DIY stereo upgrade for under $500.00

smurfslayer said:

I don’t know ‘Toad. I find 300w barely adequate.

Click to expand...

evan9r said:

Another satisfied customer. I completed my install this weekend and must say I am quite satisfied. The added bass is impressive for the money spent and the new speakers allow me to enjoy my music again.



The sub part of the project took me longer than it should have but it was definitely the most rewarding to finally have some bass in the truck. I ended up going with the Kicker/Kenwood combo and wrapped the enclosure with Noico and threw some polyfill in there.



For front speakers I went with Morel Maximo 6x9 coax. For the rear speakers I did Morel Maximo 6.5" components and used the tweeters up front. I figured since the rear is just for fill, I wouldnt need coax and it saved me a little bit of money and still sounds nice. These speakers have a nice smooth neutral sound to them and are really inexpensive. I was set on Hertz but after listening to both Morel and Hertz side by side, the Hertz were a little brighter and the Morels were a little smoother. Taking the advice from the audio shop guy, the Morels will be less fatiguing on the ears.



I ordered 90% of the parts from Crutchfield and the other 10% from Amazon. Total was just over $600 including buying a heat gun.

Click to expand...

lawdog said:

I finally had my JBL GTOs installed last Thursday, and have given them a some time to break in, although I expect them to continue to do so over the next week or two. I went with full-range/3way 6x9 GTO939s in the front kick panel, Stadium 750T tweeters for the a-pillar, and 6.5" GTO629s for the rears. I left the center and sub alone.

To be completely candid, I am one of the folks who felt something changed with the B&O system after the latest Sync3 update, for the better. It seemed to image much better, and the tonal balance was improved. I had already bought the parts for this changeover by then, but I began to have some second thoughts. Still, I just knew how crappy the stock speakers were...how could better speakers NOT make an improvement? Plus, I had a set of front Ford Raptor Lights to be installed, as well as a front window tint.

Well, my installer did a great job on everything, especially the lights, which he wired with the Rigid amber surrounds to come on with the parking lights automatically. The speaker upgrade was noticeably louder, but seemed a bit more bright/harsh in the treble, and the 6x9s would clip at max volume on one or two songs with some very bass-heavy stuff. I guess they were calling for more power than the stock units and not getting it from the headunit. At first I would say it was an improvement, but not as much as I hoped...more different than clear improvement.

The 6x9 GTOs definitely output more bass than the stockers, and put out more midrange, sometimes good, sometimes bad, depending on the source material. In limited "testing", i.e., my head next to them with the door open/away from the other speakers, they seem to output a more full-range frequency spread than I expected. (I still have never been able to get Ford to comment on the crossover between the front tweeters and the 6x9s.) I think they are an improvement over the paper stockers, but they do change the tone/timbre of the sound and the soundstage. I am still experimenting with the tone settings and equalizer setting on my iPod/iPhone to see what is the best balance for these speakers, but it does seem to vary a good bit by the type of music/source material.

The 750T tweeters are great, but are louder than the stockers, and can seem overly bright at times. It is much easier to hear the tweeters now than with the stock unit, but I don't think the system images as well as it did stock, especially in DSP mode. The 6.5" 629s in the rear are an improvement too, but they really are for fill, as the stock headunit does not send much volume back there. The GTOs are louder than the stock units, so they were even more fill originally. Still, the 629s are a true timbre match for the rest of the system, and they blend nicely, especially in the DSP/surround mode.

Another issue/tradeoff with the new speakers is that, because they are louder than the stock units, they tend to run more noticeably past the stock subwoofer as volume goes to the upper ranges and the sub rolls off. The stock sub does pretty well until you start to max out the volume, but there are times where I wish I could dial up a little higher sub level. Can I live with it, or is a sub upgrade in the future? We'll see.

While I am generally pleased with the changes, I think if I had it to do over, I might have gone with an upgraded component 6x9 set up front, in an effort to more closely mirror the stock design/tuning, but with upgraded components. But, even then, there's no way to know if it would have matched/comported with the tuning of the stock setup done by B&O. I also have to concede some expertise to B&O, as it's nothing short of miraculous what they tuned out of the poor stock components. As I said in an exchange with a Ford rep, imagine what they could do if they actually put decent Harman speakers/products in there (like the JBL systems in Toyota products)?

That is still a bit of a sore point for me...a B&O Play "premium audio system", that we were sold and paid for, is really little more than a FoMoCo system tuned by B&O Play. It certainly would be more accurately described and sold that way...I know I was surprised/disappointed the first time I saw the stock paper cone FoMoCo speakers when they came out.

Anyway, audio perception and choices are inherently subjective. I'm not sure there's a sub-$500 or sub-$1000 panacea for this system, and there is some truth to Newton's third law even in audio systems/components...every change has an impact, and some you may not have intended. If you're happy with your truck, bone stock, tweaked slightly or super-modified, that's all that matters.

Click to expand...

Guy said:

For what it’s worth my legal eagle...


I did test every major brand of speaker with the build. Infiniti, jbl, kicker... you name it. Thank Amazon prime and their easy returns.

I even tried two different subs mounted in the stock enclosure.

The setup is to use the pioneer. You picked the wrong speakers. The jbl speakers were harsh. Pioneer strikes a balance between sensitivity, smooth tone, and reasonable crossover points in their coaxial speaker line.

The only drawback to the pioneer setup with kicker sub is that there is a forward positioning of the sound stage due to the louder center channel.

Case dismissed.

Click to expand...

lawdog said:

Are you being serious? I have not been critical of you or your thread, which has helped many folks. Other users have tried the exact JBL GTOs I used and been quite happy. Hell, I'm happy...I just tried to be honest about what the chnages I made did instead of OMG I just made the best stereo EVAR for $500!!!

I hope my sarcasm detector is off, because I really can't believe you'd tell someone you don't know, whose system you don't have (Sony vs B&O), that they made the wrong choice because they didn't make the same one you did.

Click to expand...

Guy said:

Oops.

I was just teasing you. A little ribbing. I think I missed my mark.

Sorry man.

Click to expand...