Speaker Upgrade Disappointment, Check in

Hi,

I have a 2017 GT350, baddest car ever. I had a 2016 GT with the 401A package, which had the sub. It was alright. But man did having that car make the inadequacy of the GT350 stereo stand out.

Long story short, I've replaced all door speakers with Kickker KSS models. That includes the 6.75 woofer + tweeter (set), and 3.5" mid. I'm not using the Kicker cross over, I've reused the stock capacitor for the tweeter. Reusing stock amp channels as is. Last night I did a test when I only had the right side done, sweeping left to right. Much better and detailed on right side. Finished the left tonight.

Tonight I could help but notice it just hurts my ears overall, it could be it's as simple as I listened to it too loud and I haven't aged well in the eardrum, but I can't help but think something may be out of whack with the way I've reused the stock amp and whatever frequency profile is making it to the speakers. I don't have a frequency analyzer to check. I have to turn the treble WAY down in SYNC for the cab to be tolerable. The dedicated tweeter, and tweeter on the 3.5 cover that range very well.

I searched the forum some, no direct answer/experience I saw. I did not want to deal with an amp upgrade at this time, and I understand that is the right thing to do.

Question 2, for those who have done amps, did you find you needed to upgrade the alternator?

Thanks

PS I did AutoFanatic's shifter buzz fix, part 1 and 2. And I also just tested sound foam jammed in the center console. Deadened a lot of the vibration. I like the car noise of course, just not the transfer of vibration and noise through the plastic parts.

Sounds like the tweeters are way more efficient, plus their extended frequency range may add to extra sizzle. I own a 2016; so only 1 door speaker and a tweeter per side, not a midrange. I am home stereo geek extreme so this low quality stereo issue was a big deal for me too. I added a JL Audio 12 inch stealth box, made for Mustangs, about 799, a 300 watt sub amp with volume control, and much better results. Also, Sirius XM streaming is compressed, anything’s sounds tinny and lacks weight from satellite radio. Comparatively, Amazon music, and perhaps any other streaming service besides Sirius sounds better on the stock speakers.

Question, did the speaker swap alone sound any better than the factory speakers?

Is it the tweeter harshness that is killing you?
I had the same issue, and solved it by wiring a Focal tweeter capacitor/ resistor.
Sounds much better now.
https://m.ebay.com/itm/2-FOCAL-POLY...074002?hash=item5d5e6baf12:g:ZawAAOSw5VFWKqQH

I’ve got 2 amps, a 4 channel for the speakers and a mono for the sub. No upgrades to the alternator or a capacitor or anything else. No performance loss except for the added weight of the box.

Thanks for the replies.

It does sound better as there is much more detail in the mid to high end, cymbals, snares, etc. are clearer. It's too caustic to listen to at high volumes though. I drove in to work today and my theory now is there are essentially two tweeters per side because of the integrated tweeter in the Kicker 3.5". Too much "tweeting" potentially. I still have the panel off the driver door so was able to disconnect 3.5 on the fly. That left a much bigger void overall than I expected.
http://www.kicker.com/44KSC3504

My ultimate solution would be to get a D-6.1200, cleanly power them all, pick up the rears, and have a ton of features to tune every detail with, like cut out some of the highs to the 3.5s, and kill the center 3.5 under the dash. Maybe if there's a bonus this year. This goes back to my unproven theory that there's just not enough control with the stock system to properly interface 3rd party speakers. I think they are doing a lot of sound shaping of what frequencies go to which channel in the stock amp.

The stock capacitor does an okay job on the new tweeter, blocks the lows. I tried with and without the cap to experiment. The new tweeters would not have survived long without the cap.

Need to use supplied crossovers in passive systems as they are designed for that tweeter - both the crossover point and attenuation. As for your center speaker, I prefer WIDEBAND cone speakers for centers, not speakers that have a tweeter in them. Center should really only focus on the vocal range, not extreme highs. First move: use supplied crossover.s

wildcatgoal said:

Need to use supplied crossovers in passive systems as they are designed for that tweeter - both the crossover point and attenuation. As for your center speaker, I prefer WIDEBAND cone speakers for centers, not speakers that have a tweeter in them. Center should really only focus on the vocal range, not extreme highs. First move: use supplied crossover.s

Click to expand...

Man, this comment is sticking with me. At bare minimum I need to test this. Thanks. I was trying to do the least involved upgrade possible and my gut feel is this is involving too many shortcuts to work well. Originally I dropped the cross overs to make the install more simple and because I wasn't sure what/how much filtering the stock amp is doing as is.

wildcatgoal said:

Need to use supplied crossovers in passive systems as they are designed for that tweeter - both the crossover point and attenuation. As for your center speaker, I prefer WIDEBAND cone speakers for centers, not speakers that have a tweeter in them. Center should really only focus on the vocal range, not extreme highs. First move: use supplied crossover.s

Click to expand...

I tried this, it sounded better. The issue is the OEM amp does a lot of filtering already, so using the door woofer channel as the input to the crossover yields a dead tweeter. Yes, it still sounded better this way. Cleaner, less abrasive than the right door with no crossover.

And thus I've concluded the way I've gone about this, with the parts I have selected, does not really work for people with functioning cilia. I read on a website just upgrading the 3.5s makes the biggest difference, I could definitely see that now. The stock 6.5s are kind of puny power wise, but no where near as cheesy as the stock 3.5s, which look like they should be free with a $10 or more purchase at harbor freight (or choose the LED light keychain!).

I think instead I'm going to go all in and upgrade the amp. Get one that takes speaker inputs, sums them for the full signal, and allows individual output tuning (like an LC6-1200 or D-6.1200). Then I can pick up the rears too. Plus this is the recommendation from a high end amp supplier. They said anything within the last few years they prefer to keep the stock amp because it is often so interwoven with the function of the the stock headunit, doing a lot of the signal and volume processing. I like the theory to try to keep it stock stuff for roll back.

This is my 350, I practice daily gratitude through this car. It is so wicked. I think I completed the internet on this car, about everything on YouTube. So here's mine.
[ame="[MEDIA=youtube]qB55fj0_9Zw[/MEDIA]"]