How do you know whether or not an OEM Audiophile subwoofer will work in your truck without taking it apart? I have a 2006 F15O Supercrew Lariat.

 

without taking what apart, the sub or the truck?

the sub fits under the rear seat, generally driver side.. pretty much any of em will work, although for the audiophile you'll need to figure out ford's wiring nightmare, whereas for an aftermarket system you'll need an amp, power cables, speaker cable and either line converters to splice in to your factory harness or rca cables to hook up to an aftermarket deck. for the headaches involved w/ the factory stuff, an aftermarket deck would be a much better option.

a very good site for stuff like this is www.supercrewsound.com . they will tell you pretty much what all you need; and have some of the best boxes as far as clearance (which is a huge problem with these trucks)

 

look for a slit/hole in the carpet under the rear seat near the seat bracket on the driver's side of the truck. Reach inside that slit and see if you find a harness plug. If so, that would be for the subwoofer/amp.

So if you have the harness plug, you would need the sub/amp and also the Audiophile head unit.

My FX4 did not have the plug so I went aftermarket instead. But I hear alot of people with Lariats usually find the plug there.

 

Steve,

Your the man, thanks! I found the slit and followed it up until I found the plug. I can order my sub with confidence now.

 

That's good to hear. Don't forget to get the audiophile head unit too in order to get the sound to the sub. The Audiophile head unit has 3 plug inputs on the back versus just 2 on the regular head units. So, I didn't mention this, but there should also be an extra 4-pin harness plug in your dash, taped to the main radio harness, that you use as the 3rd plug input into the Audiophile head unit.

Steve

 

If the cable is already in the truck shouldn't that mean that the head unit is already subwoofer compatible so to speak? What is the cable plugged into if it isn't the head unit?

 

I doubt your head unit will be compatible. That 3rd plug in the dash is not plugged into anything, it just has a dummy (dead end plug) on the end of it and it's just taped in there to the main radio harness. You can take your trim face off around your radio and then remove your radio and see what you got back there.

The Audiophile option package comes with a different head unit. Like I said, the Audiophile head unit has 3 plugs on the back of it, while the regular head unit usually have just 2 plugs. That 3rd plug contains the signal wires to send the bass to subwoofer. So the other plug that you found under your seat contains those signal wires along with the power and ground wires for the built-in sub amplifier.

Here's some of the features of the Audiophile option package:
* Audiophile Equalized (EQ) Radio - optimized for each cab style. Driver or all-seat EQ selectable
* Digital Signal Processing (DSP) ambiance. This feature gives the feeling of "being there" to your music, creating increased clarity as well as an open and spacious feel to the music (settings for Rock, Pop, Jazz, etc., I think)
* Subwoofer with 90-watt external amplifier
* Audiophile 2-way speaker system - optimally placed midrange and tweeter in each front door
* Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS) - the radio will decode the data stream broadcast by FM stations per the United States RBDS Standard from the National Association of Broadcasters. The radio supports:
- Show program service name
- Show format type
- Seek/scan for traffic program
- Seek/scan for format type
- Traffic announcement
- Emergency alert announcement


The Audiophile head unit has a built-in crossover to send the bass signals to the subwoofer. I briefly had the Audiophile head unit without a sub, and it didn't sound that great because the door speakers weren't playing any bass at all. I ending up selling that head unit.

 

Steve is correct, the wiring for the sub is there, but it's not plugged into the radio. I ran into this problem on my 04 Lariat. A friend's brother worked at a dealership and they were scrapping out a crew cab. I bought the sub from him, found the harness and plugged it in. Since I only had the single cd radio, I didn't have the 3rd plug for the sub woofer. I ended up finding one on e-bay, just make sure you have 3 plugs on the back of the radio.

 

Well, staying stock doesn't seem like the way to go any more. I will try to go aftermarket.

 

Why not? All you need is the Audiophile head unit and sub and you're done. Plug them right in. No extra wiring is needed. Running all the wires for aftermarket can be a pain in the butt.

 

but usually well worth it . i've ripped out 3 mach460 systems out of mustangs, every time the results were very welcomed... I've already upgraded from the factory deck to an aftermarket deck + 4 channel amp and aftermarket speakers. instead of running individual wires to each speaker from the amp, i opted out to bring all of the wires back to the dash, and hook them up to the harness that plugged into the factory harness to add the aftermarket deck... that means I was still using the factory wiring to each speaker, which made it pretty much a breeze to install, and if I ever decide to return it to stock, it'll be cake (only have to unplug stuff, no wires hacked or ran through doors or anything). adding a second amp for a sub should be just as easy, being that pretty much any aftermarket deck will have outputs for subs, not the proprietary stuff ford uses...

 

I am having a hard time justifying spending $200.00 on stock parts when I can spend a little more and get something that sounds better.

 

That was a good way to hook yours up Fosters without hacking everything up. Although true audiophiles might say you should run your own wires from your amp to the speakers and not use the crappy factory wiring.

I've been there, done that, on multiple stereo installs in the last 15 years. It justs gets old after a while, and if you're not after a full blown competition sounding system, then upgraded factory systems like the Ford Audiophile is a decent alternative. But hey, go ahead and use aftermarket if you want DaParm. Have you done stereo/amp installs before?

I would have went with Audiophile for my truck but I didn't have the plug. I spent around $350 on a sub box, sub, amp, and amp wiring. I still use my stock head unit because my amp has built-in speaker level inputs and I just tapped into the rear speakers for that. Oh, and I spent around $100 to upgrade my front door speakers to a midrange and tweeter kit.

 

Lucky for me, the sub was only $50. However, I would like to change out the door speakers? Anyone have recommendations on what fits? Will 6X9s fit in our doors?

 

They are the 5x7/6x8 size. I don't think 6x9s will fit without cutting the opening, but depth wise they may fit. I have Kenwood components (separate midrange driver and tweeter). I'm not sure of the model name or if they even make them anymore. I have a picture of them in my gallery.