B&O Stereo System Upgrade on 2025 Bronco Raptor

[Hoytadickes]

So I bought this Azure Grey Metallic 2025 Raptor for my wife the week of Christmas. Up until this Bronco we have been Chevy truck people. Without getting fully into it..... Chevy let us down lately with quality, and my wife loves the look of the 6g Bronco. So what wife wants.... wife gets. We test drove the Badlands, and she loved it. However, I insisted she drove the Raptor before deciding. Needless to say... we bought the Raptor.

So we love everything about it. Except..... the sound system. Now going in i did a bunch of research, and found Fords B&O system to be great. Little did I know in the Bronco it is not great. However, nothing i can't fix. I've been a car guy all my life so I can upgrade that. To the forums I go..... where i found a plethora of info. Let the sound system upgrade begin....I went with all Kicker as I've used them plenty in the past with great results. Now we're not hard core audio people, but we do want it to be loud enough with enough bass when we want it to be. So here we go....

3 sets of Kicker 4" speakers, 1 set Kicker 6.5"s, Kicker key 500.1 amp, Kicker comp 8" sub, and harnesses from Plug and Play to jump off factory amp. Now thru forum research I found that the 2025 b&o now amplifies all speakers. So this was a good thing for me. I just wanted clarity and bass with a touch more volume. Mission accomplished for sure.

So I started with outer dash speakers. Pulled grills and this was simple. Remove factory speaker, stuff hole with Poly Fill, and install Kicker 4" in place with metra harnesses. Literally plug and play here.....

I did find in this 2025 b&o that the stock speakers have bass blockers installed from factory. Thought that was interesting....

The side by side isn't dramatic, but still apparent the kicker is better...

Picture of the metra harness. I used Sonic Electronics for all the coaxial speakers, and they included harnesses for free.

Now as I said i did stuff holes with poly fill to hopefully kill some dead space behind the stock speakers...

Here we are with Kicker installed...

Next we go to center channel. This wasn't hard at all, but the 2 T20 torx screws can be tricky. Just a weird angle to get to, but with screwdriver with t20 it was no problem

Heres a shot of clip location on center grill

Stuff the hole again

Another side by side shot. Notice the stock did have another bass blocker installed

Installed and ready to go

Now onto the kick panels. Removed trim inside door sill.

Remove top of dead pedal to access 2 10mm nuts

Once those nuts are removed the panel comes right off no problem

Side by side again of stock vs kicker.

Again stuffed the hole with poly fill, and installed the Kicker

Now these 6.5" Kickers i ended up pulling back out, and putting stocks back in. Let me explain.....#1 they don't fit, and sonic electronics did not send an adapter. To me it appears to need a 6.75" speaker. I did however redneck install them using 2 screws. When I tested them they sounded bad imo. The stock B&O system sends quite a bit of power to these, and the kickers had alot of "popping" type of bass (polarity was correct). They just sounded bad. So stocks back in. Future...I may be installing a dedicated mid woofer here.

Anyway on to the rear pods. This was super simple. Just squeezing the grill cover on stock pod remove it. Unscrew stock speaker, and remove. Stuff hole with poly fill as usual, and install Kicker speakers. Done. Now these are very noticeable difference. Especially using Surround mode.

Now I did have to cut off 2 mounting locations off Kicker speaker here. Super simple with tin snips though. Sounds amazing in here now. Crystal clear with more volume, and we actually have rear sound now. Well worth the 2 hours tops of swapping 5 speakers (imo don't even bother with kick panels unless you go dedicated mid woofer). Volume is louder, and clarity is amazing. Highs are way more pronounced, and we now have quite a bit of fill mid bass from dash and pods. .

Now onto the rear which was the most work. Entire rear cargo area stripped naked for sound deadening and sub upgrade. Pretty simple here. Here's a couple pics of clip locations on back of panels, and a NSFW Pic of a naked raptor cargo area .

Here's what we're after.... stock sub and amp location. I removed the entire assembly from vehicle to make it easier.

Now I attack all that metal with Kill Mat squares. Amazon $40 well spent for sure. About an hour later, and a bunch of paper type cuts on my hands.... I'm satisfied...

Now for a side by side of stock sub vs Kicker. The Kicker is a shallow mount, but the magnet is considerably larger.

So on the stock sub enclosure I drilled a hole in stock grommet to stick 14 Guage speaker wire thru. Easy money here. Then stuffed enclosure with a crap ton of Poly Fill. I mean really stuff it down in there in all the holes. I used probably 3/4 of a pound here. Then used more Kill Mat strips to cover exterior os sub enclosure.

Here's a Pic of the harness from Plug and Play Kits. I can't say enough great things about this company. The harness literally plugs into stock B&O amp, and then into stock plugs. What it does is add a jumper off the side to use with Kicker key amps as high level input. If your not familiar with the Kicker Key amp series..... short version...... it uses stock high level inputs coming out of stock amp, and processes them to maximize sound without regulation from stock signal. Also uses Key switch power to turn on and off like stock. Look into it. Great technology.

Once that's all in its the easy work. Ran 8g power wire from battery, thru fire wall, and all the way down driver door sill channels to rear cargo area. Let me thank Ford for a second..... the Raptor has 4 terminals right on battery post to hook accessories to (thanks for that), and thanks for the perfectly placed grommet in fire wall to run power wire thru. One of yall at Ford was looking out for sure.

Ground is easy. There's a convenient ground right above stock sub enclosure location. Just ground there. I decided to install the Kicker amp under the floor in cargo tray. Super easy to access if anything needed tuning or fixing.

Lastly I installed the Kicker bass Knob. Tucked the wire very nicely down passenger side door sills, up under glove box area, and mounted Knob just under hvac control Knob for driver. Simple work here. No screws. Just a piece of 3m double sided tape. Put entire truck back together, and let's test it out.....


Lemme say..... this sounds amazing. I did a bunch of videos at every speaker installed with a decibel meter on other phone. No it's not scientific at all, but redneck approved. Unfortunately this forum won't allow me to upload videos. So here's the results....
*All stock speakers front fade....93db
*All stock speakers rear fade....86db
*Kicker 4" dash speakers.....97db
*Kicker 4" pods w/stock sub....90db
*All Kicker speakers and sub.....100db

All in all we are extremely pleased. Instead of main volume at 25-30 we are now at 15-20 with a much louder and definitely clearer sound. Bass is phenomenal now like it should have been, and the bass Knob is necessary for sure. We can crank it up, or turn it off very easily.


In closing if you've been thinking about it.... do it. You won't be disappointed at all. Now I'm not telling you what brand to use. I did Kicker solely because I've known them for years. I would say though that any brand is an upgrade from stock, and takes our Raptors to the level their should be. Side note.... I've been doing other subtle changes to the Raptor as well. I'll be posting a "build" thread soon, but keep in mind this is my wife's daily driver so don't expect off-road masterpiece lol

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[63GBPackerfan]

Very nice write up. 🫡

 

[bmpalmerjr]

This is awesome! Appreciate the well written write up and the photos, giving me the confidence to do it to mine

 

[mweatherford20]

I have a 2025 OBX with B&O and I’m wanting just do a sub swap for now but I’m worried about the connections. Can you guide me on what harness to buy? I chose the CT Sounds Hydra-8. I would so appreciate if I could get a simple answer. Most of these threads go way beyond what I want to do as a start. Also, do you have your videos posted anywhere? If you do I would love to watch them.

 

[Hoytadickes]

I have a 2025 OBX with B&O and I’m wanting just do a sub swap for now but I’m worried about the connections. Can you guide me on what harness to buy? I chose the CT Sounds Hydra-8. I would so appreciate if I could get a simple answer. Most of these threads go way beyond what I want to do as a start. Also, do you have your videos posted anywhere? If you do I would love to watch them.

So I do not have the videos posted. I may put them on you tube eventually though. They are just sound test videos. Not install videos.

You can replace your stock sub, and keep factory B&O amp for sure. However, i don't know of any harnesses to make it plug and play to new sub. You would just cut factory plug off (leave 3-4" of wire attached to plug in case you return it to stock)exposing wires. Then use those wires to plug in new sub. That's it. Definitely stuff a bunch of Poly Fill in the stock sub enclosure as well though

 

[mweatherford20]

Thank you sir!!! I honestly appreciate this!!

 

[bmpalmerjr]

Also mind if I ask rough total cost?

No rattle from stock enclosure? Mine is god awful right now (have bass settting at 1 or 0)

And any reason you didn’t upgrade rear speaker pod enclosure to get bigger size there?

 

[23OBX2.7]

A bit harsh with all coax?

 

[Hoytadickes]

Also mind if I ask rough total cost?

No rattle from stock enclosure? Mine is god awful right now (have bass settting at 1 or 0)

And any reason you didn’t upgrade rear speaker pod enclosure to get bigger size there?

So my total for everything was right about $1100. $600 at Plug and Play for amp, sub, and harness. $400 at Sonic Electronics for 6-4" and 2-6.5". Another $100 at Amazon for kill mat, poly fill, etc.

We have zero rattles anywhere. I did however as you see in pics put kill mat everywhere, and stuffed sub enclosure slam full of poly fill.

I'm still contemplating the rear pods, but honestly what I got sounds amazing. Adding bigger pods in rear would only make it louder . I'm going to tackle the kick speakers first. Then maybe bigger pods.

 

[Hoytadickes]

A bit harsh with all coax?

Not at all. No tin type screaming, or obnoxious highs. To me at least. You know everyone hears differently though. To me it actually added more mid bass then anything.

 

[23OBX2.7]

Not at all. No tin type screaming, or obnoxious highs. To me at least. You know everyone hears differently though. To me it actually added more mid bass then anything.

Didmyou do an RTA with phone app drivers head location? Id love to see it.

Those speakers will need play time to break in will only get better.....

 

[Hoytadickes]

Didmyou do an RTA with phone app drivers head location? Id love to see it.

Those speakers will need play time to break in will only get better.....

No clue what any of that means my man. Lol

 

[23OBX2.7]

Just download RTA (real time analyzer) app to phone, a pink noise WAV file to USB and run it at level 20-25 while holding phone w RTA running near head and take a screen shot.

Measures output accross the frequency range. Easy to see any dips or peaks in specific frequency. Also fun to compare new VS 100 hrs output.

I have a small bump at 400 hz and a dip at 30-40 hz despite running 1000W clean signal into very good Hertz MPBX300S2 tailgate mounted 12" sub and filters set to 15 & 75hz. Have heard this sub needs up to 100 hrs break in time....

 

[MachingBird]

Memphis Mojo pros in the kick panels. Did a nice job for me. Use the Metra adapter plates.

 

[Hoytadickes]

Memphis Mojo pros in the kick panels. Did a nice job for me. Use the Metra adapter plates.

I'm looking at those exact ones. I ordered the plates today. Might give the kickers another shot with the plates to see. If still no then I'll order the Memphis for sure

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