bigrednole

Yes, I have read a few threads but I have a ton more reading to do. The speakers are atrocious but I knew that buying the vehicle. I want to start upgrading the sound quality. The head unit must remain. If I am understanding everything I have read, I will have to use the output of the existing amp to a DSP for a true upgrade. Is that accurate? If so, the next steps are what I will be planning out.

1. DSP to manage signal from the stock amp
2. 3x 4" speakers in the front dash (brand TBD)
3. 2x 6.5" speakers for the front doors (TBD)
4. Amp to manage the front 5x speakers.
5. Subwoofer and amp for the trunk. Nothing insane, but can play lows clean. I am not cruising around rattling the car.

Is this the right path I am thinking?

ptthere

Just my opinion, but if you're going that far, you might as well upgrade the rear door speakers as well. I replaced the front 6.5" door speakers with 6x9" ... it's a huge improvement to the mid-bass, and since you'll be running an aftermarket amp to them you should get even better results. The rear door speakers are 6.5" as well but you would have to go with 6.5" replacements since 6x9" are too big to fit the rears. Once you understand the "easy" way to reinstall the rear door panels, the rear doors are very easy/quick to do.

Even if you don't buy from Crutchfield, you can use their website to determine which speakers will or will not fit (basket depth, magnet diameter/depth etc) in certain locations. Keep in mind as well that for the doors, Crutchfield includes the mounting brackets and Metra harnesses "free."

For the dash speakers, I recommend the Red Wolf harnesses from Amazon. The connectors are 100% correct fitment to the factory plugs with no goofy trimming of plastic. All you have to do is swap the orientation/polarity of the spade connectors on the speaker end of the leads.

I removed the factory sub and left the hole empty/open, then put a 350W RMS / 700 max 8" Skar SDR/D2 in their ported box in the trunk. The amp is also a Skar 350W RMS (closer to 400), fed by an active LOC with DSP, which is fed from the factory signal from sub output of the factory amp. FWIW, it provides nice deep lows, but the car is insulated and built well enough that it doesn't noticeably rattle anything. I would not recommend replacing the factory sub with a new sub in the same mounting location... if you want any appreciable volume out of it, stopping the rear deck from rattling will be a chore, and SQL will suffer unless you fabricate some kind of a custom enclosure underneath the factory deck structure. But once you remove the factory "sub," you'll realize just how much of a joke it is.

JTtheBrick

I installed this system about 4 years ago now. I had wire into the factory amp which meant getting a wiring schematic from the dealer to know which wires to splice into. There is one 12" subwoofer behind the wall with the amp, 6 farad capacitor, and epicenter. I didn't change the factory speakers but did purchase them. I waited until I hooked everything up and turned it on. Sounds great. I used to own a stereo shop back in the late 90's so I took care of all the installation myself. I did remove the factory subwoofer in the rear deck also. Everybody always says that it sounds like there is more than one speaker in the car. It bumps. I do have a level control for the amp and epicenter mounted in the front of the vehicle on the left side of the dash. Pictures will show that.

Quinner82

I didn't realize you could replace 6.5's with 6x9's in the front. Was it a hard install? Which model would you suggest? I have a 2014 ES350 so it should be the same.

2wheelnut

Do you have the part number for this? I used the GM version and Dremeled off the tips. Worked fine and sits tight but would like the proper plugs.

chiminhmai

Hello there,

What color wires did you splic into? Was it pin number 6 (blue) and 21 (light green)? I am trying to install an aftermarket amplifier and sub to the existing non ML system in my 2013 ES300H. Thanks