DIY stereo upgrade for under $500.00

Mpkilkenny said:

Hi Guy,

In one of your previous posts you mentioned you put poly fill in your sub box. I noticed mine came with some blue 'fill' in it already. How much poly fill did you put in it?

Click to expand...

I ripped out The piece of carpet from the factory... I call it carpet because it looked like carpet pad.

I then tucked two handfuls of polyfill in the far end of the enclosure.

I experimented with a lot and removed until the I hit the sweet spot. Too much.... it's muffled. Just right.... the bass is deeper without losing any volume.

About two good handfuls tucked in the end did the trick.

Then wrapping the whole thing in dynamat. Cost around 20 bucks.... absolutely made the bass accuracy more precise. Took away the plasticky sound and made it more of a traditional thud.

Why dynamat on an enclosure? Obviously on a real wood enclosure this wouldn't do anything... but on plastic.... it makes it much more accoustically neutral. I put a piece inside the enclosure too directly behind the sub.

Worked great.

I wanted to share another small tip.

I purchased enough dynamat to do the front doors. I decided to experiment.

I did the factory door completely with dynamat. I covered the clear plastic, And placed strips inside the speaker area as well and essentially deadened most of the door and created an enclosure.

I then reassembled and took some measurements.

Measurements you say? Yes. Measurements.

I have access to some pretty neat tools. So I took precision decibel readings from 1 inch, 6 inch, and then measured center point between right and left.

Few findings... dynamat does make a small difference for midrange bass. The decibel readings across various genre of music showed an increase of 2-3 decibel average for midrange and low midrange frequencies. The peak difference was just over 4. It made no change to high frequencies. This was observed at all the distances but at the center point the difference was much closer to 2 with very little peaks.

Here is what I found most interesting though... the physical center point of the truck is not the acoustical center point. The layout of the truck, dash, steering wheel, etc... actually biases the sound so that the point at which right and left are equal volume is biased to the right... meaning the sound stage is louder for the passenger.

It's a difference of about 8 inches. If you want to shift the sound stage to the center point it is 1-2 clicks to the left on the balance.

This is true of the pioneer speakers. I didn't do this test with stock.

The sound stage is also biased slightly to the front. The center point hovers somewhere right in front of the navigation screen.

Unfortunately the low midrange portion of the sound
Stage is low... just above the gear shift... and I'm suspecting this is why with some music selections the cab doesn't sound filled with music, but I'm not an audio expert... just having some fun.

So Guy, how much dynamat ( I find it cool that autocorrect tries to make this dynamite ) are we talking here, all said and done? I’m already going to have to budget for the sub enclosure, and doors. Was this all working from your original purchase?

I should also take some db readings, I keep a meter for load development with my suppressors.

it sounds like it would just be a good idea to do all of this - speakers, dynamat (not dynamite) at once. This will lengthen the modification time, but should be better sounding in the end.

Smurf,

Nope I bought The dynamat just last week and played with it today on the front doors.

The sub enclosure took one roll for 20+ bucks on amazon that I did awhile ago.

The front doors was 4 rolls total... under a hundred bucks... but not part of the DIY for under 500.

The dynamat in the doors is now me just fooling around a bit. I''m being honest when I say I started taking readings because by ear I couldn't really tell any difference. Lol. So I wanted to see if it was doing ANYTHING... and it did... albeit very little.

Is it worth the money to do the doors?

Not really... It's a 500 dollar stereo mod... not a 10,000 mod... so I think that's the discriminating factor....

Now admittedly I haven't driven the truck yet... if for some reason it makes for a quieter ride I'll let you know.... but I doubt it.

But it DID make a difference with the sub enclosure as did the polyfill. Those you can hear without a meter. It improves the character and accuracy of the bass.

Those are all my two cents.

So I got this all done today but my installer noticed I didn't get the speaker for the dash in the middle. I believe it's 3 1/2 what speaker and part number did you guys get? I replaced all doors and sub and tweeters just forgot that one. Thx! Haven't heard it yet as it's still at install shop.


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Mcdonaho said:

So I got this all done today but my installer noticed I didn't get the speaker for the dash in the middle. I believe it's 3 1/2 what speaker and part number did you guys get? I replaced all doors and sub and tweeters just forgot that one. Thx! Haven't heard it yet as it's still at install shop.


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Click to expand...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004G54A3I/?tag=fordraptorforum-20

That's what the other guys have picked up and what I was going to grab.

Thx!


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---------- Post added at 09:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:23 AM ----------

Obviously we just need one looks like that item is for 2. Cheap though


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Just picked up my truck did everything suggested here and dynomat the doors. Night and day difference thanks for the write up guys


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I bought matching pioneer 3.5 inch speakers.

You can find them on amazon

Pioneer TS-A878 3 1/2 Inch 2-Way Speakers

They work superb. I did not use the kicker center channel so I can't say if it works as well. The 3.5 inch pioneer when tested was the loudest on the market which means a brighter front stage.

Guy said:

I bought matching Sony 3.5 inch speakers.

You can find them on amazon

Pioneer TS-A878 3 1/2 Inch 2-Way Speakers

They work superb. I did not use the kicker center channel so I can't say if it works as well. The 3.5 inch pioneer when tested was the loudest on the market which means a brighter front stage.

Click to expand...

What did you do with the other speaker since you only need one? I'd be willing to go halvsies with someone on the middle 3.5". lol

---------- Post added at 03:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:59 PM ----------

Alright, this thread has inspired me to upgrade my stereo (as well as stop lurking and actually join the forum). I picked up everything needed aside from the center 3.5" and I doubled down on the dynamat including 2 of the dynaliners to go under the carpet. Hopefully it'll all sound amazing when it comes in and I throw it in.