i am a first time owner of a 2002 mustang it has the mach stereo but sounds horrible i know nothing about stereos so no idea what i need i have two 12 inch woofers but can i get some advice on the cheapest way i could upgrade

 

If a Mach 460 sounds terrible to you, there is no way to upgrade the sound for cheap. All speakers, amps and the radio needs replacement. I am thinking at least $1K at a stereo shop.

 

Describe horrible.

Could be as simple as needing to replace the speakers. they are most likely 20+ years old.

Simply throwing a bunch of bass on it will not fix anything.

And yes, upgrading a MACH 460 won't be cheap since you'd need to get new amps to replace the factory ones.

 

New radios will drive the old amps with converter sockets and a 12 to 5 volt adapter..

 

That is true but running speakers off of a head unit will sound terrible too. The distortion levels on integrated amps is crazy.

If he's going to rip out the MACH system, may as well upgrade it right, New HU with preamp outputs to run to amps to run the speakers correctly. DSP optional.

 

Agreed amps are average in performance. Good enough for me, but a stellar system needs new amps too. I have no idea of the amps (current) available to the stock amps. I read both amp that are two channel each produces 460 watts, but I believe a peak power rating. I think it is 230 watts RMS total. If so, each amp produces 57-1/2 watts RMS per channel. If so, perhaps only 30 amps at 12 volts are available limiting the size of new amps unless rewired.