Kicker CS speaker upgrade advise

[jklem]

Hello All,

I know this has been widely discussed, but wanted to ask directly about my exact setup. I keep going down the rabbit hole of audio options ‍.

I just replaced all the stock speakers in my 2023 Bronco Badlands 2-door non-Sas. (Non-B&O).

I got the kicker cs bundle from trail 7.
I did NOT get the larger rear pods, so I have:
Kicker CS 4" rear pods, 4" dash speakers, 6.5" kick speakers installed.

I also had the "sub-delete" $250 credit , and have since put in a kicker 6.5" sub, and a used Ford fusion amp to remedy that.

Note: I did the forscan tweak to enable power to amp for subwoofer to work.

So, it sounds much better than it did, but still not fantastic. (Granted I'm less than $500 in total).

Given my setup, do you recommend the other forscan tweaks?

Should I flatten the equalizer?

Should I set the 4" kicker rear pods to speaker instead or just tweeter?


Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

-Jason

Sponsored

 

[23OBX2.7]

Need amp for speakers and a sub with own amp dump the one center coax for a midrange or will be too bright, especially with lossless and at high volumes.

I'm installing my Audison AP4 in the pods tomorrow to replace Hertz DCX 100.3 that were too bright at volume

 

[wolfeman007]

Did you get the kicker 200.4 to power everything except for the sub? That made a big difference for me, easy to install with that plug and play wiring harness...

 

[Johnny Mo]

Just the speakers alone gets you a marginal improvement in efficiency from the amp, but not nearly enough (personally not a fan of the kicker speakers other than sub, but everyone has to go with their own listening preference) I would suggest looking at some historical posts maybe from Brian aka @RagnarKon who did an extensive overview of a non b&o build. I upgraded my B&O - all my speakers and an amp for my sub and it made a world of difference.

 

[23OBX2.7]

Just the speakers alone gets you a marginal improvement in efficiency from the amp, but not nearly enough (personally not a fan of the kicker speakers other than sub, but everyone has to go with their own listening preference) I would suggest looking at some historical posts maybe from Brian aka @RagnarKon who did an extensive overview of a non b&o build. I upgraded my B&O - all my speakers and an amp for my sub and it made a world of difference.

+1 Sub amp and decent sub with remote knob is critical. Speaker upgrades with decent stuff are game changer on B&O which does have a lot of power.

Highly recommend sound absorber and deadener in doors and trunk ....doors thunk close like Gwagon now.

 

[Brian_B]

I agree, you need an amp to wake it up.

Kicker 200.4 or something similar - Forscan won’t really do anything more for you.

Adding more power to the sub will help as well but I’d start with the main channels and go from there if you are trying to manage a budget

 

[23OBX2.7]

Need amp for speakers and a sub with own amp dump the one center coax for a midrange or will be too bright, especially with lossless and at high volumes.

I'm installing my Audison AP4 in the pods tomorrow to replace Hertz DCX 100.3 that were too bright at volume

AP4 are great, stereo mode sounds amazing with near perfect front stage.

 

[jklem]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I played around with just the Ford EQ/ fade/balance, and got it a little better, kind of music type dependent still...
Everyone once in a while a song comes along that sounds great. .

I think it's wild how Ford thinks the fade should be set at almost the dash, it makes talking in the front seats impossible.

I move it back to around the front of the headrest.

I've noticed that in driver mode I want it one click further back than in all passenger mode. (Still undecided as to which sounds better, but they are definitely different).

I may try to set the rear pods as speakers(+sub) instead of tweeters(+ sub), mainly because I prefer a bit more sound from the rear.

When I put the fade all the way to the back the sound is very airy, but at least not as tinny as the stock speakers were.

Anyone else done this yet and want to chime in?

In my old car (1997 Rav2) all I had 4" speakers front and rear, and a 10" sub and it sounded great. .

If changing the rears to "speaker" doesn't fullfil my needs, it sounds like the consensus is the kicker 200.4 amp , and/or larger pods.

It's already plenty loud enough, I rarely ever turn it past 15, so maybe for my tastes the larger pods would be better than the amp?
(Note, anything over 10 sounded like crap with the factory speakers).

Thanks again for the advise. Love my Bronco, and already sooo much happier with the sound than when I bought it .

Aloha,
Jason

 

[EMBronco]

I have the same speakers as you. I installed a kicker 200.4 along with a kicker 8" powered sub and it made a huge difference. I ordered a custom wiring harness which made the install a lot easier.

 

[Brian_B]

Anyone else done this yet and want to chime in?

It’s really hard to tune without a DSP and a lot of time and willingness to play with it. Amps like the Key that have one-button tuning help lot. If you try an amp without the DSP (or no amp at all) you will want to leave the Forscan EQ enabled, otherwise you can get this odd echo effect due to the timing not being aligned

 

[Brian_B]

I can also say — you are adding the amp so the speakers have enough power to get details out. It isn’t necessarily any louder - but everything will be more crisp and clean at lower volumes

 

[jklem]

I have the same speakers as you. I installed a kicker 200.4 along with a kicker 8" powered sub and it made a huge difference. I ordered a custom wiring harness which made the install a lot easier.

Did you change the rear pods to speaker, or keep it as tweeter after you added the amp?

 

[jklem]

I can also say — you are adding the amp so the speakers have enough power to get details out. It isn’t necessarily any louder - but everything will be more crisp and clean at lower volumes

Thanks Brian.
I'll have to watch the Trail 7 amp install and see if I trust myself enough to tear the dash apart.

Sorry if I missed it, but did you keep the 4" rears when you added the kicker 200.4 amp?

And did if so, did you keep them designated as tweeter still?

(Thanks again to all who are following along on this ).

 

[Brian_B]

Thanks Brian.
I'll have to watch the Trail 7 amp install and see if I trust myself enough to tear the dash apart.

Sorry if I missed it, but did you keep the 4" rears when you added the kicker 200.4 amp?

And did if so, did you keep them designated as tweeter still?

(Thanks again to all who are following along on this ).

I have a Kenwood 5 channel amp, no DSP. In hindsight - I should have got a model with a DSP. I have my eye on a Musway but not sure I want to spend much more time or money on it — I got it in a place where it sounds pretty good with the hard top on, but it needs some tuning with the soft top.

I did do 6.5” rear pods, but in hind sight not sure I would do it again - it gives you more speakers to chose from but isn’t all that impactful when it comes to actually increasing the audio quality.

The hardest part about audio upgrades - by a lot - is getting at the subwoofer. Everything else is really easy. Even pulling a new power cable through the firewall isn’t bad if you watch a video first.

*edit* forgot to add - I do have Forscan set all my speaker spots to Speaker + Tweeter, but I found leaving the factory EQ on sounded better than off — you definitely lose range on the speakers but it does the timing correction and you don’t have every third song sound like you are listening from around the corner

 

[chrisg72]

Did you get the kicker 200.4 to power everything except for the sub? That made a big difference for me, easy to install with that plug and play wiring harness...

Yes...this! I did exactly this and it made all the difference. Also got my audio setup from TrailSeven.

Sponsored