Upgrading the door speakers

[sieade245]

I've gone for a set of JBL components 600CE but I've just realised I can't go any further tonight as my speaker brackets have not arrived. Hopefully they will be here tomorrow. I've got Butyl flash tape (not bitumen) instead of dynamat to use as sound deadening as this is supposed to be a job on the cheap and everything I've bought has been second hand except the T harness and the brackets. I did manage to get some pics and put everything up top back together though. Might pop out for a road test as even the basic setup sounded ok-ish on the driveway its when the wind gets up it starts to go downhill.

At this point though, I'm not sure I'm going to bother with the subwoofer. Michael Bolton and Phil Collins don't need those frequencies

[sieade245]

IMG_2372.JPG

I'm just doing the dynamat/ butyl wrapping on the inside of the doors. So far I've managed to cover the whole inside face of the outer panel. I can't see the pics from the early posts on this thread...I've seen some people have also done the door facing side of the door cards too. Should I do these as well or will what I've done be enough? I reckon I've got enough tape left to do the same on the other door but door cards too might need more. See pic

[sieade245]

Bummer I've run out of tape anyway. I got halfway through the other door. That was with a 10mx100mm roll. So I'll have around 6-7m left over after I've finished the doors. I suppose I could use it you know..for actual roof/ gutter repairs

[sieade245]

I put everything back together but left off all the plastic covers/ reflectors etc so I can get the card off again easy. Luckily, both my cards came off straight away with no struggling.

I notice straight away though that there is a difference in sound quality/ volume between the LH and RH sides. RH/OS sounds great but the LH/NS sounds pretty bad. It could be because I haven't finished the sound deadening on the LH/ NS door but I'm not sure so sure I've got a pretty good ear when it comes to speakers it almost sounds like the left side is out of phase but not sure how this could be. I tested both speakers I removed and they are both the same polarity. The speaker adaptor leads I have are wired the same...only way to test this is to put the original door speakers back in and see if they also sound different to each other, I never though to check this before I started. I think I have the correct wiring on the tweeter, I used the diagram from a few posts back but I'll double check. Then I can try swapping the door speakers over from LH/RH to see if the fault tranposes across. If it does, somethings up with the speaker. If not, its the wiring/ amp/ or head unit built in amp (I'm using high level outputs).

[sieade245]

Right fault diagnosis over ---it's the Head Unit. I don't know if this is normal behaviour or not. I know some people have had to use equalisers to sort the sound out BUT if you use the L/R balance control and go hard over to the right, everything sounds fine. If you go hard over to the left, a lot of the mids and bass are lost and the overall volume is lower. What I can't really determine, is whether this is also the case with the balance in the middle, as its hard to hear the individual speakers like this.

To confirm it was the HU and not the wiring/speakers or amp:
1. Swap over amp L/R outputs at the ISO connector so the left amp drives the right speaker and vice versa. The fault transposed across to the other speaker. So my speakers are good and the speaker wiring is correct.
2. Swap over amp L/R inputs at the ISO connector so the left HU output goes to the right amp input. Didn't swap the outputs back from 1. The fault transposes across again. So the amp is good. Leaves the wiring between amp and HU and the HU
3. I was going to rewire the HU plug but then I realised all I needed to do was do remove my amp and all the additional wiring and plug the HU back in as stock. Then check balance again and sure enough, same issue on the LH side so has to be HU.

Interestingly enough, the HU IS quite capable of driving my new speakers pretty loud. I started to think maybe I don't need the amp after all but I thought I'll just hang it back in again and it does sound better...and the other problem is it always sounds ok on the driveway its when you get on the road that the difference is quite apparent.

So what do I do now? I might be going round in circles here. I'm never going to have the balance hard over to the left. I'm thinking its either some processing going on in the HU, or something is wrong with the left channel in my HU. I think the only way to confirm this is get another Ford HU and hang it in to check.

ALSO interesting bit of info. I didn't used to have the Front-Rear fader on the screen. But now I have the amp plugged in to the HU rear outputs, it has magically appeared so it looks like I won't be needing to do any coding to add my subwoofer later, the HU appears to have realised that I now have rear speakers connected to it. I saw someone else had mentioned this possibility. I still need to check they actually work but I've got a good feeling they will. On to ebay for Ford HUs.

Would anybody be able to check their HU out to see if it the same? I've got the basic radio/bluetooth one. It doesn't matter if you've got any amps/ aftermarket speakers fitted or not. Mine does it with all the stock stuff connected. Turn up quite loud, then use fader left and right and see if there is a difference in volume/ bass

[sieade245]

This morning I rewired my ISO loom so the rear outputs from the Ford HU are connected to the front speakers via the amp.

This all works fine now, there is no difference in sound like there is with the front outputs so I think most likely internal component failure of the HU Front Left amplifier channel. For now I'm going to leave it using the rear HU outputs (which do work fine by the way even though I didn't have rear speakers from factory).

[Nopper]

Hello there,
Just sold my 2013 custom limited, and traded it in for a BRAND NEW 2018 LWB SPORT.
I have a set of mbquart high end 3 way compo competition speakers and filters sitting in my garage for a while, an would love to mount these in the new van. This is pure a audiophile orgasm piece of kit.

A also have a oldschool highend amp and a audison digital line out converter i would like to mount behind the seats. This means a lot of wires to hide.

Most of this topic is about the 2013 model. So what I would love to hear is :

How to remove apillar trim ? The upper section seems straight forward, but the lower section runs behind the dash. Will it come out with the upper section pulled out?
How to remove door trim?
Can I squeeze in a new set of wires to the a pillar with only the head unit and apillar trim removed?

Already found how to remove the 8 inch touchscreen. Pull out the tray above the unit and unscrew the head unit screws behind it, right?

[mic71]

Good luck it is enough to just remove the screen, but it is easier if you remove the facia completely, IIRC there's 4 more screws behind the screen, remove those and the facia should come off.

Here's the colorcodes for the wires:
White/White with black= left front
Gray/Gray with black stripe= right front
Green/Green with black stripe= left rear
Purple/Purple with black strips= right rear

Thanks.

Gonna post if everything is done

Great thanks for all this info. I am going to install a new set of component speakers in the front of mine. These have a crossover in line.
What I needed to do on my 2015 custom was cut into the front speaker cables then take the output side from the stereo into the crossover unit I then took the output of the crossover to the other side of the cut cable. The run a fresh cable to the new tweeters. This all worked fine.
Are you 100% certain on these speaker cable colours?
Sorry to doubt but don't want to go cutting into the wrong cables....

[Trasher83]

Good luck it is enough to just remove the screen, but it is easier if you remove the facia completely, IIRC there's 4 more screws behind the screen, remove those and the facia should come off.

Here's the colorcodes for the wires:
White/White with black= left front
Gray/Gray with black stripe= right front
Green/Green with black stripe= left rear
Purple/Purple with black strips= right rear

Thanks.

Gonna post if everything is done

Great thanks for all this info. I am going to install a new set of component speakers in the front of mine. These have a crossover in line.
What I needed to do on my 2015 custom was cut into the front speaker cables then take the output side from the stereo into the crossover unit I then took the output of the crossover to the other side of the cut cable. The run a fresh cable to the new tweeters. This all worked fine.
Are you 100% certain on these speaker cable colours?
Sorry to doubt but don't want to go cutting into the wrong cables....

That's the colours I cut, and everything sounds the way it should

[mic71]

Thanks for that.
Do you know if the black stripe of the pairs is + or - ?

[Trasher83]

Thanks for that.
Do you know if the black stripe of the pairs is + or - ?

Not 100% sure, but IIRC the striped ones are -

[Altransit]

Thanks for that.
Do you know if the black stripe of the pairs is + or - ?

It doesn't really matter so long as they're connected the same way round on both sides i.e. striped side to the same terminal both sides

[mic71]

Think you'll find it does matter.
Speakers work on a correct polarity. Yes they will work either way but one way is correct and will make the speaker perform better.
The cone of the speaker either moves in or out I think the cone should move outward when connected properly.

[Mike]

Think you'll find it does matter.

It really doesn’t, our ears aren’t sensitive to absolute phase. If you don’t believe me, try swapping the wires over on a mono speaker. It’s only when you have more than one channel of sound that your ears become able to detect phasing. It’s also why sub amps have a phase switch, so that you can integrate the sub into your system.

[mic71]

I agree with our ears not being able to here the difference in some circumstances.
However this isn't the case where a speaker is placed in any cabinet or enclosure it is also not the case when you have any more than one speaker as in a stereo set up or a speaker cabinet with a woofer mid and high.
Imagine the air movement behind the speakers all wired differently.
Speaker are designed by the manufacturers to be connected in the correct polarity. Why would they have a poss and minus terminal?
Would just be a and b or 1 and 2?
Yes subwoofers do have the ability to reverse phase but have you ever heard of a mid or tweeter with this ability??
Wire them by the book and you won't run into any problems or lack of clarity.....