Plug n Play Musway Install

[TwoPumpChump]

Greetings,
Soliciting some help on this forum as I have been unable to reach Joe @ PlugnPlay for the last week. Hoping to get this install did over the weekend.
Backstory is that I call Joe to order a Plugnplay Kicker Key 400 upgrade. Well Joe is a good salesman an upsold me on the following Musway/Kicker bill of materials:

2020 And UP BRONCO / BRONCO SPORT NON Amplified Radio Plug 'n Play Audio Harnesses: Kits × 1 KIT 35 MUSWAY SIX100 6 CHANNEL FULL RANGE CLASS D AMP

8" CompRT 2 Ohm × 1

KICKER 46CSC44 4 INCH SPEAKERS PAIR × 2

KICKER 47KSC6504 KSC650 6.5" Coaxial Speakers PAIR × 1

2010 -UP FORD SPEAKER HARNESS PLUG METRA 72-5602 × 1

METRA 82-5605 6.5 SPEAKER BRACKETS × 1

PAC AUDIO BB-4PR 600HZ 4 INCH SPEAKER BASS BLOCKERS 1 PAIR × 2

PLUGNPLAYKITS 4 GAUGE 100% PURE COPPER POWER AMP KIT × 1

Ford Bronco/Maverick 4 Inch Speaker Plugs × 2

So I have 7 new speakers, a six channel amp, two harnesses, bass blockers and some install gear.
I thought I wouldn't be in over my head since I did the audio install w/ subs & amps on my last two vehicles... especially since all the gear is coming from a company called "Plug N Play". Sadly I don't know what to do on this one. My main questions are as follows:
1) How do you hook up 7 speakers to a 6 channel amp?
2) The Kicker sub runs at 2 Ohms, the amp is 4 ohms, what do I need to do to convert?

I was one of the lucky ones that got the "sub delete," so I am planning to put the amp and the sub in the rear passenger quarter panel. I've seen a couple posts that make me think this will work.

Thanks in advance for your help. I'm sure I will have more questions. Ideally I would be talking to Joe but I haven't had luck reaching him. I promise to take picks and post the final install to help out the next guy.

Sponsored

 

[RagnarKon]

Oooo this looks like fun.

Was the intention to power the subwoofer with the amplifier or power each of the 6 speakers independently?? Typically you would power each of the 6 speakers independently with that amp and have another amplifier for the subwoofer, but not sure what you talked to Joe about.

------

EDIT—

Never mind, I figured out what he was talking about.

So the Bronco is wired like this:

• Front Left (Ch 1) - Driver kick panel and dash speaker (shared channel)
• Front Right (Ch2) - Passenger kick panel and dash speaker (shared channel)
• Rear Right (Ch3) - Passenger pod speaker
• Rear Left (Ch4) - Driver pod speaker
• Subwoofer low-level - Wiring for the subwoofer.

Joe's kit doesn't let you tap into the Bronco's subwoofer channel at all. Which means he intended for you to hook it up like this:

Musway Inputs	Bronco Outputs
Input 1	Channel 1
Input 2	Channel 2
Input 3	Channel 3
Input 4	Channel 4

And then the outputs of the Musway should be mapped like this:

Musway	Speaker Channel
Channel 1 Output	Driver Kick Panel & Dash
Channel 2 Output	Passenger Kick Panel & Dash
Channel 3 Output	Passenger Rear Pod
Channel 4 Output	Driver Rear Pod
Channel 5/6 Output (Bridged channels)	Subwoofer (wired in series)

 

[TwoPumpChump]

@RagnarKon You really are a gem. I've been watching some of your videos the past few days and they are by far the best info out there. Thank you so much for being a exemplar of the Bronco community!

I will mull over the info you posted with some coffee in the AM. Shutting down for the evening.

 

[TwoPumpChump]

Update. I finally got the new system installed with the help of the killer @RagnarKon instructional videos. Can't tell you what a help those were, especially on the finer details. I owe you a beer or ten.

Sadly I have to report the system sounds like hot garbage as of current. Heavily lacking of mids and lows found on other systems I have owned over the years. Definitely not what I would expect for a $1500+ system. The 8" kicker woofer is underwhelming. My hope was that it would sound as good or almost as good as the Bose system in my Macan. Maybe my expectations were too high? I really think it just something wrong or maybe something I'm overlooking?

I've made several tweaks to improve the sound as recommended by @RagnarKon and in this forum. In order those were:
1) Used ForScan to provide full range to to the rears.
2) Changed the fronts in ForScan from "speaker/tweeter" to "speaker"
3) Upgraded panel and rear speakers to kicker KS 6.7s
4) Swapped channels 1/2 with 3/4 so I could take advantage of the Low Pass on the Musway (1/2 only has High Pass).

I am very open to any suggestions you all might have for further improvements. I left a message for @plugnplaykits earlier. Hopefully they will have some ideas, too.

I will share some lessons learned during the install:
-If you have the two door like me, and it came with the sub enclosure, you probably don't want to plan on putting the Musway Six100 in on of the rear quarter panels. Driver side does not have room and passenger is too tight for my liking. Where I have the cables shown below is not a workable solution as they prevent the sub enclosure from full insertion. I will be wrapping the cables where the faux sub amp was mounted. I'll post pics later when installed.

-Also, not super impressed with the Mabbet speaker pods for the 2door. The adaptor is kinda janky and the pod hits the seat belt guide. Wait until someone makes pods specific for the 2D.

 

[jayr1959]

I have a similar set up in my 2 door. I ended up with Infinity Reference tweeters in the dash the rest are kickers. I also have the Mabett pods. I put all the extra cables in the cut out like you but further forward. I ended up using cable ties for the top sub enclosure. I have the Musway 4 channel. I made similar adjustments in forscan. For me the base is still lacking but the rest sounds way better than stock.

 

[TwoPumpChump]

Update: Worked on it some more over the weekend. I isolated the main problem to the inputs coming from the front speakers having a ton of distortion. No idea why. I swapped output channels 1/2 with 3/4 on the Musway amp, turned the gain all the way down for channel 1/2. This puts the poor sound in the back and on only two speakers (versus four) where its less noticeable. The gain on output 3/4 is set to 20%. And the gain for 5/6 (subwoofer) is turned almost all the way up.

This made the sound acceptable but no where near as good as my Bose system I was shooting for. I think in the future I might rewire the inputs, driving all 6 speakers + sub off the two rear speaker inputs. I would loose the ability to use Ford's fader which is currently working in reverse.

The rear panel buttoned up without much issue. One thing I forgot to note on my last post is that in order to save room I bolted the amp directly to the frame/body. If you decide to do this you will need to pick up a high carbon drill bit which is not cheap. I already had a set from when I had to drill some bolts out of an engine block. Good times.


Thanks again to @RagnarKon for all the informative videos.

 

[plugnplaykits]

Please send me a picture of your amplifier adjustments. I need to see where you have. Everything set at something in the set up is wrong.

 

[TwoPumpChump]

@plugnplaykits
Uploading pic of settings and the Musway manual. Please let me know what I can do to improve. Its really been bothering me that past couple weeks that the sound is not good.

 

[mpeugeot]

I found that Kicker 8" underwhelming and upgraded to a Kicker 48TRTP122, which is much better... I still don't think that it does as well as the 46HS10 in my other Bronco, yet, but I think that a little more tweaking will put it into the lead.

 

[mpeugeot]

@plugnplaykits
Uploading pic of settings and the Musway manual. Please let me know what I can do to improve. Its really been bothering me that past couple weeks that the sound is not good.

My personal opinion is that you have the settings all messed up.

Channels 1/2 - front
Should be front dash/kick speakers with high pass filter set for the lowest frequency range that you want passed on to the 4in speakers (300 Hz) unless you have filters on the 4 inch speakers, in which case 120-180 Hz is probably appropriate for most 6.5 inch speakers.

Channels 3/4 - rear pods
See above, depending on the speaker size. Either high pass or band pass is appropriate, however minimum setting should be above 120-300 Hz and band pass could be 120 Hz to 5 KHz (but I think that is insufficient high range). I would personally set it up as high pass 120/300 Hz depending on the speaker size (4" vs 6.5").

Channels 5/6 - subwoofer
Raise the high pass to about 30 Hz and decrease the low pass filter to about 80-180 Hz depending on your tastes.

This should help it sound cleaner.

 

[Chrome_Pony]

I found that Kicker 8" underwhelming and upgraded to a Kicker 48TRTP122, which is much better... I still don't think that it does as well as the 46HS10 in my other Bronco, yet, but I think that a little more tweaking will put it into the lead.

Dammit, I'm going to the 8" from the underwhelming 6.75"

 

[German88]

@plugnplaykits
Uploading pic of settings and the Musway manual. Please let me know what I can do to improve. Its really been bothering me that past couple weeks that the sound is not good.

@plugnplaykits
Uploading pic of settings and the Musway manual. Please let me know what I can do to improve. Its really been bothering me that past couple weeks that the sound is not good.

My advice would be take your Bronco to a professional. You don’t have a single crossover set correctly! Hate to be so blunt but if your going to take on an install like this at least stack the deck in your favor and learn some basic car audio architecture and setup.

 

[RagnarKon]

Dammit, I'm going to the 8" from the underwhelming 6.75"

Depends on your personal preference really... and preferences on subwoofers range from "no thank you" to "I'll take an earthquake please".

Personally I feel the 8-inch perfectly is fine, but I generally like a fairly balanced sound.

@plugnplaykits
Uploading pic of settings and the Musway manual. Please let me know what I can do to improve. Its really been bothering me that past couple weeks that the sound is not good.

Any particular reason why you have a Band-Pass used for Channels 3/4?? Doesn't make sense at all for the rear pod speakers.

 

[TwoPumpChump]

My advice would be take your Bronco to a professional. You don’t have a single crossover set correctly! Hate to be so blunt but if your going to take on an install like this at least stack the deck in your favor and learn some basic car audio architecture and setup.

Just to catch you up, the photo was posted at the request of the "professional" that sold me the kit, Joe @plugnplaykits. Do you know of any good online learning resources I can study while I wait for a response? I've been watching CarAudioFabrication.

 

[TwoPumpChump]

Any particular reason why you have a Band-Pass used for Channels 3/4?? Doesn't make sense at all for the rear pod speakers.

As a trouble-shooting measure, I swapped outputs 1/2 & 3/4, so the 3/4 Band Pass is for the dash and panel speakers.

Sponsored