Stereo Information (Wiring, Upgrades, etc...)

SirLoin said:

Well, it seems no one is interested in helping me upgrade my base 6 speaker stereo, but I learned something today that may be helpful to others.

On my 2017 V6 convertible, the rear speakers get almost no attention from the head unit. Almost 100% of the sound from them is midrange. Changing the treble and bass does very little. Can anyone else confirm if their coupe or convertible does the same thing?

I thought maybe Ford spent all their time tweaking the sound for the 9 & 12 speaker systems and didn't bother adjusting for only one door speaker, but the 9 & 12 are so different from the 6 speaker, that's hard to believe. If anyone is thinking of tapping into the factory head unit for a sub install, I'd recommend tying into the door speakers.

After sitting in the car for an hour tweaking my stereo, I was able to get a good sound with minimal distortion at higher volumes. We'll see how it sounds while driving with the top down, but for now I'm happy enough to put off my speaker upgrade for the time being.

Treble: 0
Midrange: -2
Bass: +2
Fade: +3 or +4 to the rear
Balance: 0

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My OEM 400A (9-speaker) 6.5" speakers had poly cones with no tweeters at all - both in the front doors and identically on the rear deck. These may well be the same drivers in the base car? Anyway, my rears had very little treble as well. Now with the Kicker Coax's back there, the rear fill is full range low to high. So, in this case I think that lack of treble from the rear for 300A and 400A cars is due to Ford's speaker selection and not due to lack of a full range signal back there. Having just done my retrofit, you may consider a pair of Kicker coax's for the rear, either another pair for your doors, or consider a dedicated woofer for the lower doors and- perhaps to start - leave the OEM Tweeter in place in the A-pillar. I was surprised to see how close the factory 0.75" tweeter looked to its Kicker replacement. As delivered with the OEM 9-speaker setup, I had my midrange, balance and fade at zero, treble at -2 and bass at +3.

mdnt said:

are we able to run a RCA convert cable to C4109A
Pin outs from gray DSP plug > (to the) subwoofer plug appear to be done this way:

1 > 7 low-level subwoofer signal +
2 > 8 low-level subwoofer signal -

or is this a signal aftermarket amps cant read?

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I don't know yet if this will work. Depends on the signal, but at some point they have to send a regular old signal back to the amp don't they? Could that be at this point in the signal path? I would think so. Easy enough to test in a 401A car - which I don't own!

Anyway, I like this idea as it should add in a menu setting for the subwoofer on the touchscreen (like it has in a 401A car) if you can edit in FORscan to get the DSP and the ACM to now recognize that there is a subwoofer (what we would do anyway even if just using the stock sub and amp), but let you send that signal to your better amp and driver(s).

I ran my wires to connect the sub amp to the DSP amp and edited the DSP code to mirror that of the known 401A car's coding. No joy, I do not yet have power coming through the turn-on lead from the DSP. I will work on it some more soon.

From preliminary listening in my car without (yet) the subwoofer, I may have to revert to getting a clean signal from the head unit, a good outboard processor, and some amps to properly tune the cabin and speakers.

UPDATE: I discovered today that my distortion issue is coming primarily from the A-pillar tweeters. I initially thought the tweeters were busted by the dealership employee, who drove my car 100+ miles to the location where I picked it up. I have no doubt that the whole trip was top down and stereo blaring. Who wouldn't?

I'm sure most of you know this already, but I was thrilled when I discovered that I could remove the tweeter grilles to inspect the speakers. Upon inspection, I don't think either one is busted. I almost wish they were because it would be a easy warranty fix.

The odd thing is the distortion is much more prevalent when my stereo is set to 100% treble or midrange, as opposed to 100% bass. However, the head unit doesn't turn off the other 2 parameters completely, so I haven't fully ruled out the possibility of the bass interfering with the higher ranges.

As we know, the 6 speaker stereo uses a disassembled coaxial setup, where the tweeters and door speakers share the same wiring. I've had the car less than a month, and would prefer not to start tearing out body panels and buying new speakers, this soon. I'm still wondering if installing bass blockers on the tweeter wires might solve my problem. Any thoughts?

Don't rush into doing a speaker upgrade just yet. I put that Kicker set in because I thought the midrange not musical enough. I found the factory tweeters much too bright (sibilant), as you seem to also. Well, now I have more tweeters involved and it is way too much highs even at at all flat (reset) levels. To even listen I have the car set to all occupants, fader a couple to the rear, bass up high and treble way down low. Long term I may need to use some inline level reducers in the doors. The rear speakers will be fine. Ford already crosses the speakers over so a high-pass filter like a "bass blocker" probably won't help. We need a few db volume reduction on those tweeters - even more so if you go with a Kicker 9-speaker system like I did. Sadly, all this points to punting on the factory system past the head unit. A processor like a MiniDSP feeding some amps, etc. would do the job, as would an MS-8. With either, raw drivers could be used with no crossovers. You program each channel for its range, crossover slope, etc.

More info: your 6-speaker car head unit sends speaker level outputs in four channels FR, FL, RR and FR. You report that each door splits the signal to woofer and tweeter. So, you have four full range channels to send to your processor. An MS-8 would take them fine, or just send the front stereo signal to it. People have trouble getting new wires through the doors, so make up a harness to feed the factory speaker outs - or splice into existing wires?

Finally, in my own experimenting I tried a few coding suggestions to have my DSP (your base 6-speaker car doesn't have this at all) activate the subwoofer outputs. Never got it to do so. I had a DTC pop up yesterday through FORscan for "speaker 3 short to ground" out of the DSP module and my left door middle speaker and pillar tweeter were silent. I checked wiring and once I pulled the 3.5" mid from the door today after work it all came on. Now, after being sure that my speaker leads were still taped and not able to contact the metal car door, all is well. Luckily, these DSP units are under a hundred bucks used. AutoNation Ford is sending me a new one as I want to see if there is a difference inside the boxes. Must you have a 401A donor DSP amp to make the subwoofer retrofit work? Note there that Ford lists two Part numbers for the DSP. The one ending in "M" is for "branded" audio system and the one ending in "N" is for non-branded. M costs a whole dollar more and that is the one I ordered. From my FordParts order confirmation:

KIT - AMPLIFIER
Part #: FR3Z18B849M

I want the subwoofer outputs to work and rumors say that no one has actually got the 400A, 9-speaker, amp to turn them on. Branded hopefully means Shaker Pro and the 401A setup with sub.

SirLoin said:

UPDATE: I discovered today that my distortion issue is coming primarily from the A-pillar tweeters. I initially thought the tweeters were busted by the dealership employee, who drove my car 100+ miles to the location where I picked it up. I have no doubt that the whole trip was top down and stereo blaring. Who wouldn't?

I'm sure most of you know this already, but I was thrilled when I discovered that I could remove the tweeter grilles to inspect the speakers. Upon inspection, I don't think either one is busted. I almost wish they were because it would be a easy warranty fix.

The odd thing is the distortion is much more prevalent when my stereo is set to 100% treble or midrange, as opposed to 100% bass. However, the head unit doesn't turn off the other 2 parameters completely, so I haven't fully ruled out the possibility of the bass interfering with the higher ranges.

As we know, the 6 speaker stereo uses a disassembled coaxial setup, where the tweeters and door speakers share the same wiring. I've had the car less than a month, and would prefer not to start tearing out body panels and buying new speakers, this soon. I'm still wondering if installing bass blockers on the tweeter wires might solve my problem. Any thoughts?

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Just because you can't see "physical" damage on the tweeters doesn't mean that they aren't blown. Can you describe the distortion in more detail and is it coming from both tweeters or just one?

As for the bass blockers, there is a capacitor across the input terminals of the tweeter that filters out lower frequencies.

Tweeters

Here are some comparison photos of the Kicker Tweeters and the OEM's.

Mumbles wrote - "As for the bass blockers, there is a capacitor across the input terminals of the tweeter that filters out lower frequencies."

Great observation as I had not noticed that at first. You can see that little cap tucked in on the OEM tweeter. Also - a photo of the boxes the tweeters and midranges came in.

Here is Kicker's product description for those 0.75" (20mm) tweeters:

KS Series ¾" Tweeter
The KS ¾-Inch Tweeter is a silk dome, complete with a trio of mounting options and an in-line 12dB crossover.

Features:

Silk Dome Tweeters For A Smooth Sound
Three Tweeter Mounting Options (Hardware Included)
Extended Frequency Response
Lightweight Neodymium Magnets
In-Line12dB Crossover Included
Poly-Switch Protection
Grilles Included
The tweeter works best with 65 watts of recommended power.

I had to look up the definition of sibilant, but that's a great way to define the distortion. It's a buzzing sound, similar to an analog radio that's not perfectly tuned to the station. As I previously mentioned, it's not 100% of the time. When it happens, it's coming from both speakers at the same time.

Please forgive my ignorance of anything electrical (I completely bombed basic electrical engineering in college), but I see that the stock tweeters are 12.5W and 8ohms. What's the difference between them and the 4ohm kickers?

The idea of a processor sounds great, but also sounds expensive. Relying on my lack of knowledge, I'm confident I'd have to pay for installation, which would blow my $300-400 budget. Barring some kind of corrupt signal from the head unit, wouldn't a component setup with higher quality speakers be enough to remedy the distortion? I don't need "insert favorite brand here" quality, I just need "not terrible."

Aside from having 9 tweeters and undoubtedly annoying all the dogs in your neighborhood, how do you like the sound of the Kickers? I wouldn't be opposed to balancing the highs among more speakers, in order to reduce the risk of blowing them out. In this case, I suppose lacking 3 speakers is an advantage.

I think I'll bring it in for the dealer to check it out. I'm quickly developing a laundry list of small annoying issues (loose parking brake, top strap not attached, rough idle, rough brakes).

Of course, I'm still interested in your thoughts on the new information I provided.

djcwardog said:

UPDATE - 7-5-17: My APIM under 7DO-01-01 read in hex: 622A 0502 00xx. This had its 8th character at "2" as I suspected. I edited that to be a "3" and this did the trick. HD Radio enabled or disabled now appears under my Radio Settings choices.

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The Ford Parts Manual shows "Receiver & Controls with Interface 3, 4" for the "Shaker" ("Branded" audio) - I wonder if this is what they mean? In which case, "4" may be Shaker Pro (W/ SW)

djcwardog said:

For ACM 727-01-02: 0300 34. The second digit as "3" means EQ selection #3. Choices are from 0-9.

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Oooo - I'd like to check out those choices - I have a sneaky suspicion these "EQ" settings are actually not so cleverly disguised cross-over points for different speakers...

[Edit: Checked mine, 727-01-02 was 0388 (EQ #3 with ESE/ANC)]

EcoBOSS said:

The Ford Parts Manual shows "Receiver & Controls with Interface 3, 4" for the "Shaker" ("Branded" audio) - I wonder if this is what they mean? In which case, "4" may be Shaker Pro (W/ SW)



Oooo - I'd like to check out those choices - I have a sneaky suspicion these "EQ" settings are actually not so cleverly disguised cross-over points for different speakers...

Click to expand...

You mean that perhaps in 727-01-02, the EQ choice "4" correlates to the Shaker Pro setup? It would be great to see this code from someone who has pulled it from their car - a car that came with a Shaker Pro 401A and the sub. When I compared my car on ETIS to one that I knew had 401A, I think the code was the same, choice "3"? Right now I have it at 00xx which supposedly means no EQ on the signal at all? I can report that this calmed down the outrageous amount of highs, but not entirely.

Stage3 Speaker Kit - Deep Dive on Crossver Points on the Kicker KST200 Tweeters

I am now tempted to splice in an inductor on the positive coax Tweeter wiring (it runs down the side of the Kicker 44KSC3504 to the center of the magnet) to achieve a roll off that complements where the separate Tweeter begins to play. Or, heresy!, just snip that wire and drop out the Tweeter portion of the coax, do it in the lower door Kicker 44KSC6504 speakers too... I think that our friends at Crutchfield report these specs for the little Kicker 44KST2004 A-Pillar tweeters:

Product Highlights:

3/4" silk dome tweeters
neodymium magnets
hardware for flush-, surface-, and angle-mounting
handles up to 65 watts RMS (125 watts RMS peak power)
frequency range: 4,500-21,000 Hz
in-line crossovers (4,500 Hz at 12 dB/octave)
features neodymium magnets
sensitivity: 92 dB
top-mount depth: 1/2"
warranty: 1 year

Therefore the magic freq is 4500 Hz. Perhaps I want to achieve a 6db rolloff at 4500 Hz on the coax 3.5" speakers in my middle door location. What size inductor (for low pass) or capacitor (for high pass) to use?

Here's a link to try from our friends at Parts-Express:

https://www.parts-express.com/resour...election-guide

If 4500 Hz is where I want the top end of freq. response for the 3.5" coax, then I can take their table's 450 Hz values of 1.42 mh for a 6 db slope (or 2.83 mh for 12 db), push the decimal to the right one place for freq., now it's 4500 Hz, and push the decimal one place to the left for inductor value, yielding 0.142 mh as the value of the inductor I need. This makes sense by inspection as the inductor values drop as your desired low pass frequency gets higher in that table.

Looking some more at Crutchfield, they also sell a Kicker component set, Kicker 44KSS6504, which uses 1" silk tweeters, an external crossover, and Tweeter-less 6.5" woofers. They reference a "does not fit" issue as below:

Selected Location
Lower Front Door

ITEM SPECSCOMPATIBILITY
Size: 6-1/2" Component, 6-1/2" OK
Depth: 1.794 OK
Mounting height: 0.510, not OK, exceeds factory of 0.379
Cutout diameter: 4.849 OK

Well now, seeing as I cut up the factory speakers to use their rings as adaptors, not sure that I agree totally about the mounting issue! 2/10" does not seem to be a deal breaker for me after what I did already. Plus, these guys have yet to "measure" our cars for product research. Really? I emailed them all of my install pictures gratis just to offer them something to get it started. I have been their customer since the 1970's. Anyway, if those 1" tweeters fit, then this kit, plus a pair of the 3.5" coax's for the 9-speaker crowd, would do the doors. If the door woofer in the base car is full-range, use this one and let the highs roll off naturally due to no tweeter. Use their supplied crossover to feed the Tweeter as output. Input the factory door Tweeter signal to the crossover? Either the base or 9-speaker cars will do well to have the coax 6.5" Kickers (as-is) on the rear package tray.

What value cap is on the factory tweeter?

Sorry guys, might be a lil off topic, but since I broke two clips behind the dash trim( the light blue ones) in the process of adding an EQ and Amp.Does anybody know where can I buy those light blue clips? Maybe Part numbers and also where to buy them?

EcoBOSS said:

What value cap is on the factory tweeter?

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No markings that I could see and I haven't tried to measure it. I also wonder what the frequency ranges are for the ACM or DSP outputs to the speakers.

New DSP amp in hand

From earlier in this thread, I asked:

"... Must you have a 401A donor DSP amp to make the subwoofer retrofit work? Note there that Ford lists two Part numbers for the DSP. The one ending in "M" is for "branded" audio system and the one ending in "N" is for non-branded. M costs a whole dollar more and that is the one I ordered. From my FordParts order confirmation:

KIT - AMPLIFIER
Part #: FR3Z18B849M

I want the subwoofer outputs to work and rumors say that no one has actually got the 400A, 9-speaker, amp to turn them on. Branded hopefully means Shaker Pro and the 401A setup with sub."

AutoNation just shipped me this unit. See photos. See where the pin numbers are called inside the jacks? Let's hope I get it done with this swap...

Preparing to Try the new DSP amp

I took another look at my photos and diagrams, then drew a simple one-page chart that I hope works for me - and for you. The first photo - what a factory 401A car looks like down at the gray DSP connector. The rest - what my 400A car looks like down there - missing wires. Because the actual jacks here have pins 8 and 16 clearly marked, this becomes a matter of being sure that your harness lines up. See my .pdf for the hand-written sketch and photo.