Well after reading lots of posts about the crappy premimum sound system and now have a bunch of miles under my belt with mine I really want to do some upgrades. I would like to start small and work my way through without killing the bank. So I got looking at speakers and decided to reuse the existing sub enclosure and install a shallow mount 8" sub and component speakers, I looked at a bunch and have kinda settled on the following and would like the audio guru's opinions on them

Sub: Rockford Fosgate P3SD2-8

Doors and C Pillars: Rockford Fosgate POWER T165-S

Sub amp: Rockford Fosgate R250-1D

Main amp: Rockford Fosgate R400-4D

I know I will need more stuff like a small eq and a unit to interface to the factory Nav head but what do you think of the speakers and amps. I picked these amps as they seem like I can put the sub amp in the existing sub amp location and the 4ch amp should fit up front behind the drivers pedals.

Thanks

 

I'm definitely no audio guru, but I'll give you my opinion anyways! All your links are asking for a login...

I don't know how well an aftermarket sub will perform in the factory enclosure but I'll be interested to see if you're satisfied with it. If possible, you'll want to try and match up the volume of air space required by the speaker with what the factory box will provide.

I haven't followed anything Rockford Fosgate in probably 15 years, but back in the day they had some great product lines. I actually have a 12" Fosgate sub sitting in my basement that's almost 20 years old. My 15 year old wants to put in whatever vehicle he ends up with so it'll be interesting to see how it's held up (probably not well). Anyways, I'm derailing. If you can, look online for reviews and try to go somewhere near you that has these on display so you can listen to them. Don't cheap out on cables either, use at least the minimum recommended AWG for everything.

Anything is better than the factory components, you'll understand when you get it all done! Take pics along the way.

 

So I had a bit of a change in how I wanted to go and today I ordered 2 sets of JBL GTO 8629 6x8 class 2 way speakers and a Pioneer TS-SW841D shallow mount 8" sub to retrofit the original enclosure. So far I am out a little over $400.00 bux for the speakers and baffles and adapters (over $100 of which is shipping to Canada) which I decided on because the JBL's have a 93db/watt efficiency and are 3 ohm speakers, they also have an attenuator to select 0db or +3db on the tweeters, the Pioneer sub is 85db/W and uses dual 4 ohm coils. The advisor at Crutchfield thought the factory amps should power these speakers fairly well on their own and if I need more well they can handle a nice 50w/c into the JBL's and 120 into the sub. So I will see how this all works out and may end up with an LCI6, an eq and a couple amps if all else fails.

 

Thanks for the input Matt.
I keep thinking in my mind that the 09 and 10's had such nice systems and used the same locations for components that the sub enclosuer is probably the same just with crappier sub and amp so the enclosure should be fine just may need an aftermarket amp to get rid of the factory sound shaping that Ford did.

The good news is I have all my little stuff in now from Crutchfield and all the speakers have cleared customs so they should be here before the week is over. Of course have temps in the high -20's isn't doing anything to make me anxious to work in an unheated quonset though.

 

Well the speakers all arrived today, now to wait out the weather and install them and see how that improves things before jumping into amp upgrades. I'll post some pics of the old and new speakers when I get the old ones out.

 

Nice!

You'll get a kick out the factory stuff when you get it out of there..

 

Matt,

Those JL's are some fine looking speakers. My JBL's don't have quite the magnet structure of the JL's but seem pretty nice. The problem around here is there are no car audio places in town so I went with a gut feeling buying the JBL's which are now owned by Harmon and the couple reviews I found are good so I guess today is tell time.

 

I don't know if I said in this thread or another, but anything you throw in those doors will be a huge sound improvement. There's some folks in the 6.7 forum dropping in $50 speakers and have commented how much of an improvement over the factory speakers they are.

Good luck with the install, PM me or post up if you have any questions.

 

So I took the sub enclosure out this morning and pulled the speaker.OMG what a piece of junk. The whole enclosure with the speaker weighed less than the Pioneer sub I put in the box. The amp is interesting in that it has 1 input and 2 outputs as the dual voice coils on the sub are driven sperately so my guess is opposite phase o/p's one push one pull on the dual diaphrams. I think the magnet may weigh 1/2 a lb max. So I hooked up the Pioneer and drove it off one of the outputs from the amp. So that is when I realized how crappy the amp is as there is not much in the way of output from the sub. I will post some pics later but I am going to buy a Rockford Fosgate 120w RMS sub amp and redo the factory wiring as it has all the signals required to drive the amp just need to put an RCA connector on the input to the amp wires.

 

Further to my saga, I installed the JBL door and pillar speakers Sat afternoon and I gotta say I am abit disappointed. The sound is far clearer and I now have some high end but still no Bass to speak of (better than before but not what I was expecting). So I guess the next step is an eq and some amp power all around and now I am not sure what to do. 1: go with seperate sub amp and 4 ch main amp or 2: a 5 channel amp. I really want to use the PAC audio interface if PAC ever gets back to me and an eq similar to what has already been done.

Looking up under the passenger side dash, if that tiny box is the main amp it is without a doubt a joke as are all the speakers in this thing. All the door speakers and sub put together weigh less than the bare 8" Pioneer sub.

 

FWIW- I'm not using an EQ. Could my system benefit from it, sure, but it's definitely not needed. It sounds really good with what I've been able to adjust between the stereo, line output converter, amp, and crossovers.

A 5ch amp makes the wiring easier/less involved.

 

Thanks again Matt. I was picking around the 6.7 forum and found a bunch of your very informative posts and then the link to the factory wiring diagram which is most excellent. I as well am sure once I get some real amps in there it will be fine given the adjustability on the new amps (and how crappy the factory ones are, I found the factory main amp and it is about the size of an old canadian 25 pack of cigarettes so I can see why it can't drive decent speakers) But I only want to tear into this thing one more time hopefully so I will add that little 7 band unit fz1dave added to his install and call it a day. I wasn't going to add a bunch of new wiring but now after all the reading I see it is pretty much a required update so all that is getting done at the same time. One more thing, do you think there is enough room in the console to put an amp in the bottom of it under the cupholders?

 

No problem, glad to help. I have the center seat up front so I can't say how much room is under the center console cup holder, sorry.

 

Thanks,

I got thinking about the eq and after reading more on your setup decided to not get one and going against PAC's email that the PAC AOEM-FRD24 would not work in my truck, ordered one anyway after spending about 5 hours researching other options and came to the conclusion it should work just losing the sub out. I bought a Rockford Fosgate R400-4D main 4ch amp (75w RMS into 4 ohms per ch) that has pass through on it so I can feed the sub amp from it and a Rockford R250-1D sub amp. I can see with all the adjustability these amps have that an eq is kind of not required. I am mounting both amps behind the back seat beside the sub so they should be easy to get to to adjust. The last stereo upgrade I did was back in 1978 so I am a bit rusty with car stereo tech as it stands today but this is turning into a fun project but still kinda ticks me off that I have to do this to a truck that is that expensive just to get decent sound.

 

Just adding something to this subject............

EQ's aren't needed and should be avoided IF you're using good quality, hi-end stuff to begin with. I've found most EQ's tend to introduce more noise with whatever cut or boost you add. They tend to be band aids for other system deficiencies.

In general a well designed and integrated system doesn't need EQ'd, you want what audio pro's call a flat EQ curve, no one frequency band cut or boosted too much. IOW you'd be hearing the music as it was mastered in the studio.

I'm thinking the JBL's or the JL Audio stuff would be a great start without an EQ until---it could always be added later.