9 speaker upgrade

[Sc302]

I am sure this is somewhere however, my search skills here are not so good. I am looking to upgrade my speakers in my night. Speaker set up. I already have a JL audio stealth box with amp installed. However, the doors are just meh and want to liven in them up.

What are you all doing for the speakers? And what are you all doing to address the EQ out of the stock infotainment system?

I am considering the infinity reference speakers for the two doors and the rear deck. Is replacing the tweeters necessary in the pillars and what about the center speaker in the front?

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[Evolvd]

This setup has been addressed multiple times. But since I’m here, yes you can replace the stock speakers but you’ll want to add an amp to them cause the stock one sucks. Forscan can flatten your EQ. The infinity is a go to buy you’ll want to disconnect your a-pillar tweets if you do a two way in the door.

I installed a full JL system in my car with C7 components up front and C5 coax in the rear.

 

[Sc302]

Yea that is a lot of work, much better than my install and way more than I am willing to go at this point. I do know that I would need to amplify if I want it to sound significantly better but I don’t want to run new wires (again too much work). I would want to use stock wiring and make it as plug and play as possible. The search on this site sucks, when I get to a computer I will be able to search better.

 

[Socal Stangman]

This rabbit hole gets deep quickly. Personally, I don’t believe if you’re leaving the stock HU that changing the speakers is the answer. The speakers are bad, yes, but a little bit of DSP’ing goes a long way. I swapped out my HU with an Alpine and the stock speakers actually sound pretty decent.

The way these speakers are wired is weird. If you’re going to swap speakers I highly suggest getting an amp. As far as the center speaker goes, a lot of people, like myself, just disconnect it, it does sound better. There is also a video on YouTube that talks about using FORScan to turn off the internal EQ that supposed to give better sound.

Be careful here, when you start to mess with things trying to make them better, you might find you’re making them worse. Stereos in cars today are weird with how they work and the different ohm ratings, crossover points and wattage outputs.

 

[Socal Stangman]

This setup has been addressed multiple times. But since I’m here, yes you can replace the stock speakers but you’ll want to add an amp to them cause the stock one sucks. Forscan can flatten your EQ. The infinity is a go to buy you’ll want to disconnect your a-pillar tweets if you do a two way in the door.

I installed a full JL system in my car with C7 components up front and C5 coax in the rear.

Dude this is nice. You are obviously a person who truly appreciates good sound and a nice system, very well done. For anyone looking at this, this is what a high end system is.

 

[Sc302]

I am not exactly new to stereo upgrades and swaps, infotainment swaps yes, but I have done a few gut and replace in sn95’s, probes, Sentras, altimas and maximas. To the inexperienced the crutchfield Catalog is vast and intimidating where this was a frequent delivery of mine in the 80’s and 90’s. I was running fosgate when they were high end/ high quality with 1 ohm impedance vs the Chinese garbage they are today.

that being said I am trying to figure out what I can get away with (simple-ish install), no factory setup sounds good with just adding speakers, Vs going all out and creating a multi day project. A simple speaker replacement or if I can find a way to direct replace the factory amp and replace speakers I would be ok with that. I don’t want to rewire the entire car, call me lazy or understand that have better things to do with my time.

Keep in mind I am happy with this install below even though I think I could have done a bit better

 

[Bassackwards]

While I was upgrading I tried out my new Alpine separates and they had less volume on the factory amp than the oem speakers.

 

[Sc302]

*snip

Yea. Have to watch the impedance or you will either get louder or not loud enough. From what I remember reading, the tweeters in the pillars are 8 ohm (4 ohm speakers will be louder) . The mids in the door are 2 ohm (4 ohm speakers will be softer). The woofers in the doors are 4 ohm. Why they couldn’t just stick with the same impedance is beyond me.

 

[Bassackwards]

I swapped the woofers first and all were 4 ohm. The oem were louder. I think they are more efficient. Now I’m pumping 100 watts through them and I doubt the factory speakers could handle that for long.

 

[Sc302]

Did you use the factory speaker wiring or did you run new wires to the speakers?

 

[Cathul]

You can definitely use the factory speaker wires.
If you replace the amplifier EQ should be a non issue as every car that i checked so far with the 9- or 12-speaker shaker had flat EQ configured in the AsBuilt data anyway. Here the EQ is not done in the ACM, but in the DSP amplifier which is a separate module.

 

[Bassackwards]

Did you use the factory speaker wiring or did you run new wires to the speakers?

I followed Stangtime's lead and accessed the wiring at the factory amp. I built a preamp cable that goes back to the amp then a new run back to the front from the new amp to the factory amp where I tied back into the factory wiring.

I tied the 6.5 and 3.5 wiring together in the doors in order to feed the tweeters. I could reinstall the factory system in an hour or less.

 

[StangTime]

I have a lot of tech and wiring info here: https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/th...o-systems-no-loc-required.159271/post-3244386

And my install is here: https://www.mustang6g.com/forums/th...t-satisfying-stereo-build.187266/post-3763084

 

[Socal Stangman]

Yea. Have to watch the impedance or you will either get louder or not loud enough. From what I remember reading, the tweeters in the pillars are 8 ohm (4 ohm speakers will be louder) . The mids in the door are 2 ohm (4 ohm speakers will be softer). The woofers in the doors are 4 ohm. Why they couldn’t just stick with the same impedance is beyond me.

The tweeters are 8 ohm because the tweeter and 3.5” mid are wired, in parallel I believe, to give around a 6 ohm load. Like I said in my response up above, changing out the speakers isnt always a good idea. To be honest for people new to car audio I never recommend it. I always say DSP first.

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