
Rear 6 inch Coax: CX603
Amp: Kicker Dx100.2
SW: Kicker C10
Modifications: Minimal. Rear speakers were fitted in Hatch Door - so Hatch Door plastic was replaced iwth a 1.5Cm thick wooden board and speakers mounted on that. SW came with enclosure. Amp was fitted below the Pillion seat.
The result: (first impressions) very clear, sweet, sound. Subwoofer can also pound so this system hardly has any problems switching between 'Neele Neele Ambar par' & "Du Hast. My speaker choice may rather seem unusual but the sound output is near perfect for me!!!
<<I will post pictures of install insubsequent posts>>