14 SHO Sony wNav Speaker Upgrades.

[Pinball-Mark]

Hey Guys, been doing some research on getting my speakers and system replaced. Front woofers, tweeters, rears and rear center and i'm going to scrap the rear deck woofers. After I get all the speakers replaced, The idea is to use a PAC audio system up front, use optical to the rear and replace all the amplifiers for the interior speakers and an amp for two small subs to replace the 6x9's on the rear deck, but ill save that for when the time comes.

The questions I have is for the front door speakers. The way I understand it, is there is a low pass output from the sony amp to the 6x8 woofer in the door and a high pass from the amp to the 3/4" tweeters. I am looking at the kicker 46CSS684, it has the woofer and tweeter separate with a cross over (id assume these would be optimal since they're paired together). I plan on for the time being installing the woofer and tweeter to the factory wiring without the cross over, since the factory amp already has the cross over built in. Once I replace the factor amp with aftermarket, I will use the crossover. Am i right for assuming the amp has the high and low pass sound output? If i didn't use a woofer, How would a 2-way speaker sound with only low pass output to it?

Since the opening at the car door is 6x8 it is very hard to find a component kit (with the woofer and tweeter separate with a cross over). The only one seems to be the kicker brand. I'm not really familiar with kicker, is it any good? It looks kinda budget to me. Any one got any recommendations on other brands, there is alot of kit options for the 5 1/4 opening but i'm not sure how to modify these to fit 6x8. Doesn't seem like you can buy just woofers anywhere (looking at crutchfield website), only 2-way components (I will be using these for the rear doors) although you can buy 3/4" tweeters on their own. Any input would be appreciated, Thanks

 

[EcohoMks]

There are options out there, I know JBL makes a set, and JL Audio has a couple too. I actually have the Kicker KS 6x8 coaxial in my truck and they sound good. I have Infinity Kappas in all my other vehicles which I like better, but I got a deal on the Kickers because I bought a couple L7T 12's. The kickers have a silk tweeter which makes them smoother sounding than a titanium tweeter, but so far I haven't had any complaints with the Kickers

 

[doit221]

The fronts (mid in door, tweeter in the a-pillar) are actively crossed over, so you will want to go with a component speaker setup. 5x7 components seem to be more common than 6x8. If you upgrade the amp, just make sure it has active crossovers, otherwise you would have to install some passive ones. Most tweeters should have bass blockers just incase the crossovers aren't properly configured to prevent them from blowing.

I went with the following:
Front mids: JL Audio C3-570cw
Front tweeters: JL Audio C2-075ct

I also upgraded the rear doors with Polk Audio MM1 Series MM572, but they don't really have much impact since the system is front biased.

You will need adapters for each speaker (except for the tweeters). Metra 72-5601 have the correct polarity, but I went with Metra 72-5600 because they were cheaper and available on amazon. I cut the connector ends off and reversed the polarity to be correct. The connectors on these adapters are terrible and barely fit on the speaker terminals, but work will connecting into the factory harness. You could also just splice into the car speaker harness, but would recommend using adapters if you want to keep you car stock.

Regarding the rear 6x9 subs, I would just leave those unless you're planning on getting an actual subwoofer in a box. The speakers are actually subwoofers and you can't really find too many free air 6x9 subwoofers that will fit (or at least I couldn't). Replacing them with coaxials will result in worse performance since only low frequencies are pushed to the speakers.

I'm still using the stock amp and the speaker upgrade made quite an improvement. The tweeter upgrade was probably the most time consuming since they had to retrofitted to work, but are worth it.