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Speaker upgrade

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Anyone know if it is hard to wire in without the Metra wiring adapters? Seemed to have no wiring clearance.
I am interested in changing those knee speakers in the future as well. Can you please elaborate what you mean by the “dash ridge losing metal clips?”
I was not sure what to call it, it is the dash panel that runs completely across the dash board. It is that hard plastic piece that runs from door to door. It is one long piece. Can't find the video I watched now.
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Here you go starts at 8:30 can skip rest

 

LSguy

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Oh those knee speakers seem to be a lot of work. Let us know how it goes and any gotchas you run into would like to replace those also without going to a audio shop. Biggest issue I have read is the dash ridge losing metal clips.
Lol it has a reputation for not being a ton of fun. The worst part is the speakers I'm throwing in it are temporary. Long term I do not want a coax speaker in the knee panel. I'll want to go with a nice mid bass woofer and pull highs from the dash corners or possibly add a surface mount tweet. The knee panels also won't be able to handle the power I'll eventually put to them. I had considered cutting the grills out and coming up with a new mounting method to make those speakers easy to access, but we'll see how things go tomorrow.
 

RedundanT

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Lol it has a reputation for not being a ton of fun. The worst part is the speakers I'm throwing in it are temporary. Long term I do not want a coax speaker in the knee panel. I'll want to go with a nice mid bass woofer and pull highs from the dash corners or possibly add a surface mount tweet. The knee panels also won't be able to handle the power I'll eventually put to them. I had considered cutting the grills out and coming up with a new mounting method to make those speakers easy to access, but we'll see how things go tomorrow.
Still waiting on the Alpine roll bar kit before I decide what to do. But I really think I'll do a component set for the front, with the 6.5" in the knee panel and mount the tweeter high on the dash.
 

LSguy

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Alright so knee panels and corners are done. I ran a bunch of tests. Poly fill vs no fill. Sound deadening vs none. Alpine vs replacement speakers in isolation. The new 3.5s are awesome. Easy to install, brings the highs out very well. You do not need any resistors, and you do not need any bass blockers. 6.5s are meh, and it will not matter if you run coax or component woofer. The factory setup limits which frequencies and at what power are pushed to each speaker individually. This means you will only ever get so much performance regardless of what speakers you install. This also means you don't need to worry about bass blockers up top, because no bass is really pushed to those speakers anyway. You do get a slight about more mid bass running the 6.5s. If you could port the pods you would likely see a decent increase. Poly fill vs none made no difference.

Install wasn't bad. 1.5 hours to do all 4, clean up tools etc. Drivers side is tight. New pods are brittle. I broke the upper ear off of mine when installing it. Totally my fault, be patient and gentle and you'll be fine.
 

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LSguy

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My tips would be either remove your doors, or pull the wiring etc so you can swing them out full open. This provides much better access to the sides for pulling screws and seeing what you're doing.

If you have a small impact and know how to use it, it'll make life much easier.

Open end 7 mm wrench, 7,8, and 10 mm sockets and a ratchet are very nice to have on hand.

Use painters tape on panel seats where you will be prying. I wish I had done this because I left a few small marks.

Attempt to secure the drivers side speaker plug to the new pods, as getting 2 hands in there to plug it in sucks. You will see how the oem plug is secured, try to replicate it.

Slightly drill out the holes for the gateway module before mounting it to the new pods. As I said new pods are brittle, and I slightly split one of those holes mounting the module.

Read the stick post in this subforum as it has great information. If you use that post and the tips I've posted here, you will have no issues.
 
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Thanks for the feedback! Appreciated.
 

oceanblue2019

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Did all dash, knees, and 3.5" in SB in about 3 hours today for a family members new Jeep. Huge improvement overall.

- Kenwood KFC-X3C in the dash and SB 3.5" slots. I like these as they are a bit shorter than other 3.5's, and have great sensitivity.

- Morel 6.5" woofers in Metra Pods in the dash. I like these as they are very high sensitivity and a 2.6 ohm impedance (the factory knee 4" are 2.4 ohm). So you don't loose a lot of volume like many complain about when they replace with a true 4 ohm speaker.

Use the post by Sting_NC on how to swap the pods as it saves a lot of time.

Check the polarity on the speakers - front dash are likely reversed with the Metra adapter harness and you need to flip them. Knees and SB 3.5" were fine.

Use SpeakerPop on your iPhone to test polarity.
 

jollycj

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Did all dash, knees, and 3.5" in SB in about 3 hours today for a family members new Jeep. Huge improvement overall.

- Kenwood KFC-X3C in the dash and SB 3.5" slots. I like these as they are a bit shorter than other 3.5's, and have great sensitivity.

- Morel 6.5" woofers in Metra Pods in the dash. I like these as they are very high sensitivity and a 2.6 ohm impedance (the factory knee 4" are 2.4 ohm). So you don't loose a lot of volume like many complain about when they replace with a true 4 ohm speaker.

Use the post by Sting_NC on how to swap the pods as it saves a lot of time.

Check the polarity on the speakers - front dash are likely reversed with the Metra adapter harness and you need to flip them. Knees and SB 3.5" were fine.

Use SpeakerPop on your iPhone to test polarity.
I just installed the Kenwoods in the dash and looking at the knee pods. Which morel woofer did you install? Did you use a cross over or just connect and take the base signal? Thx
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