What should my next step be?

The setup:
2016 SR access cab taco.
No rear speakers, no factory harness behind the rear door trims and so I havnt bothered with it. Not to mention I'd need another amp for that kind of setup

Factory standard radio.
JL Audio JX400/4D amp
Pioneer TS-D69C component front speakers
10" polk subwoofer with 0.78 cft closed box enclosure(I dont remember the specs since I've had this box for 6-8 years now)

I'm running a high level input from the factory radio to the amp, and I'm powering the front speakers using the amp, and obviously the sub as well.

Front speaker channels are set to 50Hz high pass filter, the tweeter & woofers have built in filters, and I'm running the sub at 50Hz low pass.


Now that you know a bit about my setup, which I know is a budget build, I'll tell you guys about what is bothering me about it and what I'm looking for. I remember to this day, the day I finished the setup, driving around for hours, finding excuses to drive and enjoying the huge sound quality improvement over the factory speakers. I was very meticulous about the installation. Tucked all the wires neatly, every wire is soldered instead of using a crimp connector, I used 14 gauge copper wires, etc. I really tried to do my best with the installation.

Anyways, lately I've been wanting more and my current setup feels dull.. I have a friend with a very nice klipsch setup in his theatre, and the audio quality, even from youtube videos is phenomenal. I know a couple of speakers and a sub wont match his setup, let alone one of his towers, but how do I get closer to that amazing sound?

Over the next year or so everything will eventually get upgraded to better quality components but right now I'm trying to figure out what will make the most difference and in what order to do them since I dont want to drop $1k+ at once. Plus for me, doing it little by little will give me less anxiety anyways. I've been contemplating replacing the factory headunit with something nicer that'll have a built in equalizer so I can pop the vocals a little bit but I'm wondering if that's just going to be a waste of money since the factory head unit doesnt seem terrible audio quality wise and it doesnt clip on max volume, rather it just lacks some features. Since my component speakers have "built in filters" I'm wondering if thats setting me back as well. I'm no guru but it seems like most component sets come with an external crossover, and in terms of electrical components on those boards I'm seeing a lot more "meat" so to speak than the tiny inline filters that came with my speakers. Will it be best to get an external crossover and to separate the filters for the tweeters and the woofers for now, or should I get all new speakers? I definitely feel that for the price of these speakers I overpaid for what I'm getting out of them.

Anyways, I know it's a long post, and my thoughts are a bit scattered since I'm not an expert on the subject and this is sort of my second build if you consider the first. I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions and if I can clarify anything let me know.

 

I just redid my system last weekend and I do this. Farthest I drove was 45 miles one night because I was listening to music. I still like to just drive and listen to my tunes and bump the bass just because.

My setup is
Line converter: Lc7i all channels summed to 1 (minor hissing but don’t bother me after volume level 5)
Front doors: Infinity kappa coaxials 93ix
Rear doors: Infinity kappa coaxial 65ix
Tweeters: Rockford T2T-S
Sub woofers: 2 8” skar sdrs wired to 2 ohm
4 Channel amp: Rockford prime R2 500.4
Sub amp: Rockford prime R2 1200.1
Tools: SMD distortion detector to find distortion from stock head unit and output of lc7i

With this setup I got better highs and sounds real clean for a coaxial setup. My hpf filter for my highs and mids is set to 90-100hz just eyeing from the dial. My front doors I pressed the +3db on the speakers. My lpf on my sub amp is set to the lowest 50hz again just eyeing the dial still need to tune it but I like it. Vocals are great and mid bass is good, I set the hpf high on amp because I didn’t want heavy bass going to the doors.

My old setup was kicker ds on all doors and kicker tweeters, running off of a kenwood 901-5 5 channel amp. It got loud but wasn’t what I was looking for.