2 way or 3 way door speakers?

[canadiankodiak700]

Personally, I would save your cash, run the OEM in the rear, use that money better, but a kicker key amp for the fronts....

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[Graygoose]

Personally, I would save your cash, run the OEM in the rear, use that money better, but a kicker key amp for the fronts....

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10x

 

[canadiankodiak700]

10x

I have to disagree..... More like 1000x lol

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[FL-RAM]

I ordered a set of rears anyway. Might as well, can't hurt. After seeing how cheap the OEMs are, I like the idea of having good speakers all the way around. Maybe in Phase II I'll add an amp.

 

[89grand]

I ordered a set of rears anyway. Might as well, can't hurt. After seeing how cheap the OEMs are, I like the idea of having good speakers all the way around. Maybe in Phase II I'll add an amp.

I hate to keep beating this drum, but if you added a Kicker Key ($199-249 depending on a 180.4 or 200.4), you'd be a lot better off than changing the rear speakers while still running everything off the headunit. I can almost guarantee if you added a Kicker Key to the fronts bi-amped, you wouldn't really care about the rear speakers any more. I mean running them is fine, and beneficial, but the way bigger bang for the buck is bi-amping the front and leaving the rear speakers stock and running off the radio.

I'm changing the rear speakers in my single cab too, but I just bought a whole package that included f/r 6x9 woofers and 2" wideband dash speakers, but I'll still be running the rear speakers off of the headunit, and bi-amping the fronts with said Kicker Key 200.4.

I'm just waiting for a few odds and ends to do the install.

 

[Graygoose]

Agreed with @89grand

In my 2019 Classic, I didnt even have rear doors hooked up...used the KEY1804 to simple Kicker KSC354 and Mopar 6x9 midbass up front, bi-amped, and a simple Kicker VSS SRAMQ 10" sub....thing rocked.

 

[FL-RAM]

Maybe it's just me, but I like the full cabin sound. I know many prefer the sound coming primarily from the front like a soundstage, but I prefer a more surround sound with solid rears filling in the back. I adjust my fade to that it's right in the middle of the cabin.

 

[Cableman]

I have the alpine setup and swapped the rears to 3 way infinity's, way too much highs back there now! I may go back to stocks or cover the highs with foam. Definitely didnt need them.

 

[Mleads310]

Same here I have the alpine system and replaced the rear doors with infinity kappas 3-way and they are way too bright. Even with a touch of fade to the front, the highs are just too much for the ears. I'm going to install some resistors and see if I can take them down a bit. Also I just found out they have a -db button on them so I'm hoping that will reduced some of the highs.

 

[Atcer2018]

Not to hijack this thread but can someone tell me if the Kicker key amp thing is plug and play? Is additional wiring required for speakers? At 50 my momma was right about listening to loud music when I got older and my wife agrees that I have hearing loss but that’s another story lol

 

[mtnrider]

Not to hijack this thread but can someone tell me if the Kicker key amp thing is plug and play? Is additional wiring required for speakers? At 50 my momma was right about listening to loud music when I got older and my wife agrees that I have hearing loss but that’s another story lol

I looked into it and as far as I can tell you will have to splice in to the existing speaker harness and also run new speaker wires to the dash speakers. So cut the harness, run the front output wires to the amp and then the amp back to the front speaker wire then add new wires for the dash speakers. And of course run power and ground.
Hopefully someone can chime in and confirm this.


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[89grand]

You can cut the harness, but I wouldn't. I ordered a new T-harness from Net Audio. With the harness, you can use the front speaker outputs from the radio to run into the amps front inputs (rear inputs on the amp will not be used), then the amp will run the front doors and dash, with new wires from the amp to the dash speakers. You can run the door speakers from the amp, back into the factory wiring. Then you can connect the rear speaker output from the radio to the rear speakers.

 

[Graygoose]

We ran all new harness also from the amp to each speaker to utilize the DSP. You can go from speaker level to RCAs with this.
https://www.kicker.com/2-channel-speaker-rca-converter

On my Jeep, some vehicles will need one of these as well.
https://www.kicker.com/46KISLOAD2

 

[FL-RAM]

Just put in some Kenwood 4-way 6X9 speakers in the rear and let me just say....holy crap! Night and day difference. The sound coming out is amazing. I put the right rear in first, then turned the stereo on to see how the two compared. Fade all the way to the rear and balance full right to the Kenwood. The sound was strong, clear and punchy. Move the balance all the way left to the OEM speaker and the sound was muted, dull and weak. Sounded like AM radio compared to the Kenwood. The sound wasn't even close. Got both speakers installed and adjusted balanced and fade to dead center and I was blown away. I know many of you aren't big on rear speakers, but it has made a ton of difference. VERY happy with the upgrade. Totally worth the $80 for rears.

 

[mtnrider]

For those that installed the kicker amp up front, I know you need to run new wires to the dash (bi amping it) but it sounds like some of you also ran new wires to the doors. Any reason for that? Could you not use the existing wiring for that? I'm sure aftermarket wires would be a little better but it seems like it would be a pain to run new wires through to the door?



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[89grand]

For those that installed the kicker amp up front, I know you need to run new wires to the dash (bi amping it) but it sounds like some of you also ran new wires to the doors. Any reason for that? Could you not use the existing wiring for that? I'm sure aftermarket wires would be a little better but it seems like it would be a pain to run new wires through to the door?



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I'm going to use the factory door speaker wiring. With the t-harness it's easy to do. I don't think there is enough benefit to bother running new wires through the door. I have enough wiring going on as it is. The wire runs are short, so the factory 18 gauge is sufficient.

 

[canadiankodiak700]

For those that installed the kicker amp up front, I know you need to run new wires to the dash (bi amping it) but it sounds like some of you also ran new wires to the doors. Any reason for that? Could you not use the existing wiring for that? I'm sure aftermarket wires would be a little better but it seems like it would be a pain to run new wires through to the door?



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No reason to run new door wires, the factory wires will handle that power no problem. If you were going to be pushing over 100w RMS to each for speaker, I would consider me wire to atleast the pillars where they enter into the door.
No real reason to replace the wire though, it's not seeing that wattage 100% of the time, so it's never going to heat up and cause issues.

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[mtnrider]

Thanks guys, that's what I thought. Just thought I saw that some people had replaced that wiring and it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me in this application.

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[Atcer2018]

Can the Kicker Key amp be used to power the the front doors/dash tweeters and the rear doors without running any additional wiring or splicing? I’m not sure why the factory head unit can run the front door/dash off of two channels (sees them as two speakers not four) but the Key needs to power each individually. I must add that I have the Mopar/Kicker upgrades so my dash speakers are actually 1 inch soft dome tweeters not the standard full range speakers. The upgrade tweeters already have a cap on them to cut mid/low frequencies. Does anyone know if there is an aftermarket harness that simply allows the Key to be added plug and play driving the speakers as the factory unit would?

 

[89grand]

The Kicker Key is setup to auto eq 4 speakers. So the front doors and dash for instance, or front and rear speakers, but not 6 speakers. It's not that it couldn't power all six speakers, but it wasn't designed for that. I'm going to run my rear 6x9's off the radio, then the door and dash speakers off the Kicker Key. I'm not using any of the factory speakers, but even if I was, I'd do it the same way.