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After reading the information in the 900/9-3 Audio Guide (in the FAQ section of this site), following discussions on this board and the 9-3 board, and doing some research on various amps, I ended up with a realtively inexpensive solution which I think will work fairly well and meets your criteria. I say "think" because I am almost done with this project and have not had a chance to live with it yet in various driving conditions...but it will definitely be an improvement over the stock setup in my 9-3 base (similar to the 900S from what I understand). I plan to write this all up and post pictures on the 9-3 board in a couple of weeks, but here are the basics on the parts, what I paid with the average street price in parentheses. By average street price, I mean what you might pay at Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. By shopping around, I got better prices. (For instance, on the amp, I bought a returned unit at Circuit City that still came with full warranty. By looking at the connection terminals, it looks like it was never even installed. My guess is someone gave it someone as a gift and the recipient decided it was not a "big" enough amp.)
I added 2-way full-range speakers to the door locations and am driving them with a small 50Wx2 amp. The stock head unit continues to drive the dash and rear speakers.
Speakers: Kenwood KFC-1677 6.5" 2-way speakers - $50 ($75)
Amp: MTX RT-2120 50Wx2 amp - $109 ($149)
Rockford Fosgate 10AWG amp wiring kit - $18 (??)
Rockford Fosgate 6' shielded interconnects - $14 (??)
various screws, connectors, cable ties, etc. - approx $10
So, the total cost will be around $225.
The only thing I have left to add is a Peripheral (Stinger) Electronics low-voltage trigger for about $15. (This is to maintain the 12V signal on the remote turn-on line from the head unit's amp pre-out DIN plug.
The reason I went with the MTX RT-2120 amp is that it is just a bit larger than the Saab amp and will fit (with some homemade brackets) in the same location as the Saab amp. The RT-2120, though, is a very efficient amp delivering a lot of "punch" for its small size. Since I don't want to "shake the car" with loud, thumping volume, but just have overall better sound, my initial tests show this should do the trick without having the RT-2120 overheat.
As I said, I will be providing more detail on all of this in a couple of weeks once I get the chance to write it up.
You could probably do it for a little less total cost if you were willing to go with another brand of 50Wx2 amp (or even a 40Wx2 amp) that cost a little less, but you would have to install the amp in the hatch because I could find no other amp that was as small as the RT-2120...except a cheap little 25Wx2 amp at Radio Shack.
Mark
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