Kicker hideaway- final upgrade to the $250(+) 3rd gen premium upgrade (+Kicker Key 180.4 amp)

I personally go for the front in our trucks because they have larger speakers up front. I haven’t ever tested to see if the rears get any different signal though so that’s just my habit of always tapping subs to the larger speaker.

I would tap before the amp. It’s a cleaner signal and tapping in after the amp is going to max out the input gain on the hideaway too soon.

Maxed gains = bad sound.

 

But keep in mind, tapping before the amp doesn’t necessarily mean tapping behind the head unit. You can tap in at the input of the amp if that is easier to get to

 

I'm doing the Metra male/female harness and mounting amp behind glove box. Doing that, I'll have to splice into the Metra harness, behind the head unit, for the Hideaway speaker wires. On my Metra harness, I'm having to spice:
Remote turn on for Alpine ( red Metra wire to gray stock wire)
12V+ battery (yellow Metra wire to white w/blue stripe stock wire)
2 sets +/- L-R front door speakers w/ 1 set into Alpine amp & 1 set for Hideaway
1 set +/- L-R rear speakers into Alpine amp
Does all this look correct?

 

All of that looks right so far. However, ignore the factory wiring colors. No factory wiring should be spliced/altered when using the two METRA harnesses

 

Correct, I won't be altering any factory wires. Thanks a ton for your help!!!

 

Where did you mount your amp?

 

Also - I noted earlier Dustin that you said you ran a KX800.5 - why run the 5 channel - is the 5th split between the two front tweeters? Or are you running a normal powered sub? Right now I am running the full CS setup (6.75 instead of 6.5) and want to wire in a power pack and the sub underseat. Just trying to ID a quality value component amp to wire in.

@destin_meeks

 

And last question - I think I want to run the Kicker KEY180.4 component amp as I am not the most well versed in setting up crossovers/EQ/etc. - so I should be able to simply build the metra harness like earlier in this thread and hook that directly into metra harness to prevent cutting/splicing any factory wires? I will probably run the power directly to the battery just because I will probably add the hideaway and will just run a splitter block later on.

Any issues with the above?

 

That’s exactly what I did, with the exception of running a new ground. I actually have this amp In biamp mode running Kicker 6x9 components now, and it is absolutely fantastic. I left the stock rear speakers in running off the headunit. I may just unplug them.

 

Mine is in the drivers side cubby behind the back seat

I am running a passive subwoofer (kicker compRT 12 in the loaded box,

$300 43tcwrt122 CompRT12 12" Subwoofer in Thin Profile Enclosure, 2-Ohm, 500W

43tcwrt122)



With the CS speakers, the kicker 180.4 is a great amp. I have been installing more and more of them.

Yes that all sounds fine! The Key is fully capable of driving all 4 of your door speakers and the tweeters, no problem. Build the metro harness, and that gives you your 4ch in/out wiring to run to the amp. Easy Peasy

 

Did you have to cut the car seat harness for the subs to fit? Also, how is the bass with those?

 

interested to hear what your settings are for the hideaway.

input level
phase
bass boost
cross over frequency
gain levels

Thanks.

EDIT: I'm doing mostly Rock ( chili peppers, sublime, the killers, floyd, etc.)

 

I did have to cut the middle and passenger side car seat connections to make the sub fit. I then had a local body shop weld them back on a bit higher to the box had clearance.

For sound, I am extremely happy with it. I'm only feeding it 400w and it can handle 500w rms, so with a larger amp it could be even better. I mostly listen to rock and it is perfect for that. The sealed box keeps bass guitar and drum sets nice and tight while still having a good hard kick, and the passive radiator keeps the box a bit loose for the occasional bass heavy song.

 

For anyone with a power pack / KEY180:

I am running both a KEY180 and a Hideaway - since I need to tap both from the main metra add-on harness - I am trying to decide where to locate the amp/power pack. I heard a few of you say you located it behind the glove box / behind the dash - my question is did you have to elongate the wiring at all to have room to mount the amp or is the small additional wiring from the metra add-on harness enough length to position it in the dash? It looks like the harness will on give you another 12-18 inches of wire to work with - which seems like it should be enough but just making sure.

Hideaway is going under drivers seat - prefer the amp to be hidden behind dash.

 

I would personally extend the wires for the input and outputs from the 180. With the included harnesses plugged in, find the spot you want to put the amp, then see how much additional length you will need. I've found that in some vehicles, the output side may be long enough, but the input side needs extra length.

While I recommend the Key more, the alpine power pack will have enough wire on its included harness. They give you quite a bit luckily

 

input level
hi. We are using high voltage speaker levels as compared to low level RCA outputs.

phase
Leave this at 0 unless you notice the bass just doesn't seem to mesh with the music. If it sounds a bit off, go to 180 and listen again.

bass boost
I personally go right in the middle. Adds some extra kick without adding in distortion

cross over frequency
Given your music choices, this will probably be in the 100hz range. Again, put on a RHCP song (I always head for "Soul to Squeeze) and start with the cross over all the way down. Start to turn it up until the bass guitar in the chorus sounds good. Too high and you'll hear other instruments and voices start to play through the sub and thats where you know it needs to go back down some

gain levels
This can vary from person to person. With the bass knob at 50% and the radio at about 75% volume, play a song you know pretty well. RHCP works well. turn the gain up until the bass starts to sound bad. turn it back down a bit, and there you go.

 

Thanks man. Yea I am right around 100hz. I actually have the bass boost at 0. Maybe I should mess with that some too .

 

I definitely would. The Bass Boost only affects the 40hz frequency so it adds a nice kick to bass drums and a lot of the bass in most music these days

 

If I mess with the bass boost I'm assuming I would have to re calibrate gain?

 

Not necessarily. I'd suggest throwing the boost to halfway and seeing how it sounds.