- First Name
- Andrew
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2026
- Threads
- 1
- Messages
- 2
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Alpharetta
- Vehicle(s)
- 2025 Bronco Big Bend, 2025 BMW M2, 2023 Moto Guzzi V7 Special
- Your Bronco Model
- Big Bend
- Thread starter
- #1
Around March of this year I picked up my 2025 Bronco with base audio. I am a bit of an audio nut, but wasn't expecting to be this disappointed. My last car was a 2024 Maverick Tremor with the B&O system and it was tolerable. The Maverick was one of the few cars I've owned that was completely stock when I traded it in.
About 10 years ago, I tried my hand at SQ competition builds, and told myself I didn't want to go down that rabbit hole again.
I did a ton of research, and noticed most people landed on Kicker speakers and a Key Amp. I had plenty of monoblock amps laying around. The first thing I tried was replacing all speakers with Infinity Reference speakers on factory power. This was not that noticeable of a change and had a loss of midbass. Next I ordered the Kicker Key200.4 amp and wired it in. I bought one of the behind the glovebox metal mounts to mount the Kicker Key. The wiring was relatively straight forward, I ran new speaker wire to both dash locations and to both kick panels from the amplifier. Then for the signal wire, I used the speaker adapter harness to tap into the factory kick panel signal and ran that to the inputs of the Kicker. With replacement speakers in I was hopeful it would sound better. All in all took an afternoon to install.
The Bronco is one of the easiest cars I've ever wired audio into. I put the Kicker in bi-amp mode and ran the autotune. After testing 3 things immediately came to my attention. The first was there was a total lack of bass, while the audio all around was louder and clearer it was missing any type of bottom end. Second, I was unable to apply any gain to the Kicker amp before it would start clipping (this was at volume 20), and the third thing I noticed, was I did not like vocals coming from my feet as that takes away from the image.
In comes stage 3 of this build. I had some Focal mid basses laying around my garage from an old install, those replaced the Infinity coaxials in the kick panels. This cleaned up my sound a bit more and gave a slight improvement to the bottom end. There still was a lack of bass, and if the top was down or off you could forget hearing anything below around 160Hz while moving. I then removed the rear floor in the cargo area and sound dampened it. I purchased the Stinger under the seat mount and mounted a Kicker CX800.1 and threw a JBL W12GTi MkII 12" subwoofer in the cargo area.
These 2 additions made a huge difference, but 3 things were still bothering me. I didn't like using coaxials as my dash drivers, mainly because the Kicker amp would not let me set a crossover above ~300Hz. I did not want a 4" driver to play that low. The second part of this, was despite the JBL and box weighing close to 100 lbs, I was still always concerned someone would steal it out of the car while I was parked. I live in a nice area but Atlanta is not far. The third thing I didn't like was the amp being mounted under the seat. My Bronco came with the wash out interior, and I was afraid that over time that amp would eventually see water and get fried.
This brings me to stage 4 of this build, which is why I decided to make a build thread. I've now decided to say screw it and go full tilt on an SQ build, despite the less-than-ideal environment for one. I haven't seen much for builds at this level for this platform yet, so figured I'd document it as I go.
I'll be pulling all of the stage 2/3 equipment out and completely redoing the audio in this truck, going fully active this time instead of leaning on a fixed crossover amp.
On order I have:
For Audio Equipment -
Stereo Integrity - M28 Tweeters Stereo Integrity -
Stereo Integrity - TM65 Mid ranges
Stereo Integrity - BM-11 Shallow mount Subwoofer
Helix - Amplify 206 DSP 6 channel amp/8 channel DSP
Kicker - CX800.1 Monoblock Amplifier (carried over from stage 3)
For Installation equipment:
MTIAcoustic Amp Rack - 2021+ Ford Bronco amp rack (both amps will be mounted here, last piece to order, if any one from MTI is on here feel free to reach out)
LPHFD31 - Ford T-Harness, plugs into the back of the factory radio (non-B&O systems only — if your Bronco has the factory B&O package this harness won't work, confirm what you have before ordering. Will post how to wire one of these yourself, when I get there)
MISC installation equipment - Ferrules, Tesa Tape, Zip ties
18/4 Speed wire - OFC 18 gauge 4 conductor wire - This is used to run to the LPHFD31 harness
KnuKonceptz -Kolossus 4 Gauge OFC Amplifier Installation Kit
Subwoofer enclosure - Had to be custom for the subwoofer - 2021-2025 Ford Bronco Tailgate Subwoofer Enclosure Sub Box Single 12" | eBay (Seller is great, and will work with you on specs)
Bass Blocker- Parts-Express Dayton Audio DMPC-47 47uF 250V Polypropylene Capacitor (There are cheaper versions out there than this one, but it was in stock) — wired in series as a safety net on the tweeter line in case the DSP ever fails, not as the actual crossover
For channel mapping, the M28 tweeters get channels 1 and 2, the TM65 midbass gets channels 3 and 4, and 5/6 are staying reserved in case I ever go 3-way down the road. RCA out 1 feeds the sub signal to the CX800.1, RCA out 2 is spare. Signal comes in off the back of the factory radio through the LPHFD31 harness, runs through ADEP.3, and all four driver channels get amplified straight off the 206. I could run the rear pods off the extra 2 channels if I wanted to, but I don't. The Kicker Key200.4 is coming out entirely.
For crossover points, I'm starting with the tweeters high-passed at 24dB/octave around 2000Hz, the midbass low-passed at the same point and high-passed around 80Hz (same slope), and the sub low-passed around 56-60Hz, half an octave below the midbass high-pass to account for the phase shift. Left and right will be set identical on both crossover point and slope, any side-to-side differences in how it actually sounds in the car will get fixed with delay and level/EQ instead of moving the crossover points around. I'll dial all of this in for real once it's installed, running REW with a calibrated mic against a pink noise sweep, doing polarity first, then delay, then crossovers, then level/EQ, then confirming with the RTA.
Between the four channels solving the 300Hz crossover ceiling that was smearing vocals into the kick panel driver, the DSP's own gain structure solving the clipping-at-volume-20 problem I had with the Key200.4, and moving both amps up onto the MTI rack instead of under the seat where they're exposed to the wash-out floor, I'm hoping this addresses everything that bugged me about stages 1 through 3 in one shot.
Will update this thread with photos and notes as parts come in, including a walkthrough of building the LPHFD31 harness by hand. Planning to install the weekend after next.
Since I don't want to post without at least one picture, here is my Bronco(ignore my poor editing)
About 10 years ago, I tried my hand at SQ competition builds, and told myself I didn't want to go down that rabbit hole again.
I did a ton of research, and noticed most people landed on Kicker speakers and a Key Amp. I had plenty of monoblock amps laying around. The first thing I tried was replacing all speakers with Infinity Reference speakers on factory power. This was not that noticeable of a change and had a loss of midbass. Next I ordered the Kicker Key200.4 amp and wired it in. I bought one of the behind the glovebox metal mounts to mount the Kicker Key. The wiring was relatively straight forward, I ran new speaker wire to both dash locations and to both kick panels from the amplifier. Then for the signal wire, I used the speaker adapter harness to tap into the factory kick panel signal and ran that to the inputs of the Kicker. With replacement speakers in I was hopeful it would sound better. All in all took an afternoon to install.
The Bronco is one of the easiest cars I've ever wired audio into. I put the Kicker in bi-amp mode and ran the autotune. After testing 3 things immediately came to my attention. The first was there was a total lack of bass, while the audio all around was louder and clearer it was missing any type of bottom end. Second, I was unable to apply any gain to the Kicker amp before it would start clipping (this was at volume 20), and the third thing I noticed, was I did not like vocals coming from my feet as that takes away from the image.
In comes stage 3 of this build. I had some Focal mid basses laying around my garage from an old install, those replaced the Infinity coaxials in the kick panels. This cleaned up my sound a bit more and gave a slight improvement to the bottom end. There still was a lack of bass, and if the top was down or off you could forget hearing anything below around 160Hz while moving. I then removed the rear floor in the cargo area and sound dampened it. I purchased the Stinger under the seat mount and mounted a Kicker CX800.1 and threw a JBL W12GTi MkII 12" subwoofer in the cargo area.
These 2 additions made a huge difference, but 3 things were still bothering me. I didn't like using coaxials as my dash drivers, mainly because the Kicker amp would not let me set a crossover above ~300Hz. I did not want a 4" driver to play that low. The second part of this, was despite the JBL and box weighing close to 100 lbs, I was still always concerned someone would steal it out of the car while I was parked. I live in a nice area but Atlanta is not far. The third thing I didn't like was the amp being mounted under the seat. My Bronco came with the wash out interior, and I was afraid that over time that amp would eventually see water and get fried.
This brings me to stage 4 of this build, which is why I decided to make a build thread. I've now decided to say screw it and go full tilt on an SQ build, despite the less-than-ideal environment for one. I haven't seen much for builds at this level for this platform yet, so figured I'd document it as I go.
I'll be pulling all of the stage 2/3 equipment out and completely redoing the audio in this truck, going fully active this time instead of leaning on a fixed crossover amp.
On order I have:
For Audio Equipment -
Stereo Integrity - M28 Tweeters Stereo Integrity -
Stereo Integrity - TM65 Mid ranges
Stereo Integrity - BM-11 Shallow mount Subwoofer
Helix - Amplify 206 DSP 6 channel amp/8 channel DSP
Kicker - CX800.1 Monoblock Amplifier (carried over from stage 3)
For Installation equipment:
MTIAcoustic Amp Rack - 2021+ Ford Bronco amp rack (both amps will be mounted here, last piece to order, if any one from MTI is on here feel free to reach out)
LPHFD31 - Ford T-Harness, plugs into the back of the factory radio (non-B&O systems only — if your Bronco has the factory B&O package this harness won't work, confirm what you have before ordering. Will post how to wire one of these yourself, when I get there)
MISC installation equipment - Ferrules, Tesa Tape, Zip ties
18/4 Speed wire - OFC 18 gauge 4 conductor wire - This is used to run to the LPHFD31 harness
KnuKonceptz -Kolossus 4 Gauge OFC Amplifier Installation Kit
Subwoofer enclosure - Had to be custom for the subwoofer - 2021-2025 Ford Bronco Tailgate Subwoofer Enclosure Sub Box Single 12" | eBay (Seller is great, and will work with you on specs)
Bass Blocker- Parts-Express Dayton Audio DMPC-47 47uF 250V Polypropylene Capacitor (There are cheaper versions out there than this one, but it was in stock) — wired in series as a safety net on the tweeter line in case the DSP ever fails, not as the actual crossover
For channel mapping, the M28 tweeters get channels 1 and 2, the TM65 midbass gets channels 3 and 4, and 5/6 are staying reserved in case I ever go 3-way down the road. RCA out 1 feeds the sub signal to the CX800.1, RCA out 2 is spare. Signal comes in off the back of the factory radio through the LPHFD31 harness, runs through ADEP.3, and all four driver channels get amplified straight off the 206. I could run the rear pods off the extra 2 channels if I wanted to, but I don't. The Kicker Key200.4 is coming out entirely.
For crossover points, I'm starting with the tweeters high-passed at 24dB/octave around 2000Hz, the midbass low-passed at the same point and high-passed around 80Hz (same slope), and the sub low-passed around 56-60Hz, half an octave below the midbass high-pass to account for the phase shift. Left and right will be set identical on both crossover point and slope, any side-to-side differences in how it actually sounds in the car will get fixed with delay and level/EQ instead of moving the crossover points around. I'll dial all of this in for real once it's installed, running REW with a calibrated mic against a pink noise sweep, doing polarity first, then delay, then crossovers, then level/EQ, then confirming with the RTA.
Between the four channels solving the 300Hz crossover ceiling that was smearing vocals into the kick panel driver, the DSP's own gain structure solving the clipping-at-volume-20 problem I had with the Key200.4, and moving both amps up onto the MTI rack instead of under the seat where they're exposed to the wash-out floor, I'm hoping this addresses everything that bugged me about stages 1 through 3 in one shot.
Will update this thread with photos and notes as parts come in, including a walkthrough of building the LPHFD31 harness by hand. Planning to install the weekend after next.
Since I don't want to post without at least one picture, here is my Bronco(ignore my poor editing)
Sponsored
