Rear speaker volume with kicker key

Non JBL.
Speaker upgrade and kicker key 200.4 installed behind factory HU. Much better sound.
But the rears are still damn near silent. Shouldn't the key have woken them up with 2 dedicated channels at 50watts per? Still sound like they are on the factory 5 watts (or whatever it is). What am I missing?

If the key won't do it, can I use the key as a 2 channel and power front and rears from just 2 front channels?
Or just split rears off of front wires without true crossover?
Put a powered sub and drive the rears off of that?
I'm just pissing in the wind here i dont know car audio at all, just a wrench monkey and can do just about anything im told, what are my options.
I'm tired of my boys asking me to turn up the volume every 10 seconds bc they can't hear it if I have my window down (always)

 

Did you turn up the Kicker gain setting for the rear speakers (i.e., higher than than gain setting for front speakers)? On my install, the rear gain on the Kicker Key is adjusted higher than the front speakers, to compensate for the low signal sent to rear from the head unit. I just set everything using the test tone per the Kicker instructions, then adjusted the rear gain control up until I found a balance of sound I liked.

Downside is that there is always low white noise from the rear when main volume is all the way down. I tried to find options to get rid of it if it bothered me (head unit fader set all the way to the front speakers, etc.). Unfortunately, the very quiet "hiss" is constant in the rear speakers when not playing music (but not in front speakers), likely due to additional Kicker Key gain required to get decent volume from the rears. If anyone has an idea on how to silence it (without adding a "kill switch" to rear speaker wiring), I'm all ears!

 

The problems:

For starters, the head unit gives you a crap signal to begin with, like you mentioned. It’s difficult to amplify such a low input signal without getting noise added in, which is where that hiss comes from.
The second problem is the placement. The rear speakers were set up for failure. They’re incredibly low in the doors, so half of your output gets absorbed into the carpet and the seat backs, and unfortunately my feet don’t have ears.

The solutions:
First, make sure the radio fade/balance are set to the center.

easy option 1, turn up the gain. The purpose of the gain control is to compensate for the various input signals. If you turn it up too high, you’ll start hearing the hiss. Some people back off a bit till it goes away. Some people leave it because they never have the radio off so it’s not noticeable to them. Your results may vary.

easy option 2, turn the fader switch to OFF. This will feed the front signal to the rear channels and you’ll be able to utilize the higher level coming from the fronts, and won’t need as much gain compensation. The problem there is you’ll lose your fade control on the radio. Not the end of the world, but something to consider

the other options like bi-amping the front speakers can come later if these options don’t help.

just keep in mind the position of the speakers, and the size and price point of the key. It’s doing a lot of work in a tiny size, crammed in an oven of a dash. It’s got limitations so don’t be mad at it if a different solution is needed.

cheers!

 

Thank you both for the info. Much appreciated.

as always @destin_meeks to the rescue. I will start with option 1 as I don't want to lose fader control, helps on the road trips when the kids are on the tablets, and I still have the tunes on.
Should have gone with a different mount location and then I could easily flop between options depending on situation. But behind the HU was just so clean.

Thank you again.

 

At least pulling it out is easy! Play around with it and you'll get it dialed in. Probably wont be perfect on the first try.
If you have street radial tires, they tend to be quieter so you may notice the hiss more. If you have beefy mud terrains, you may not hear any hiss at all. If you never turn the radio off or often have the windows down, you can get away with the gain higher. But if you are big into podcasts, you may hear the hiss more often.

 

I went through similar permutations, but I personally don't really care if the rear speakers have much output (and my dog probably appreciates it). Nobody sits in the back for long anyway.

1. Kicker dash speakers only (better, but minimal difference)
2. Kicker dash speakers + JBL GT7 (I think) in all doors + Kicker Key amp on all corners (much better but WAY too many tweeters and highs).
3. Kenwood components in the front (mid/tweets in dash, woofers in doors), running the amp in bi-amp mode and no crossover (amp serves as crossover), rears off of HU output.

I like how it sounds now, much cleaner, louder, and well-balanced. Not much comes out of the rear, but you can't tell from the driver's seat. Fade still works but is mostly useless.

 

My window is always down, factory wranglers for another 10-20k miles and they are pretty silent, and radio most always on music no podcasts so a little hiss prob wont be noticeable 90% of the time. But my kids always asking me to turn it up (see window down) and to accommodate its louder than I like it in the front. Fader is useless as it just turns down the front and doesn't do anything for the rear.

I did the plug and play DS18 tweeters in dash, nice improvement.
Rear doors replaced with low end but anything is better than stock

I will play with the gains more and if not happy try removing fader (option 2).

 

Also, make sure the Radio Detect button is not pushed in. It’s recessed so it can be hard to tell