Speaker upgrade

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JoeSee

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Actually, the capacitor wasn't needed, just the speaker frame trimming. My truck only has corner dash speakers. This speaker comes without any crossovers.

I doubt you could get this speaker up loud enough to distort in it's stock configuration with the stock radio. Maybe someone with a high powered amp could, I don't know. It's that loud and you'd have blood running from your ears before turning it up to distort.

I have a lot of music on a thumb drive in my truck. It's on random play. When Michael Jackson's Jam came on the sound of the window breaking in the beginning of the song startled the crap out of me. The drum clacks during the song have that same intensity. Stinking loud. That's the frequency this speaker appears to be centered at. That frequency and higher. I tried to tame it with a lot of bass, that helps some. Again, you can't hear anything but bass from any other speaker in the truck with this little monster in the dash.

Ideally this would be an argument for 3 way speakers in the front doors. Add the missing parts of the low midrange up to this loud midrange speaker's beginning threshold.

In hindsight before I added the resistor and crossover to the Infinity speaker I now remember that's why I did what I did to it. It had too much midrange to high in it's stock configuration in our truck dash. No warmth of the lower registers of the low to low midrange frequencies where the human voice has some bass or guitar leads as well.

Taken from one of my recording software's blog. "When applied to speech, the human voice spans a range from about 125Hz to 8kHz". Now everyone should understand what I'm talking about. My Infinity speakers are crossed over from 100 Hz to well, Infinity.

I don't know if all of the aftermarket dash speaker brands are like the Infinity Ref 3032Cfx, they look similar. The Infinity speaker comes crossed over at 8K Hz and above. Look at the statement again from the blog. Now do you see the missing freqencies? The stock truck dash speaker is crossed over at 8K Hz, the same. The Faital speaker by design not by spec sounds like a speaker crossed over at 8K. None of these speakers are giving you what's necessary for proper sound from the front dash.

This is getting long. I'll start another with a new idea I have.
 

JoeSee

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Everyone including me said you needed a 4 ohm resistor in series to make the speakers match the 8 ohm impedance of the stock truck speaker. That's because everyone said they're too loud otherwise. Maybe it's because our perceived hearing of music just hates the cross over setting of 8K Hz and above. Brash, overwhelming.

It's possible no resistors are necessary to make the aftermarket 4 ohm dash speakers sound better.


You can see why I used the through hole type resistors, they're small. The one in picture Resistors 1 is rated at 100watts. I used a smaller version where you can see it's heat sink on the right in picture Resistors 2. That through hole resistor is on my Infinity and is rated 25 watts, about the same wattage as the white wire wound resistor in the pictures. Didn't want to dangle the white resistor like a trolling lure from my dash mounted speaker.

Atcer2018, you asked what I'm going to do next?

Take everything off my Infinity Ref 3032Cfx speakers including leaving the stock 4.7uf capacitor off too. Put it back to 4 ohms. But this time I'm going to put the 270uf capacitor on it without the resistors. Just this capacitor this time. Then try it. I'm pretty sure this will help all of you out there get better quality sound out of your speakers. This is what Infinity, Harmon International wanted you to do all along. Why they put the 270uf capacitor in the box. Something everyone can do easy with no soldering. Crimp on male/female connectors. The capacitor is light weight and can be hot melt glued to the back of the speaker. Look at the capacitor chart in post #36 and a 4ohm speaker with a 265-270uf capacitor is right at the sweet spot 120-150 Hz where the correct frequencies are needed to pass. Why the engineers included the bigger capacitor. Little one is probably butt saving against possible blown speakers.

I'll let you know how it sounds. My gut feeling is I made a mistake listening to everyone with needing resistors. Although it may be louder without a resistor, properly crossed over from 150 Hz to 20K Hz may be just what everyone needs to do I hope. Simply take off the 4.7uf capacitor mounted on the speaker as it came and then put the 270uf capacitor on it in series to the plus terminal.

I did notice I wished the speakers as I have them now could use a tiny bit more volume. I have to turn up the midrange and highs above center flat gray bar and faded to the middle. We'll see when I do this, very soon. If Harmon would've put instructions with their speakers this all could've been avoided. Not even on their website. I assume by using the 270uf capacitor by itself there is some risk of over driving the 4 ohm speakers with lower frequencies using higher wattage aftermarket amps. I don't care. That's what a fader is for. What choice do we have? Myself, I can put the resistor back on. We'll see soon.
 

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JoeSee

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Removing everything from the Infinity Ref 3032Cfx and using a 270uf capacitor in series didn't give the result I expected. This is with the speakers stock 4 ohm resistance. I assumed the speaker would act like a full range speaker similar to how it sounds as an 8 ohm speaker using a 4 ohm resister in series. It doesn't, it sounds pretty much the same as if you just installed it out of the box, tinny. I think even if you took everything off the speaker, all capacitors and ran it as a full range speaker, it would still sound bad, more like a tweeter. The Ram radio likes an 8 ohm speaker in the dash. Just can't find one that's sounds good.

I did compare it side by side with the Faital speaker. One on the left one on the right. The Faital is louder and can be heard better.

I'm done. Ram really made this hard with using an 8 ohm speaker in the dash.

I'm going to use my original speaker configuration shown in my first posts. It's the only way these dash speakers sound right. It's hard for the folks that can't wire things up like this and I tried to find a solution to good sound. I did, but not an easy one.
 

WVengineer_n_Pa

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Almost finished with upgrading my front to the Kappa 60csx setup in the three way config. Replaced the dash speakers with the 20mx's. Pain in the backside to wire up as the auto engineers are kinda sadistic. This eliminated the durn parallel setup come with stock. haven't upgraded the back yet, still figuring out staging. here's some pics I have handy of the driver connector and roughed in passenger door. Have to re-run some of the driver doors harness as i changed placement. Not fond of the axis of dash speakers, but will save that for later down the road. there are amps in the setup btw, hence the need for larger wires, that and only wanted to do this once so used the largest i could get through which was 14 gauge.
 

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JoeSee

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I put the Infinity Ref 3032Cfx dash speakers back in my truck. Done fiddling around for now.

Here's the final assembly with the resistor and capacitor. The idea is make sure under excessive dash heat glue wasn't the only thing holding the components in place. 6-32 flat head screws are used. 1/2 inch tube clamp for cap. Height wise the speaker and cap is max to clear the dash hole, about an 1/8th inch height left using a 50v size capacitor.

The mounting cap allows everything to be removed/wired as a unit. It's a 2 inch ABS pipe cap, standard plumbing. Using a Harbor Freight benchtop lathe, the smallest one, I bored the ID of the cap to 2.540 inches in diameter. I cut the cap overall height down to 0.626 inches high. Notched out for plugs. I used black RTV to secure the cap around the magnet, just enough on the inside cap lip and outer edge when in place. You don't want to have to cut it off to remove it. There's a nub in the middle of the inside surface that has to be turned down, shown in the first picture.

What makes this pretty simple is the through hole resistor, now with its heat sink in place. The pictures will show why. I'll leave the second speaker loose so I can monitor the heat of the 25 watt resistor. I do have a 100 watt version of the resistor if I go to an amp. It'll still fit. Post 42, picture 2. Various wattages available here but chip shortage hinders https://www.newark.com/powertron/fpr-2-t218-4r000-c-1/resistor-metal-foil-4r-1-to-247/dp/91Y0071

100 watt version available here:https://www.mouser.com/c/passive-components/resistors/through-hole-resistors/thick-film-resistors/?power rating=100 W&resistance=4 Ohms

I did try the Faital speaker one more time side by side to make sure my first speaker worked. I feel if you have the dash separate from the door like WVengineer shows above with an electronic crossover/EQ you could probably tame the highs and middle down. It's sure loud for a small full range 8 ohm speaker. Hammer on anvil sharp. Be my first choice if I didn't do this, but only the way WVengineer separated the dash and doors.
 

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bfill_rebel

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In a nutshell yes you will get sound out of the front and back speakers with your proposed setup. Here is your biggest pitfall, those front dash speakers. Right now as stock all the speakers are full range speakers. By putting 3 ways in the front doors you’ll be putting out the high frequencies from the door tweeters pointing at your ankles. High frequency is very directional and it sets your soundstage. The rear door speakers are used as “fill” speakers but the front speakers are what your ear cues in on. By having tweeters in the front doors you will muddy everything even if you keep the stock factory full range speakers in the dash. Imagine being at a live concert listening to the cymbals on a drum set. Your ear focuses on where that high sound comes from and your brain knows it’s coming from the drum set up on the stage. Now imagine sitting in a big a$$ Ram with a large cabin and you hear those cymbals coming from both the dash where the drum set would be in a concert and at the same time hearing them coming from both sides of you but lower to the ground. It is a noticeable sonic mess! Ask someone familiar with car audio if they would recommend tweeters in the dash or C pillars AND tweeters in the door? It’s messed up and I can tell you first hand because my daughter has a civic EXL with the Honda factory tweeters in the front pillars and she has 3 way Rockford Fosgates in her front doors and it sounds like dog poo. You have to disconnect the dash speakers to avoid this because you can’t turn off the tweets in the 3 ways. Additionally if you disconnect the dash speakers the tweets in the doors will be well below a normal soundstage and I’m not sure the Key amp DSP can rectify that. This is why the Mopar performance/Kicker upgrade 77Kick28 was such a successful and good sounding upgrade. It used dedicated tweeters in the dash keeping a natural soundstage and used mid woofers to handle lower less directional frequencies in the front doors all while using pre installed capacitors to block low freqs to the tweets and high freqs to the doors. Personally I wouldn’t put coaxial speakers in the front doors but would seek out components similar to the original 77Kick28. That’s just my opinion. I’m a novice at car audio and hopefully other more knowledgeable people will chime in with information for you.

You also have to disconnect the ANC from what I’ve read.
Does the 77kick28 work for those with the 8.4 Nav and alpine system? I may have tracked one down…
 

JoeSee

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Temperature numbers on through hole resistors. Using music from Annihilator, same song each time, and driven to saturation and distortion (ear bleed) the 25 watt resistor reached 125 F max. Not uncommon but not what I expected nor wanted. I decided to change that resistor to the 100 watt version I had. Same conditions the maximum I could reach was 109 F.

I changed the two speakers to 100 watt resistors. The larger heat sink was a bit tight on the driver side so I decided to use the smaller heat sink. Not ideal but I'll never drive these speakers to these extremes ever. Doubt the resistors will even get warm at my maximum normal level.

Thank you everybody for allowing me to document this to the Internet. I read hundreds of posts on this in many forums but no one had actually gone and done this. At most all said they heard you can add a resistor.

I'll be doing the mod like WVengineer and IDSandmand separating the dash and doors. Get an amp, etc. since that opens up the speaker choices.
 

Atcer2018

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Does the 77kick28 work for those with the 8.4 Nav and alpine system? I may have tracked one down…
I have no clue what the Alpine system has for speakers. I have the stock six speaker setup and to the best of my knowledge the 77Kick system was designed as replacement for the six speaker system.
 

nathan_h

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Hmm ...too late ( advice from Crutchfield rep with all my situation) she advised to get the Pioneer 6x9's for the front doors and dash ( enroute as we speak )..I will see how that works and go from there..Thanks JoeSee
Now to put sound deadener in the door panels..ohh such fun for us old guys that aren't as nimble or coordinated as you youngster..LOL

I see you put 6x9s in the door. Full range? Two way?

So what did Crutchfield sell you for the dash? I’m assuming it was a full range two way speaker and not just a tweeter?

How did it work out?
 

Dave Haddon

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After looking at the size and issue of the 2 way I decided to just go ahead and get ther Crutchfield Kicker 3.5 tweeter for the Ram dash. Just finished and B and I went for a drive and she said it sounded very clear and nice. I liked it as it really centralized the music and very clear. Volume can be pumped up without any distortion..at least to my deaf lugs.
 

nathan_h

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After looking at the size and issue of the 2 way I decided to just go ahead and get ther Crutchfield Kicker 3.5 tweeter for the Ram dash. Just finished and B and I went for a drive and she said it sounded very clear and nice. I liked it as it really centralized the music and very clear. Volume can be pumped up without any distortion..at least to my deaf lugs.

Cool. That’s what counts.

Im guessing it was one of these three?

FEEEC231-8869-468F-BF01-D6899EB48CC4.jpeg
 

UnkoBro

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JoeSee

I went with the Infinity Reference speakers all around, after reading your post...after trying 2 other different sets first, it was the best decision yet! Damn the IF speakers are AMAZING! Thank you!!!
 

Crx350x1

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Hey all. Want more and better sound quality out of my 8.4” non Alpine stereo system. Definitely want to upgrade the factory speakers. Does anyone who has already done it have any suggestions? And also contemplating maybe adding an amp, but I know our trucks have very sensitive electrical systems.

Just not sure what path to go down and wanted some input. Thanks
Hey bud. I have a 2020 big horn 8.4 non alpine also. I purchased the ANC bypass harness from PAC Audio Control, a Used Audio Control LC-6.1200 amp some 9 wire speed cable and hooked it all up cleanly without cutting 1 wire on the truck. It's 100% better even with stock speakers cause I cheated with the gains a bit. The factory stereo is friggin horrible. Uconnect ****. I bit the bullet and bought ll JL speakers and a sub. Can't wait to Install them!!
 
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