Adding rear speakers and bass to a 9 speaker

[Matti777]

As we know the factory 9 speaker system is ok but not good or great. I'm only using the door speakers and have the center speaker covered with a piece of Noico 80ml sound deadening left over from the spare tire well insulation job. It stops the plastic rattling too. The back deck speakers are useless. I would like to fill out the sound and improve the bass from the rear of the car for rock and funk music.....no loud deep pounding bass as I'm an old guy. I'm looking for low to mid volume sound for highway cruising and not looking at spending a bundle. I've read lots of posts (including a 23 page post that turned out to be useless as I don't have the sub wiring plug to the trunk). I'm making the assumption that the factory amp doesn't have the capacity to run any worthwhile speakers out back so adding an amp and running power is a given. I'd like to stay away from taking away trunk space. Here is my preliminary plan. It might be technically flawed. Thoughts?

• order Forscan to turn off the EQ so the back speaker signal will be full range
  
• LOC - AudioControl LC2i so I can grab the signal that goes to the rear speakers and use it as an input to the amp
  
• option a) mono sub amp and mount it in the spare tire well / mount 2 - 8 inch subs under the deck. There is a post where somebody used Kicker 8Cs 'free air' subs. Takes very little trunk space away.
  
• option b) mount a powered sub under the deck like a Rockford Fosgate Punch P300-12 or something similar (not sure if I need a LOC for these)

I don't think there is a cost difference between the options. I'm not sure if I will have sound balance issues with this kind of a set-up either. My other thought was to mount a multi channel amp in case I want to upgrade the front speakers although I am not sure if I need that or could survive with the stock amp. Thoughts?

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[Shmoke]

As we know the factory 9 speaker system is ok but not good or great. I'm only using the door speakers and have the center speaker covered with a piece of Noico 80ml sound deadening left over from the spare tire well insulation job. It stops the plastic rattling too. The back deck speakers are useless. I would like to fill out the sound and improve the bass from the rear of the car for rock and funk music.....no loud deep pounding bass as I'm an old guy. I'm looking for low to mid volume sound for highway cruising and not looking at spending a bundle. I've read lots of posts (including a 23 page post that turned out to be useless as I don't have the sub wiring plug to the trunk). I'm making the assumption that the factory amp doesn't have the capacity to run any worthwhile speakers out back so adding an amp and running power is a given. I'd like to stay away from taking away trunk space. Here is my preliminary plan. It might be technically flawed. Thoughts?

• order Forscan to turn off the EQ so the back speaker signal will be full range
  
• LOC - AudioControl LC2i so I can grab the signal that goes to the rear speakers and use it as an input to the amp
  
• option a) mono sub amp and mount it in the spare tire well / mount 2 - 8 inch subs under the deck. There is a post where somebody used Kicker 8Cs 'free air' subs. Takes very little trunk space away.
  
• option b) mount a powered sub under the deck like a Rockford Fosgate Punch P300-12 or something similar (not sure if I need a LOC for these)

I don't think there is a cost difference between the options. I'm not sure if I will have sound balance issues with this kind of a set-up either. My other thought was to mount a multi channel amp in case I want to upgrade the front speakers although I am not sure if I need that or could survive with the stock amp. Thoughts?

@Matti777 I'm trying to find some support for your ideas, I think you are on track. I read that you can unlock more range in Forscan somewhere on here, but for some reason I can't find the posts. Also, my brother did it in his Fiesta ST for Sync 3 and I witnessed him gain more bass in the rear as he added a Subwoofer after tapping off the rear speakers.

 

[Matti777]

@Matti777 I'm trying to find some support for your ideas, I think you are on track. I read that you can unlock more range in Forscan somewhere on here, but for some reason I can't find the posts. Also, my brother did it in his Fiesta ST for Sync 3 and I witnessed him gain more bass in the rear as he added a Subwoofer after tapping off the rear speakers.

I'm pretty confident on the Forscan task. There are quite a few posts on that. If you search 'Forscan EQ settings bass roll off' you should find them..

 

[Matti777]

Step #1 is done. I used FORScan to access the ACM. I changed this setting - 727-01-02-0100 to 727-01-02-0000 . That puts the EQ built into the factory amp to "flat" and removes the bass roll off at upper volume levels. I didn't really notice a difference in the rear sound so I am just assuming that the roll-off is gone

 

[Matti777]

Picked up a used JL 500/1 amp and JL 10TW3 compact sub. One question....if I run this off of a rear speaker input through the LC2 how much fade do I have to use from front to rear to make this work? Right now I run almost 100% to the front.

 

[Superspirit]

Step #1 is done. I used FORScan to access the ACM. I changed this setting - 727-01-02-0100 to 727-01-02-0000 . That puts the EQ built into the factory amp to "flat" and removes the bass roll off at upper volume levels. I didn't really notice a difference in the rear sound so I am just assuming that the roll-off is gone

If you can turn up the volume past 16 without noticably losing the bass then you were successful. On my wife's 9 speaker system, I disconnected the center speaker and replaced the mid speakers with Kenwood Coax and disconnected the tweeters in the a pillar's. Replaced the door woofers with Rockford fosgate separates omitting the tweeters due to mid Coax. Car sounds awesome now. Also disabled anc with forscan along with eq.

 

[Shmoke]

If you can turn up the volume past 16 without noticably losing the bass then you were successful. On my wife's 9 speaker system, I disconnected the center speaker and replaced the mid speakers with Kenwood Coax and disconnected the tweeters in the a pillar's. Replaced the door woofers with Rockford fosgate separates omitting the tweeters due to mid Coax. Car sounds awesome now. Also disabled anc with forscan along with eq.

@Superspirit, for those of us who are looking to do this, what does anc stand for?

 

[Superspirit]

@Superspirit, for those of us who are looking to do this, what does anc stand for?

Active noise cancellation, (fake engine noise) this only applies to the gt350 and the Ecoboost. The gt doesn't have it.

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