Help assembling an audio system

A friend of mine was able to give me two pairs of kenwood 6x9 KFC-6993PS which I would like to put in both the front and rear doors of my 06 double cab. I think the fronts should go in fine, but the stock rears are 6.5". Is there such thing as an adapter to go from 6.5 to 6x9? And also will the speakers be getting enough power? My head units specs are pulled from kenwood site.
These speakers have printed on the back: 4 ohm peak: 500W and RMS 120W.
I've done some research on this kinda stuff but when it comes to the specs, it all goes over my head. Will I need an amp to power these properly? And also it appears there are 2 tabs to solder to as opposed to a plug on these speakers. Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

Years ago they made 6" to 6X9 adapters but those won't fit in your doors. You can put those rear 6X9's in independent boxes if you just "have to" use them. With a 120w rms they will be underpowered. Distortion blows speakers far quicker than power. For optimum performance they'll need an amp. Without an amp they'll still be an upgrade.

On a limited budget I'd use the Kenwoods in the front in a heartbeat, the back I'd leave stock and eventually get aftermarket that fits properly.

 

Concentrate on the front speakers/setup. How often do you (or anybody over the age of 12), sit in the rear?

 

Hahahaha so much comedy on this forum this morning.

But it's actually pretty accurate for most, lol. Nice job Mish.

 

As already mentioned, 6x9's won't fit in the rear. Personally, I would do a 2-channel amp to power the fronts and use the head unit to power the stock rears. Your head unit will not drive those 6x9's very efficiently. I'd look at 75W per channel minimum with those speakers.

 

I think I'd use speakers that'll work for what he wants before I'd use free speakers and be "forced" to buy an amp because of speaker design. It just depends on what he wants.

The way I read it though he's wanting to improve the sound quality on the cheap, which they will definitely do without an amp.

 

The cheapest 6.5" speaker you can find would still be better than stock.

 

WRONG.

The factories test their stuff in the real world, aftermarket offers everything from complete crap to way overpriced crap and some excellent stuff as well.

 

A $40-50 pair of 6.5" speakers is way better than whatever you call that thing stock comes with. It barely has a magnet if one at all

 

I was planning on getting an amp eventually, but I suppose this gives me a reason. If I do get an amp, should I be looking for a 2 channel that gives ~100 watts rms/channel at 4 ohms? If so, I'm open to suggestions and for me, smaller is better. Would the sound be okay giving the front 6x9s ~100watts rms while the rear speakers are only getting 22? I get the whole matching rms figures, but what they're output is is still fuzzy to me.

 

I think @hotboatrod got a TW vacation.

I think you'd be fine with anything over 50W RMS at 4 ohms. You can go bigger if you can afford it and get it in a reasonable size for what you need. 100W would be about right if you can get there within your budget. There are several compact options on Crutchfield for around $100, just validate their specs. The rear speakers should just be providing some "fill" for the space, so you should be fine just sending head unit power to them and fade most of the sound to the front. That's the way I have always done my aftermarket setups -- amp the front, HU power to the rear. You could pick up some lower-cost aftermarket rear speakers to improve that "fill" sound.

 

Right now my rears are from a stock jbl system out of a 3rd gen. They plugged in and played fine, but they started popping at high volume or if there was any significant bass. I dont know if it's a power issue, but I need to get new rears that will work without popping.

 

I'm also looking at putting tweeters in while the panels are off. Are the tweeters wired to the main front speakers, meaning they too will get 100 watts rms after the amp is installed?

 

Well, now it's getting a bit more complicated. With those Kenwood speakers, you have a woofer, a mid-range, a tweeter, and 2 super tweeters. I don't think you need more tweeters.

But to answer your question on power, if you were to add tweeters, it depends on how you wire them. If you wire them in series, you have to add the impedance values of the speakers together (likely 8 ohms if the tweeters are also 4 ohm). This would result in less wattage per speaker. If you wire them in parallel, take half of the highest impedance, which should be about 2 ohms. Either way, the amp would need to be capable of handling those. But like I said, you probably don't need to add tweeters. Using a 4-channel amp, you could wire them separately. But that's still a heck of a lot of tweeters. I'd just unplug the stock tweeters and use the 6x9's alone.

Here's some info on wiring and loads: http://www.bustedgear.com/faq_Speaker_wiring.htm

On my 2nd gens, I would use component speakers for the front so I could mount the tweeter in the stock location (you have to fabricate a mount). It's basically like removing the tweeter from a standard coax 2-way speaker and mounting it in the stock location, keeping the 4 ohm impedance for the pair in front. Lots more work to get everything mounted and wired, but good sound results for the money. I built a sub box for behind the rear driver-side seat (double cab), and used a 4-channel amp with one side bridged to drive the sub (2 channels into one speaker), and the other 2 channels to drive the front speakers. Rears ran off the head unit. Good sound and power, generally about $700 - $900 for the complete system doing all the work myself.

 

Thanks for the advice so far, I really appreciate it! If I were to remove the stock ones, would the lower 6x9s still get power? I guess I'm asking if the door is wired in parallel or series. If it's in series, would I snip the tweeter connector and crimp the lines together?
As an update, I ordered the rear 30 watt 6.5" kenwoods. Come this weekend I'll get the new speakers in. I'll likely wait about a month before I can get an amp. Right now I'm looking at either the sound ordnance t100 (2 channel): https://www.crutchfield.com/p_777M1002/Sound-Ordnance-M100-2.html?tp=72998
or the sound stream stealth sd4 1000D (4 channel) in case I want to add a sub sometime down the line with a 2 channels bridged:https://www.crutchfield.com/p_530ST410KD/Soundstream-Stealth-ST4-1000D.html?tp=72998
I'm looking at mini amps cause I want to get creative trying to hide it somewhere in the front off the ground.

 

I have a single cab, but I was able to modify my doors from 6.5 to 6x9 with a little cutting and an adaptor plate

 

I'm not sure how they wired them, but I seem to recall that if you unplug the tweeter, no signal makes it to the lower connector on the door, but I could be wrong. But there's only one speaker wire coming into the door, so it shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

I have no personal experience with either of those amp brands, but Crutchfield usually doesn't sell complete crap and you can trust the reviews.

Just as a precaution, you should pick up some extra door panel clips. Even on newer trucks, it's hard to remove and replace the panels without messing up one or two in the process.

 

Update: so I put in new

$33 kenwood KFC 1666s car stereo speaker 6-1/2" 2-way speakers with powerful sound and easy installation - elevate your car audio

kenwood KFC 1666s in the rear (way better than the stock jbls out of a 3rd gen). Then after waiting a couple days for the brackets got those 6x9s in. I did have to do a "tweeter delete" by getting them out of the door and rewiring the 4-pin harness to allow the 6x9s to work. I'm no electrician, but nothing's caught fire yet... I also wanted to keep the stock plug in case I needed it for anything.
Now with everything together it sounds way better than stock and I dont think I need an amp as it's already really clear and goes way to loud for my liking, and that's saying something. One thing I did notice was what I thought was great bass performance from the stock 6x9s was really just distortion that shook my mirrors in the low tones. I now lack the low end oomph, so I guess I'll be on the lookout for an underseat sub. The sound is all there, I just like to see my mirrors shake and feel the oomph of the low notes. And all this only breaking 1 clip on the front door!

 

Nice work man. You can always add a real tweeter and crossover easily into that if you choose

 

For now the 5 way is handling the high stuff fine, but yeah it's nice to have the option of going with dedicated tweeters in the future.