Premium Audio Upgrade for less than $250

@BlackburnPete

You're right, it looks like the rust spray damaged the speakers. No way underpowered speakers could do that kind of damage.

 

Anyone ever blow one of the front Kicker CS 6x9s?

Mine has sounded like it was rattling for the past year or so. I needed to sound deaden the front doors so I was going to pull it eventually.

Got in the truck today, and unless one of the connections is loose, speaker sounds horrible, definitely only the drivers front. I have a big trip coming up so I didn't want to pull the door panel to find out and then wait to order a speaker.

Ordered these as a small upgrade, my truck has the Key 200x4 amp so maybe I'll tell some difference.

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_20647KSC93/Kicker-47KSC69304.html?tp=91

Also, does anyone have a good Amazon link for the door panel clips that you thread the speakers into? I always like to replace those so I get a good tight mount.

 

Just did the Subaru tweeter upgrade and dang, wow. Major difference in the sound. They kind of dominate the soundstage though, will the 6x9's from Crutchfield even things out? And how bass heavy are the 6X9's? The bass in the stock speakers is...well...you guys get it. Would love to see that tightened up a bit and the volume from the speakers even out a bit. Are the 6x9 CS's what I'm looking for? Will be throwing in some sound deadening as well as some acoustic foam that I have laying around from a studio project.

 

Do you have the premium non-JBL head unit? Or do you have a Standard or Plus.
The premium non-JBL unit delivers something like 20W to the fronts and 5W to the rears. The Standard or Plus units deliver like 3.

If your head unit is not a premium non-JBL, there is no sense in upgrading the doors. I have post in this thread a few (tens of) pages back that tells you how to determine which head unit you have if you don't know.

 

What I’m ultimately going with is repositioned rear speakers on the rear panel, that will point at the front of the cabin and not at dead space. I’m planning on keeping my head unit, but running a line out converter, amp and kicker ks 3 ways all around, with do-18s already installed. I’m planning on building a custom storage unit once I do the rear seat delete and I’ll also plan to run a 8 inch sub firing against the back wall.

Everything I’ve heard about the kicker series. Is there a good match for my head, unit stock, and while that sound better than stocks speakers, they won’t really come totally alive until I get an amp and repositioned speakers.

 

I finally found one, and it finally arrived. I got myself a Kicker Key 200.4. It arrived today.

Next up is to make the harnesses, buy some replacement speakers for the rear doors, and do the install (sound dampening; mounting the amp).

The next time I post here, my upgrade will no longer be under $250...

 

Where did you find it? I'm pretty sure I'm on every notification list out there.

 

Like I asked above, I just punched it into a Amazon search. It was a third party seller, so not sure if a notification list would work. It came on the slowest UPS truck ever, but I got it...

Now I am looking for a set of Kicker KS 6-3/4's for the rear doors...

 

Thanks to this thread I am now convinced I must do something about the door speakers, so thanks for that! I did the DS18 tweeters and like others realized the sound level is now unbalanced. I noticed the kickers are currently on sale for about 1 more day, but anyone with past experience with Crutchfield do they typically do a labor day sale that offers even better sales? Would hate to pull the trigger today just to find out later this week they pull another buy one get another 50% off kind of deal. I can live without the speakers for a while so it's not a problem waiting a bit longer, even if it's better to just wait for a black Friday sale or something. Any past experience that helps me not go through hundreds of pages would be appreciated!

 

Trying to read through this whole thread but so far it’s a little frustrating. People saying their system sounds great after doing x, y and z. But so far (after 23 pages of reading) not one person with a lower powered (non premium sound) HU says which model they have so there’s no way to quantify how well the system sounds.

And pardon me if I didn’t read far enough into this thread, but does anyone know how much RMS power the 8” 86140-04230 Pioneer unit puts out?

 

"Premium Audio" head unit + all upgraded speakers = better sound.
Non "Premium Audio" head unit + upgraded tweeters only = better highs sound.
Non "Premium Audio" head unit + upgraded door speakers = waste of time (unless you're going to add an amp).

 

while it's an accurate point, the reality is that there is no great way to quantify how well any sound system sounds to others.


to some, the stock system sounds fine. to others, it needs minor tweaks. to make me happy, i need to gut the entire system, and run full active components... and none of these perspectives are wrong.

but there's also a factory eq curve applied within these oem decks that alters the sound output of of the radio, which can also skew the results of upgrades.

typically, oem decks put out somewhere in the ballpark of 10-15w rms per channel.

 

Well, that doesn’t seem to be the consensus of these 243 pages. So far what I’m hearing is that the subi tweeter upgrade is the single most important mod. What I want to know is if I get a very efficient front door speaker set…would that be worth it.

I would like to hear from people who have a non premium HU and their experience. Or is everyone on this thread a premium HU owner? Can’t be.

 

I’m not opposed to getting an aftermarket head unit. Just want to know how far I can go with a non premium HU and budget is not really an issue.

 

Thanks that was helpful. I want to see how far I can go with stock. My take is that the stock front door speaker is a full range unit with whizzer cone (no crossover). This would make it quite efficient. I would like to replace it with a high quality full range speaker and implement the subi tweeters. See how that sounds and move forward from there. 10-15 watts is plenty for me if I can find super efficient speakers and use sound deadening ing in the doors. Volume as it stands is not an issue.

My interest in an aftermarket HU is to eventually get a better D/A converter as I primarily listen to big wave files from my USB.

 

Regardless of which non-JBL head unit you have, you will hear a difference by replacing the tweeters with the plug-n-play Subaru/Kicker tweeters. If you want clearer, crisper highs, this tweeter upgrade is good. Replacing the door speakers without having the higher powered "Premium Audio" head unit will be underwhelming. I believe initially there was some confusion about this thread, specifically the title, people didn't realize there were several different non-JBL head units, and that the "Premium Audio" head unit has a little more power, just enough to give aftermarket door speaker a little more punch. The thread title "Premium Audio Upgrade" refers to a specific head unit, not just a general term premium sound.

 

the stock speakers, while efficient, are clearly built to a price point first. i've never been all that convinced that whizzer cones provide all that more support for higher frequencies, despite a lot of A/B testing with stock and altered whizzer cone drivers.

due to the 6x9's location at the bottom of the door, you'd be much better served researching component setups, than attempting to get full range sound pointing at the soles of your shoes. i'm also a firm believer in running door speakers with noted integral copper shorting rings in the motor structure to reduce 3rd order harmonics.

if you're open to suggestions, i'd recommend the dayton signature series 6.5" woofer for the location.
https://www.parts-express.com/Dayto...ure-Series-Woofer-80W-Driver-4-Ohm?quantity=1
or, if higher price is to your liking,

it's built/models very similarly to the now-discontinued 6.5" peerless hds nomex, or dayton 7" esoteric that i'm currently running in 2 different vehicles. they both require a tweeter, as 6-7" is just simply too large to get good high frequency response anyways, especially off-axis as the woofers are positioned, but offer a significant amount of musical detail and delicacy that the oem speakers can't offer.

but if you're keeping the oem radio, and it's inherent eq curve, i'd also highly recommend running a 50hz high pass on the woofers to prevent them from over-extending uselessly.

 

I might add that if you have the non-premium HU, you CAN update the dash tweeters... but that's all I'd recommend you do.

 

Just now updated the dash tweeters with the plug and play subi units. Took me all of 25 minutes. Yes, quite a big difference. Especially timbre…that part caught me off guard.

I’m going to enjoy them in this state until I do a little more research on aftermarket HU and 4 channel amp.

But there’s a part of me that just wants to see how far I can go with the low powered stock HU. Curious to see how efficient a door speaker I can get.

 

Thanks, I will look into your suggestions. Is there a reason you’re suggesting a 6.5” door speaker instead of a 6x9? Will this match up well with the kicker plug and play tweeter?