Speaker upgrade, which location to start?

[DemonGT]

Planning on upgrading the speakers in the dash, kick panel and rear pods. I was not going to do them all at once and
was looking for advice on which location to start with first.

Sponsored

 

[WheresMyBronco]

B&O or base? I would do dash panels first if you want the main difference to be for the front passengers

 

[Lak34ers]

Planning on upgrading the speakers in the dash, kick panel and rear pods. I was not going to do them all at once and
was looking for advice on which location to start with first.

Definitely dash first. Amazon and others have some good deals. Just got Kicker KS for around $60 a pair. Low cost big upgrade.

 

[arwhite]

Dash speakers are easy to get to. Be careful popping the covers though. I put 300Hz bass blockers in series with mine. Sound great.

I upgraded the rear pods with 6.5" from SSV Works. Made forscan adjustments to turn off eq and treat the rears as speakers instead of tweeters. Nice upgrade and pretty easy if you have a soft top. If you are just replacing the 4" speakers in the rear pods they should be as easy as the dash once you get the covers off the pods.

I didn't do the kick panels and likely won't. They sound okay to me.

 

[Brian_B]

Dash is easiest

Rear Pods are a close second

Kick panels aren’t bad but definitely not as easy as the other two. Dealing with the dead pedal on the drivers side is the hardest part.

Subwoofer is the most difficult by far. Not that its ~that~ difficult but definitely a lot more involved than the other locations. You will have 80% of the entire rear end disassembled.

Watch out for polarity on metra connectors for the 4” speaker locations if you use those - the wire colors aren’t always correct for polarity.

 

[DemonGT]

I have the B&O system

planning on using Hertz speakers based off the research iv done but also have looked at the Kickers as the price is better on those but im not sure how much better the Hertz would sound over the Kickers.

i plan to keep OEM sub.

 

[Brian_B]

planning on using Hertz speakers based off the research iv done but also have looked at the Kickers as the price is better on those but im not sure how much better the Hertz would sound over the Kickers.

i plan to keep OEM sub.

In my experience:

Money does help with sound quality, but the diminishing returns curve is very very steep

A speaker that costs twice as much may sound 10% better (just making up numbers here, can’t really quantify how objectively well something sounds with any sort of subjective measure)

If you aren’t gonna touch the sub, I would say save the money and go with something like infinities or kickers

 

[CarGuy]

I have the B&O system

planning on using Hertz speakers based off the research iv done but also have looked at the Kickers as the price is better on those but im not sure how much better the Hertz would sound over the Kickers.

i plan to keep OEM sub.

I did Hertz in all 4 corners (dash/pods) with no base blockers and am happy with the upgrade. I also have the B&O. I added some sound deadening material to the rear pods to knock down the emptiness.

 

[Bill K]

Planning on upgrading the speakers in the dash, kick panel and rear pods. I was not going to do them all at once and
was looking for advice on which location to start with first.

Would do dash panel and rear pods first (same speakers and wire connection needs anyway). Got noticeable improvement when I did those and reprogrammed in Forscan. Just to be clear - those are the only ones I did and used Infinities and am quite happy...

 

[DemonGT]

Would do dash panel and rear pods first (same speakers and wire connection needs anyway). Got noticeable improvement when I did those and reprogrammed in Forscan. Just to be clear - those are the only ones I did and used Infinities and am quite happy...

The infinities are basically 50% off today only at crutch field, might have to give those a try.

 

[swamp2]

The order I did things was amp, rear pods, sub&sub amp, dash. Only front kick panels remain stock. I did rear pods early as the factory ones sounded absolute terrible. Unfortunately, I didn't notice a lot of difference after that upgrade. I posted here about that and never really resolved it.

Amp made more difference than speakers and main amp made a bit more difference than sub amp.

So my suggested order would be:

-Amp
-Dash speakers
-Sub Amp
-Sub (big job but do it with sub amp)
-Pods/kick panels tied for last

In short, system utterly transformed. I could have stopped with amp only. That was a quantum leap and other stuff was fairly incremental.

 

[Bill K]

The order I did things was amp, rear pods, sub&sub amp, dash. Only front kick panels remain stock. I did rear pods early as the factory ones sounded absolute terrible. Unfortunately, I didn't notice a lot of difference after that upgrade. I posted here about that and never really resolved it.

Amp made more difference than speakers and main amp made a bit more difference than sub amp.

So my suggested order would be:

-Amp
-Dash speakers
-Sub Amp
-Sub (big job but do it with sub amp)
-Pods/kick panels tied for last

In short, system utterly transformed. I could have stopped with amp only. That was a quantum leap and other stuff was fairly incremental.

I guess that's easy to say when you start with a Raptor... My Big Bend speakers left ALOT to be desired.

 

[Bill K]

The infinities are basically 50% off today only at crutch field, might have to give those a try.

You may consider adding bass blockers to the dash ones. I did this based on the recommendation of the Utube video I watched.

 

[brkdncr]

Dash corner. Center can be ignored completely. The dash speakers are really easy to get at. Focus on getter something with a good tweeter.

kick panels 2nd. Look for a woofer, you don’t want a tweeter down there. These are also really easy to get at.

rear pods 3rd or just fade more to the front unless you need sound behind you. You also have the option of upgrading the pods to house a larger speaker.

dont be fooled into thinking the budget Kickers are much better than stock. Most brands have an entry-level speaker that are just not worth the time.

subwoofer requires more thought and work since you should also be adding an amp.

get some dampening, poly fill, and plastic trim tools. Also get speaker adapters and “bass blockers” to prevent the speakers from trying to reproduce low frequencies that they simply can’t handle.

 

[Porque No]

I did the dash and upgraded the size of the rear pods which made a difference. Note, with the B&O system, the rear PODs are not amped up. I added an amp with harness from PlugNPlay.com specifically for those 2 POD speakers which made a huge difference when the top is off. I also upgraded the sub and amp but like others noted, that requires a little more work.

Sponsored