Sushi, congrats on the new ride. I am a huge Honda fan. Every Honda my wife and I have owned (5 new in the past 10 years) has had a horrific stereo. The longest I've been able to tolerate a Honda factory system is a month - then it gets ripped out with a vengence.
I picked up our Odyssey about 5 months ago and it's stereo lasted a day. I installed an Alpine CD head unit with a 6 CD changer under the drivers seat. The changer is heaven sent. On trips, it allows me to jump instantly to a barney song (or whatever) to calm the kids.
The 4 factory full range speakers were replaced by Alpine co-axial's. Definite improvement, but still lacking. The biggest improvement came with the amplifier - the system seemed to "wake up" once it was added. IMO amplification is an absolute neccessity.
Don't be fooled by head units that claim 45watts x 4 (or whatever). There is no way that the power supply in a deck can provide the current required to give you 180 watts. It will distort and clip WAY before you ever reach that level. And there-in lies the key. At highway speeds, the tire, wind and engine noise (even in the Odyssey) is huge. You will need enough power to overcome these things without distorting. I have never heard a deck that can do this satisfactorily on it's own.
Shawn
