00pooterSS

iTrader: (40)

Amazon has them, I posted a link. $80

00pooterSS

iTrader: (40)

Order these also unless you want to make your own rings from window seal foam like I did

1FastBrick

iTrader: (17)

I strongly dislike Amazon and there lack of customer service or accountability. To many late shipments and a few damaged one's. I also hate dealing with there call center in the Philippines.

Maybe I will change out the head unit out in the future so I can use Bluetooth and hands free calling.

GMCtrk

iTrader: (27)

Crutchfield is great. Great CS, excellent website.

I bought the cheap Polk coaxs from there and for $25 a piece you can't beat them. Sound good even off the weak output of the HU.

00pooterSS

iTrader: (40)

Other places sell them if you want them.

JVC and Pioneer make nice double din radios that aren't real expensive and have nice features. $200-$300 range for a blue tooth, android control, ipod control, extensive eq control radio isn't bad.

1FastBrick

iTrader: (17)

Yeah I have been looking at a few of those.

I am thinking about getting the kickers and getting the speaker baffles that cover the back side to protect from moisture.

00pooterSS

iTrader: (40)

Okay man. I had a whole thing typed up but most of it's already been said here in this thread by me and others. Your truck your build you do your thing.

1FastBrick

iTrader: (17)

Are the baffles not a good idea?

I was Leaning towards kickers since I am considering replacing the head unit at a later date.

I am by no means a stereo/speaker type of person. The tech part of It goes right over my head but I am trying to learn.

I understand why you said to get the foam rings between the panel and speaker.

00pooterSS

iTrader: (40)

Door speakers are infinite baffle design. Meaning they are not designed to be an enclosure. Some people say they like the baffles and they help. Some have tested them with and without them and say they sound worse. I take every chance I get to look at how installers and manufacturers build high end systems, I've never seen them used in that situation.

I experiment a lot with audio stuff and I had probably 20 total variations of setups in my 2004 extended cab sierra, I posted up what gave me the best results. Manufacturers and dedicated installers do more than I do and so I pay attention to what they do as well.

When I considered the baffles I asked myself, if those are needed and work, why doesn't anyone use them that have millions of dollars in R&D? Also I've never seen a speaker fail from moisture in the door. If moisture was such a failure point OEM's would do something about it. Look at BOSE, probably the leading manufacturer with vast amounts of R&D.. no baffles. They take **** $5 speakers and put them in our cars and they sound great. My 2014 truck blows my mind with the bose system (compared to my 04 bose) and the speakers are comparable to basic *** 5 or 10 dollar speakers. Nothing fancy. It's done through signal processing (in the stock amp) and speaker placement/mounting.

I'm all for trying things and experimenting and seeing what actually works. So by all means try them if you like, but test the theory. That's what I do.



The kickers have titanium dome tweeters. I came to realize after spending tons of money on speakers that I do not like hard material tweeters. They are harsh and hissy and described as hitting all the "s's and t's". Someone else also posted to use silk tweeters. I've talked to guys at my favorite stereo shop about this as well and they feel the same. They do higher end installs than any shop I've been to and I've been an audio shop rat since before I've been driving. On the flip side of that some of the really high end (over 1k per set) door speakers use a hard material on the tweeters but there is a lot more in play there. We're talking budget stuff here.

The aftermarket radio, and not using the stock amp is key also. The stock stereo/amp really sucks. Doesn't seem like it until you get away from it and experience what it's like without it. But a lot of this also pertains to knowing the difference between an upgraded stereo system and hearing really well put together and tuned aftermarket setups. I had budget setups that were always highly praised for how loud and clear they were, and balanced. My last truck was so loud (bass wise) it broke the roof of the truck, and you could hear every word and every note (music wise) clear as day and equally balanced in loudness. Believe it or not country music was one of my favorite things to use to demo the systems capabilities (clarity and loudness wise). For bass demos it also worked pretty well but I had other stuff to really show it's range.

Here is some of what I said I had typed up.

Not even close, I've done a lot of experimenting with all of this. When I installed my aftermarket head unit I ran it to the stock amp and integrated the stock amp, horrible plan I found out later.

The stock stereo is a low level output to the amp, radio itself probably a couple of watts.

When I bypassed the stock amp everything got more than twice as loud, and that was from a head unit that was rated at 22 watts rms. Twice as loud on 22 watts rms.

Stock amp is probably 10-20 watts. Also the stock amp is internally eq'd and will fight the head unit settings and sound like ****. My stock amp killed all lows and highs to the rear speakers and only allowed them to play midrange at a low power level.

Before I bypassed my amp I ran all door speakers off of the rear channel of my factory amp. I did that to lower the ohm load and raise the power output of the amp, it was really really bad. No highs, no lows, just midrange crap, and it wasn't very loud. I then ran all speakers to the front channel of the amp. Much better because the front channel was full range but still lacked and started shutting the amp down at higher volume levels due to the ohm load.

I then completely bypassed the amp and ran head unit only power to the doors and holy **** massive difference.

This is after trying many different things with factory speakers, infinity, and memphis (that's just in that truck alone).

Then I did the rings on the front of the speakers and got another boost in sound level and big boost in sound quality.

00pooterSS

iTrader: (40)

The reason I push bypassing the factory amp is it is setup for use with the stock radio, the stock speakers, and the stock speakers' ohm ratings. When you change one component that kind of all changes.

The factory amp does signal processing internally and can fight against your aftermarket radio and just creates a lacking and uncontrolled/lack of total control situation.

If you really want to keep your stock stereo and have the best sound an aftermarket signal processor is what you'll want. It takes the signals and rebalances them back to flat (in other words back to full range, unprocessed) so that you can tune your new setup instead of running off the processing designed for the equipment you no longer have.

Signal processors will be the new wave since new cars have such technical control units that aren't just radios anymore. So just swapping the radio is becoming a thing of the past.

In my 2014 truck the radio does many many functions for the entire vehicle so if I wanted to do a setup in it I would get a processor and then new door speakers. The most advanced stereo shop around me is doing processors only on some cars and getting good results, and they are doing them to retain factory radio/control units and have adjustability beyond the factories limitations. It's basically just making you stock stuff tuneable. Like getting a tune on your car but having the tuner in your hands.