OK, I absolutely hate the monsoon sound, but like the factory look.
Can I rip out the speakers, and replace the fronts/rears, and power them off of a 4 channel amp and have some decent sound, or will it still be crappy if the signal is comming from the factory Monsoon head unit.

 

The signal from the POS Monsoon HU sucks. I tested mine with an O-scope and a calibrated test CD and it performed very poorly. So right off the bat you have that to deal with. On top of that you also have to use a signal degrading "speaker level to line level" or LOC (Line Output Converter) adapter to connect the HU to the new amplifier. IMO it boils down to what's more important to you? Sound quality or "factory look"? Sound quality is far more important to me than the ergonomics of the HU. Although using a custom trim ring around my HU helped in that regard. Even so, I would still rather have an after-market setup than the POS factoy system.

 

looks like its all gonna get ganked out then. SQ is definately more important, although I really like the look/feel of the Monsoon, it sound horrible! My Bose in my LT1 cars was WORLDS BETTER then this crap.