Mabett 6.5" Rear Speaker Pods Available Now!

[ChrisB351]

@Mabett Do you have the clearance dimension between the speaker and grill? On the site the diagram shows that if the tweeter sits up higher than the speaker itself it wont clear.

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[Dusty]

https://www.amazon.com/promocode/A36GDPAYXRUI1I

Ordered! Now please make us some Bed Rail Caps!

 

[RowsKing]

Do these fit the Raptor with the extra rear brace?

 

[Blu6GBronco]

Whelp y'all, Amazon dropped these off a bit earlier and I'm quickly back here with early feedback.

The good news? I think these work for the 2-door without headache or modification. I uninstalled the driver-side OEM pod and dry-fitted the unloaded new one with loose screw-ins. So that's looking good. They're not done yet, so I am still prepared for a headache.

Great news #2: You don't have to have your hard top off for this one. All 6 bolts that hold the pod in place are T30 bolts. For some reason, my Bronco toolkit T30 bit was just a hair too big to fit, but a quick trip to the hardware store and a 1" shank T30 bit later, the bolts are out without even a scraped knuckle.

The uninspiring news? These clips are somehow more fragile than my ex-gf's ego. I couldn't have been more caring and gentle (with either), yet somehow after lovingly prying the face off of the speaker pod I was greeted with a broken clip bouncing around inside the pod. I'm used to small details handwork, and I don't know how I could have treated this thing any gentler. Oh well.

Oh - and if anyone is curious about a 1-1 size comparison with the OEMs? I'm thinking ahead for y'all. Enjoy the "I only have X minutes to complete this before the rest of my weekend schedule impludes" shoddy boom mat work for the Infinity Reference speakers I've had in for a while.

Careful buyer FYI: The quick connectors are bare wires, so if you want a clean plug then be ready to have those on hand. Most established speaker brands provide their own connectors, so if you're buying quality this is only a splice job between both bare sets.

Visually:
What's provided is the system quick disconnector (left wire set), which has the plastic that clicks in at the top, and that ends in bare wire. White is POS, brown is NEG. The right wire set is what was provided by Kicker. The wire terminals slide right on the back of the speaker, and bare wire at the ends too.

Enjoy my hilariously bad soldering here, trying to splice these two wires as stable as possible:

And for cleanliness and durability (and hiding that disaster of a soldering job), heat-shrink over the splice.

Side-by-side of the actual pod with speakers in:

As the red text indicates, if you're installing 6.5" Kicker CS's, leave that speaker cover off. The Mabett lid doesn't close if the speaker cover is on. I'm sure that's probably already well known, but I didn't know it.

EDIT 2 - 7:15pm - after installation

Results are in... 2-door owners buy with confidence. This fits the 2D very well!

Immediate improvement in sound (non-B&O) - better volume and mids. Tomorrow I guess I bite down and do the FORSCAN thing for full-range. That makes me nervous.

@negativezero

Thanks for the write up.

Ironically I'm just starting to go down this road as well, albeit I ended up going with all Focal ACX series ( Already replaces the 4" in dash, 6.5" in front kicks, and now 6.5" for rears with Mabett's larger pods ).

Full disclaimer I'm no audiophile and have no interest to rattle doors... So I've yet to go down road of amps, subs, etc, etc.

All said, similar to the path it sounds you are now on, It sounds like Forescan adjustments might be appropriate for when I throw in the new 6.5" in rears. I've done a little lite reading via misc threads about Forescan ( I know next to nothing about / no experience with prior... ).

Given I'm essentially following in your Forescan footsteps and I'm likely 1-2 weeks behind you depending upon when my parts are arriving, if you have any hints / pointers for what / how you end up adjusting via Forescan for what sounds like a very similar setup, I'd appreciate it. ( FYI - I'm also coming from 4 Dr, Hardtop, Non-B&O system ).

I purchased the OBD2 cable to use with Forescan however that's as far as I got so far. Lol. Speakers don't arrive until next week anyways...

Keep me posted !

 

[Ibuprofen3293]

When you receive the speaker pods and install them successfully, let me know and I will refund the difference to you

Refund of price difference without any conditions! Just to prevent returns due to special circumstances, so just after successful installation, the price difference can be refunded without any conditions

This is awesome! I also ordered after @negativezero ’s review and before the promo code. I hope to have them installed this weekend with the 6.5” version of the Hertz CX’s I just put in the dash today.

 

[fallguy]

Received in today, installed very easily. Quality was as expected, everything lined up just right. No broken clips, but miraculously the sun came out and was nice as warn during install. Put 6.5" kickers in them, had 4" kicker prior too. Sound is MUCH better.

Lined the pods first, trying to make it sound as good as possible.

Have 4" kickers up front, tried to put in 6.5" panels in. Like a dumbass, thought they'd just screw in, but the stock ones seem to be built into a bracket, annoyingly. Guess I'll look for that next.

Kicker key is here, waiting on harness though. Slowly getting there. 2 door here, no top removal necessary like others stated. VERY happy.

Only change I would do, is allow the rubber plug from the stock pod to fit in this one. The plug is just too big to fit in that hole where it could go. I could have widened it up some, but didnt figure it was that important really. Removing the stock one and putting it in here would be nice though. I try not to get caught in rain too much, and I just used electrical tape to try and secure the hole that the wire comes out of.

 

[dznyc]

Just finished my installation this morning with kicker 6.5s as well. No issues or broken clips. I was a bit confused by the additional brackets in the box, as there was no mention of them in either the printed instructions or the online installation video. I ended up not using them, but did notice the screws were a bit difficult to line up on the top of the pods... maybe the included brackets would have helped this. Either way, great product and a nice sound difference. Definitely going to look into the Forscan adjustment.

 

[HeHateMe]

Ordered! Now please make us some Bed Rail Caps!

Those have been available! By many brands... Mabett just now being one of them recently though I can't find his product.

Here's one similar... Is this what you mean?

 

[margareedaville]

Looking at these for my 2-Door. Any thoughts in using these 6.5's, wired in series - Would their 4" depth, fit? https://a.co/d/4hW4wmn

 

[rtazz17]

6.75 vs 6.5" is only like 7.8% more surface area, but it's not going to sound 7.8% better. I imagine the differences are near negligible, particularly if they're not driven by a sub and/or played approaching max wattage.

doesnt make much of a difference from front seat imo. Maybe for back seat passengers.Maybe in a 2 door its noticable but no difference in my 4 door.I Did forescan change as well,no difference. Not to my human ears anyways. Maybe there is a placebo effect,lol

 

[Blu6GBronco]

doesnt make much of a difference from front seat imo. Maybe for back seat passengers.Maybe in a 2 door its noticable but no difference in my 4 door.I Did forescan change as well,no difference. Not to my human ears anyways. Maybe there is a placebo effect,lol

Hey Rtazz, curious what did you tweak via forescan for the 6.5" upgrade? ( I've not even seen the forescan user interface prior, so this will be my first attempt to see what is available to tweak ).

Thanks

 

[Drinxxs04]

Received in today, installed very easily. Quality was as expected, everything lined up just right. No broken clips, but miraculously the sun came out and was nice as warn during install. Put 6.5" kickers in them, had 4" kicker prior too. Sound is MUCH better.

Lined the pods first, trying to make it sound as good as possible.

Have 4" kickers up front, tried to put in 6.5" panels in. Like a dumbass, thought they'd just screw in, but the stock ones seem to be built into a bracket, annoyingly. Guess I'll look for that next.

Kicker key is here, waiting on harness though. Slowly getting there. 2 door here, no top removal necessary like others stated. VERY happy.

Only change I would do, is allow the rubber plug from the stock pod to fit in this one. The plug is just too big to fit in that hole where it could go. I could have widened it up some, but didnt figure it was that important really. Removing the stock one and putting it in here would be nice though. I try not to get caught in rain too much, and I just used electrical tape to try and secure the hole that the wire comes out of.

Kicker cs 6.5 looks like? Did they fit and have enough clearance with the tweeter? A few post earlier said CS’s won’t allow for the cover to close.

 

[dznyc]

Kicker cs 6.5 looks like? Did they fit and have enough clearance with the tweeter? A few post earlier said CS’s won’t allow for the cover to close.

My kickers looked exactly like that and the front cover of the speaker pods went on without hitting the tweeter, no problem.

 

[fraserjr]

@Mabett any chance you could offer a bracket that would allow these speaker to swivel rearward for tailgating, etc?

 

[negativezero]

Given I'm essentially following in your Forescan footsteps and I'm likely 1-2 weeks behind you depending upon when my parts are arriving, if you have any hints / pointers for what / how you end up adjusting via Forescan for what sounds like a very similar setup, I'd appreciate it. ( FYI - I'm also coming from 4 Dr, Hardtop, Non-B&O system ).

I purchased the OBD2 cable to use with Forescan however that's as far as I got so far. Lol. Speakers don't arrive until next week anyways...

Keep me posted !

Of course!

I ran it through Forscan and made some changes, but I'm not too sure it was a huge upgrade. In the ACM module, I changed the first line from 382B to 3800, and in the second line from 0901 to 0900.

Others are reporting a profound impact with those changes, but that wasn't my case.

Forscan results for me may be largely masked though by the Pioneer mini-sub that I installed under my passenger seat. It contributes a lot to the low end, so my only real goal with the 6.5s was to put a little more meat in the mids and low-mids. Maybe I should unplug the sub and A/B the Forscan changes, but I haven't really had a lot of time this week to play around with it all.

Fire away any questions if you've got 'em! Happy to help and experiment however I can as we figure this whole thing out.

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