Question for you car audio guys.

nbunga

Caught the Bug
I’m thinking of putting an amplifier in my Jeep. Do I need one with 6 channels for all 6 speakers or do the front speakers and the dash tweeters get wired in parallel, only needing a 4 channel amp.
 

WillysJkJeeper

New member
The tweeters are wired to the 6inch speakers. U can get a 4 channel if u just want to make them louder. U could also get 5 channel if u want to add a sub at a later date.
 

H8ROADS

Caught the Bug
If you want a sub you'll want to add another amp. Ideally 4chan for your front/back speakers, and a mono amp for your sub. There are combo 4+subs, just depends on what you want in terms of Class D or if you want to go old school.
 

nbunga

Caught the Bug
I saw some powered subwoofers on Crutchfield. There’s one that would fit under the seat. Has pretty good reviews from people with wranglers. May go that route.
 

fiend

Caught the Bug
I saw some powered subwoofers on Crutchfield. There’s one that would fit under the seat. Has pretty good reviews from people with wranglers. May go that route.

I have one of these in my Miata. It works great for that car because it’s small enough to fit under a panel behind the seats. It probably would work fine in a Jeep under a seat, but it’s a small unit so you’re not going to get thumping base out of it.

https://www.kenwood.com/usa/car/speakers/ksc-sw11/


Sent from my iPhone using WAYALIFE mobile app
 

WillysJkJeeper

New member
The subs that fit under the seat really arent gonna be the loud or take alot of loud volume output meaning if ride with the top off or down u will be wanting to turn it up louder and try to get more out of it and more than likely it will be blown in a short time. So its all depends how much sub output u want 1 10inch woofer will sound good. Keep in mind when u put the top down or take hard top off the subs bass will go down alot cause its basically like putting it out in the open. The bass wave needs the top on to produce bass the bass your looking for.
 

VeruGE*144

Caught the Bug
I run Alpine PDX5 (discontinued but you can still find it on eBay), mounted under the seat with a home made bracket. There also is a marine version which I wish I have gotten after filling up the tub with water one time. The is amp 500w I believe. 75w x 4ch and 300w x 1ch. You want to match up RMS wattage of the speakers as close as you can to what the amp is rated for. Only look at RMS watts. You want to use component speakers and tweeters will branch of of those. I added tweeters on the sound bar as well. Most tweeters should also fit in the factory dash board with a little finesse. Depending on how far you want to take this, you would also want to replace a head unit and use RCA cables to connect between the head unit and the amp and run all new wiring to all the speakers form the amp. Thicker the wire clearer the sound, I think I used 12ga wire, 100’ roll did the whole Jeep with some to spare. Head unit doesn’t have to be anything fancy since the amp will be doing all the work, just needs to have RCA connection. Then you still need a good power wire to power up the AMP, don’t go cheap on that.
There is ways to wire the aftermarket amp to factory head unit and reuse the factory speaker wiring, I was digging into it but decided it was easier to and less frustrating to upgrade everything. Sounds great in my opinion btw, still plenty of sound with top and doors of.
Let me know you have any questions, I’ll be happy to help.

Here’s what I did to fit the tweeters in the dash, toothpicks and some hot glue [emoji854]
IMG_3397.jpg

Amp fits under the seat nicely, you can tweak it once installed under seat and it even has little cover plate for the adjustment knobs. I made the bracket to where I can drop it without removing the seat.
IMG_4329.jpg
IMG_4330.jpg
IMG_4331.jpg
 
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monstrousmac

Caught the Bug
this is my setup and it is great

Rockford Fosgate Power T400X4ad - Amp

Rockford Fosgate Punch P300-12 - Powered Sub Woofer

JL Audio MX650-CCX-SG-TB - replaced all 4 speakers with these

Alpine CDE-175BT- this is my deck
 

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nbunga

Caught the Bug
I run Alpine PDX5 (discontinued but you can still find it on eBay), mounted under the seat with a home made bracket. There also is a marine version which I wish I have gotten after filling up the tub with water one time. The is amp 500w I believe. 75w x 4ch and 300w x 1ch. You want to match up RMS wattage of the speakers as close as you can to what the amp is rated for. Only look at RMS watts. You want to use component speakers and tweeters will branch of of those. I added tweeters on the sound bar as well. Most tweeters should also fit in the factory dash board with a little finesse. Depending on how far you want to take this, you would also want to replace a head unit and use RCA cables to connect between the head unit and the amp and run all new wiring to all the speakers form the amp. Thicker the wire clearer the sound, I think I used 12ga wire, 100’ roll did the whole Jeep with some to spare. Head unit doesn’t have to be anything fancy since the amp will be doing all the work, just needs to have RCA connection. Then you still need a good power wire to power up the AMP, don’t go cheap on that.
There is ways to wire the aftermarket amp to factory head unit and reuse the factory speaker wiring, I was digging into it but decided it was easier to and less frustrating to upgrade everything. Sounds great in my opinion btw, still plenty of sound with top and doors of.
Let me know you have any questions, I’ll be happy to help.

Here’s what I did to fit the tweeters in the dash, toothpicks and some hot glue [emoji854]
View attachment 319602

Amp fits under the seat nicely, you can tweak it once installed under seat and it even has little cover plate for the adjustment knobs. I made the bracket to where I can drop it without removing the seat.
View attachment 319603
View attachment 319604
View attachment 319605

I’ve already got an aftermarket stereo, JVC, not great but it does what I need.
Mark sold me those Rockford Fosgate speakers he just picked up so I replaced the front four already. I had to dremel a hole in the factory tweeter pods to mount them. They fit good though. My sound bar already had Polk audio speakers in it. Thought I would throw an amp in and give the speakers a little more power.
I was looking into the smaller powered subs since I don’t really have anywhere to put a sub in a regular box. I guess I could put a sub under the passenger seat and an amp under the driver.
 

VeruGE*144

Caught the Bug
Check the manual to see if your head unit will support 5ch. Then you still need to run wiring from the head unit to the amp and from amp to the speakers, or splice back into factory speaker wiring. Factory speaker wire is very thin and you will loose a lot of potential.
Power subwoofer will probably be a lots less work and while it will increase overall loudness of the sound system, I wouldn’t expect any miracles.
 
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CFLJeeper

New member
OP: When you were given the front speakers, were the crossovers built in to the tweeters already? In short, you don't want the same frequency waves going to your mid range speakers as your highs, it will sound distorted and shorten the life of the speakers especially with more power. You can absolutely run a 4 channel amp(or 5 as others have suggested for a sub), for the front 2 speakers plus tweeters and the sound bar coaxials, but you will need some sort of crossover for the tweeters in the dash either built into the speakers or aftermarket. I installed a set of really nice Focal polyglass components, that I had long lost the crossovers for. I went with a cheap set of crossovers off of amazon and they do the job shockingly well.

You will not get any bass worth talking about from the front dash speakers, nor the soundbar, so if you are looking for any real depth a sub is a must. The soundbar, front dash, and tweeters, can really only handle the mid and high ranges of sound. With car audio you will get almost more opinions than which lift kit is best, so similarly it comes down to what you think sounds good, and what your individual goals are. I can tell you that I sacrificed the low end depth I really wanted in favor of storage space, but that was a compromise I needed to live with.

Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions. In the past year I ran an entirely new system through mine, so my memory is pretty fresh on this topic :)

-CFLJeeper
 

PEACEMAKER1

New member
I just upgraded my audio recently (or am still in the process of finishing I guess). But I chose to upgrade the stereo to the Sony AX5000, change all my speakers to JBL club component speakers, and add a 10" kicker CVR sub with a kicker mono D amp. I installed the amp under the passenger seat with a custom bracket. It keeps it tucked up real tight and away from the floor. I really love the JBL speakers. They are loud and they sound amazing, some of the best clarity I have heard from speakers before. I would recommend component speakers if you are planning to upgrade. They are always way better than coax. I run the speakers off my Sony deck which I currently don't have any complaints about...they are plenty loud. The 10" sub is perfect IMO. I am building a custom enclosure for it (the part that I am still working on finishing). But I chose the 10" because I didn't want to take up room in the back of the Jeep. I am building an enclosure that mimics the stock sub location in the back corner but the new enclosure is obviously a little larger but stays to the side and follows the wheel well to preserve as much space as possible. Overall, I am more than happy with how it has turned out and the improvement in sound quality. I haven't had the top off yet, but I am pretty positive it will sound ridiculous with the top off and the bass will be just fine.
 

CFLJeeper

New member
I just upgraded my audio recently (or am still in the process of finishing I guess). But I chose to upgrade the stereo to the Sony AX5000, change all my speakers to JBL club component speakers, and add a 10" kicker CVR sub with a kicker mono D amp. I installed the amp under the passenger seat with a custom bracket. It keeps it tucked up real tight and away from the floor. I really love the JBL speakers. They are loud and they sound amazing, some of the best clarity I have heard from speakers before. I would recommend component speakers if you are planning to upgrade. They are always way better than coax. I run the speakers off my Sony deck which I currently don't have any complaints about...they are plenty loud. The 10" sub is perfect IMO. I am building a custom enclosure for it (the part that I am still working on finishing). But I chose the 10" because I didn't want to take up room in the back of the Jeep. I am building an enclosure that mimics the stock sub location in the back corner but the new enclosure is obviously a little larger but stays to the side and follows the wheel well to preserve as much space as possible. Overall, I am more than happy with how it has turned out and the improvement in sound quality. I haven't had the top off yet, but I am pretty positive it will sound ridiculous with the top off and the bass will be just fine.

You will be surprised(in an unpleasant way) how much the sound changes, specifically the bass, with the top off. I even have a soft top, and I can notice a massive difference. Not that it doesn't sound good still, but there is a huge difference. I'm running 6.5 focal coaxials up front, custom fit focal 6x9's in a the soundbar, and a sundown audio 10" sub in a sealed box all powered off an arc audio 900.6 amp, as a frame of reference. The first time I had my top off I thought something had gone wrong with the sub....
 
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