I purchased the Kicker upgraded speakers for front and rear in my 2012 Sahara and this is what I found:
- Sound quality only slightly to moderately improved and must use a little polyfill (a fist full for each speaker) behind the all 4 speaker baskets. Dont use to much polyfill and a little bit (softball size clump) works well.
- The Kickers are slightly more crisp and clear but the volume produced seams to be a little less. The muddiness is gone so that is a plus.
Additional Audio Mods:
- I then installed full premium hotheads leadliners after the new speaker install and now I listen the the radio comfortably at 14-16 on at 70 MPH vs volume at 26-30 before. The Hotheads keep the jeep cool and do help a little with road noise and the hollow bus sound of a hard top.
- I then put dynamat the entire floor of the jeep front to back and hard top. I do not think the dynamat helped tremendously and I will probably never use dynamat again other than to stop rattles from bass, its not a sound solution for road noise. it also smells when it gets hot but the smell is slowing going away 2 months later. For what its worth dynamat will separate in the heat and you really don't want to use it on the hardtop other than in limited quanities or it will separate and make quite a mess is the sun.
-I was still not happy withe the fullness of the sound so I installed a Rockford Fosgate P1S2-8 Punch P1 SVC 2-Ohm 8-Inch 200 Watt RMS 400 Watt Peak Subwoofer in the factory enclosure. I used dynamat on the entire inside of the sub enclosure and on the back side, facing the wheel well, and filled it lightly with polyfill. Both are a must to make this sub enclosure work. The Plastic enclosure material is so thin the dynamat allows it to mimic/perform closer to a sold 3/4" plywood/mdf enclosure.
-The new sub is powered by a Rockford Fosgate PBR500X1 Punch 500 Watt Mono Boosted Rail Amplifier and sound is sourced through, AudioControl LC2I 2-Channel Line Out Converter with Subwoofer Control. The Audiocontrol is spliced to the front speaker outs (L & R) from the factory amp (I do not believe the factory set up sends full audio/volume to the rear speakers but i could be wrong.) It takes a while to adjust the settings right but once dialed in it sends the corrected signals through the amp to the sub to get full bass response.
- I also mounted rockfords remote sub control so i can dial up the bass from the drivers seat when I want to.
- The sub mounted in the factory enclosure with an 3/4 inch MDF spacer i purchased on ebay. (purchase 2 because you will need one to trouble shoot and one for final assembling. The new sub with the grill on sits flush to the factory enclosure face.
All in all its now has decent thump and good audio quality when compared to the original set up. When compared to my new Acura MDX 5.1 audio it sounds similar quality but not something a true audiophile would be happy with.
The sub weakness is in the factory sub enclosure. I considered running a high end JL sub but with trying to keep a stock look and enclosure it would have been overkill.
I have heard the non premium JKs (sports) with a top end Alpine head unit wired to factory speakers without an AMP. They really kick and make the speakers come alive.
All in all I would recommend the setup I have for a good upgrade using the factory head unit off of the factory amp.