Yet Another Stereo Upgrade Thread: Kicker Sub with Inifiniti 4"

[SixGDoubleB]

I know this subject has been hounded nearly to death. But I'm posting my experience and questions anyway. Might help someone else. I do not work for Kicker nor Inifinity nor Crutchfield and I receive no form of compensation from anyone for this post.

I do not think of myself as an audiophile. I just wanted some bass and better guitar notes. This truck is my daily driver and constant companion. I began this process in stages, hoping to not over-spend. This sort of worked out.

First step was bass. My Big Bend 2-door came with the sub-woofer delete. So I ordered a Kicker 8" 48CWRT84, Kicker Key 500 amp, and Kicker 46CXARCT bass knob. I wound up buying all at Crutchfield. The salesman there was excellent -- he spent 45 minutes on the phone with me, making sure I was on the right track.

The installer -- awesome guy, great job -- had to cut a hole in the factory sub-woofer box, but both components fit. Final result is decent -- at least I have bass. It’s not “midrange” bass where you can hear the bass guitar clearly. It’s an ambient fill sound. There is a “boomy, echo-ey” quality to it with some music at higher settings. That aspect is not great. In the end, I would probably have been better off with a smaller sub-woofer. I think there is a 6.75” model that would have slotted into the factory location without cutting.

The bass knob is essential to the success of this setup. Rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, classical are all fine under most dial locations. But some music I listen to (trap, drums and bass) has crazy low frequencies that cause the woofer to buzz. This is partly because the woofer is wedged into that relatively small compartment. Without the bass knob, I likely would not be able to listen to certain types of music at all.

At this point I was $950 in for the sub, amp, knob, and installation. I was hoping the setup would be good enough with the factory speakers. The Crutchfield tech told me that the Kicker Key Amp brings two features that may justify its price:

1) At install, the amp apparently runs a “tone test” that equalizes the audio across the factory speakers.

2) The expert told me that factory speakers have bass frequencies removed from them, and the Kicker Key restores some of these frequencies.

I can’t say whether the two features are operative, nor whether the factory speaker sound improved. I did hear that the result, although much better than before with “thump and thud” and very well managed with the knob, was still disappointing.

So a month later I went back to Crutchfield, armed with this link:

https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/thre...ctful-speaker-upgrade-plus-forscan-mod.37186/

I bought four Infinity Reference speakers model 4032CFX. Research – and the Crutchfield expert, another 45-minute call -- showed that it’s best to put bass blockers on all. I bought the tools to self-install because it looks pretty easy.

I asked my installer how much he would charge: $165.00. Since I was taking the truck over there anyway to have him evaluate the Kicker buzz at heavy frequencies, I figured I would let him do this install as well.

He told me the bass blockers were ruining the sound of the Infinitys, so after testing, he removed them. He assured me that I could not blow these speakers with this setup. I’m still on the factory amplifier. Bass blocker verdict: Waste of time.

Result: WAAAYYYY better sound. On top of the thump, I now have “crunch,” great treble, and the bass guitar is more audible. My typical max volume is level 16 on the dial, which is LOUD, so there’s another 40% of the dial available if I ever want to try it.

I have not done any Forscan mods. I don’t have a Windows laptop, so this would be a real investment. Even a used laptop with the cable would be minimum $400.00.

The “boomy” quality is still audible. This can be reduced with the bass knob, but that also reduces the good thunder. I’m not sure to what degree the Kicker, factory amp, the cramped space for the sub-woofer, and the vehicle itself are all involved in this not-great hollow echo. Not all music has this aspect, but I wish I knew of a fix.

A friend told me that at this point, I should have the Ford dealer plug in Forscan to try to equalize the sound. Well, I don’t have the confidence that Ford dealers really know how to do this. Do they?

I’m now thinking I will look into new “kick panel” speakers, as these could fill in low-end and mids better than the current setup. But as my current investment stands at $1500.00, this is for next year. The $1500 has gotten me pretty far, with a setup that sounds really good overall. I may just stop here and live with it.

But I do feel that the sound can still improve. I’m just not sure what to do next. Also I’m not sure whether I’ve done the right thing to-date. Yeah, it’s a lot better, but I’m mixing and matching in what may be an amateur manner, and I’m not sure the Kicker Key was worth it at $275, when a basic $75.00 amplifier can drive that Kicker Sub. Does the Key really provide equalization across all the other speakers? Also, I suspect that a smaller 6.75” sub would have been the right choice, and saved a few bucks.

All comments welcome.

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[Brian_B]

Great post. I run almost the same system, and hit upon it piecemeal in much the same way.

If you seal the port on the back of the enclosure, the bass will tighten up considerably. It's a bit of a challenge to do, but it sounds much better, and you have more than enough power to run it sealed (I'm running the same speaker as you in it right now, with a 500W Kenwood). I also have the 6.5 - it requires a bit of adjustment to fit (at least if you want to screw it in), but you don't have to recut the hole. I replaced that with the 8" trying to fix the same boominess you are seeing (err.. hearing), and ultimately it was sealing the port that did what I was looking for. Now it sounds great. There's still a little drop off at some frequencies, but it isn't drastic like it was with the port vented - where one note will rattle the windows and the next is a whisper.

Also - the Key amp doesn't restore any of the tone, like your salesperson said. You have to do that with Forscan, and you can do it with any amp. The nice thing about the Key is that it has some nice harnesses that make it plug and play, and it fits cleanly up under the dash, and it's not a bad amp - so you didn't get a bad deal, just not the whole story. What you paid extra for the amp you probably saved in installation labor since the guy didn't have to make custom harnesses and figure out some custom install.

Your dealer ~might~ do Forscan, they can do it with the factory tool, but some won't touch it since it's outside of normal service. Worth a call to ask since you upgraded to an aftermarket amp. It's easy enough to do yourself with just a compatible ODB2 dongle, and there are plenty of walk throughs around here. Sometimes people in your area will do them too.

I do agree about Bass Blockers on the infinity - they sound much better without them. They have their own blocker for the 2-way tweeter anyway. I tried them as well, they lasted almost a week and I ended up yanking them out on a long trip sitting at a gas station, it bothered me so much.

In my experience, Kick panels will help your sound stage some - they really help fill out that midrange nicely (I have the matching infinities to your dash in mine), but they don't put out a lot. The heavy lifting is done by the dash speakers. A lot of people like to put woofers there, I think that may work out well if you haven't done the subwoofer, but you have the sub and that will be vastly better than any woofer you could put in at the kick panel anyway. I'd say much the same thing about upgrading the rear pods to 6.5s - it won't do much for you up in the front seat past what just upgrading the 4" in there will do, but people sitting in the back say it does sound better with them.

 

[SixGDoubleB]

Thank you! My responses and questions in indents below.

>>If you seal the port on the back of the enclosure, the bass will tighten up considerably.

OK, thanks! When you say "port on the back of the enclosure," I'm not sure what you mean. My Kicker Sub and Key Amp are housed in the factory "triangle" roughly above the passenger-side rear wheel. (My installer told me that the best way to handle the sub would be to install a large box somewhere in the vehicle, but I did not want to give up any trunk space, so I knew I was compromising in some sense, so I take responsibility for the results.)​

​

So what enclosure do you mean, and where is this port?​

>>Also - the Key amp doesn't restore any of the tone, like your salesperson said. You have to do that with Forscan, and you can do it with any amp.

OK! I was grateful to have Crutchfield and I wholeheartedly recommend them. Would absolutely buy from them again. But the sales guy, helpful as could be, was incorrect about the tone restoration and the bass blockers.​

​

My question here is, I'm still using the factory amp for the four Infinitys and the two Ford kick panels. The Key is assigned ONLY to the sub. My installer told me that the Key is a single-purpose amp. Also it is packed into the triangle so I don't have easy access to it.​

​

So it's puzzling to me how Forscan, with the factory amp on one side, will equalize the 6 speakers to the sub, with the Kicker on the other side.​

>>Your dealer ~might~ do Forscan, they can do it with the factory tool, but some won't touch it since it's outside of normal service. Worth a call to ask since you upgraded to an aftermarket amp. It's easy enough to do yourself with just a compatible ODB2 dongle, and there are plenty of walk throughs around here. Sometimes people in your area will do them too.

I don't mind doing Forscan myself. I do have an iPad but not a Windows laptop. But I hear the iPad app doesn't work properly and I don't want to buy a Windows laptop for this purpose.​

​

So I guess I'll try to find someone around here that does Forscan.​

>>I do agree about Bass Blockers on the infinity - they sound much better without them. They have their own blocker for the 2-way tweeter anyway. I tried them as well, they lasted almost a week and I ended up yanking them out on a long trip sitting at a gas station, it bothered me so much.

I know that with the Bronco 6G we are in uncharted audio territory, so I don't blame Crutchfield. He wasn't the only one incorrect about bass blockers for these Infinitys. There's a giant argument in a thread about this on this message board. There are some very knowledgeable people insisting that the bass blockers are essential to protect the speakers from blowing out. These posters sound like real audio experts. Really this is a puzzle to me, why all these audio people insist on bass blockers. I'm not going to turn the volume up past level 20 -- level 16 sounds loud enough with the roof on, anyway -- so is this behavior protecting my Infinitys? Would they blow at max volume?​

 

[Brian_B]

So what enclosure do you mean, and where is this port?

The enclosure is the box the subwoofer is mounted into. If you pull the trim pieces off so you can see the sub, the enclosure is held onto the body by 4 bolts. It's kind of built like a conch shell - it winds around internally and there's a small 4"x4" (or so) square hole on the back side - that's the port.

Subwoofers need some back pressure to work right, and they typically do it via one of a few methods: a sealed box, a ported box (that's what the OEM is), or a band-pass box are the most common. There's a lot of math that goes into how much volume the box needs to have internally, the size and depth of a vents, etc. It all depends on the speaker specifications. Ideally, you would build a box specifically for your speaker, and it would yield the best possible sound. The OEM enclosure is "close enough" for the Kickers as a sealed box, but as a ported box they aren't very good. So if you just seal that port in the back and make the box airtight, it will sound a lot better.

The trick is sealing the hole without changing the internal volume of the box too much.

So it's puzzling to me how Forscan, with the factory amp on one side, will equalize the 6 speakers to the sub, with the Kicker on the other side.

The Factory radio has a sort-of built-in Equalizer, and by default it limits the sound to the 4" speakers. Forscan can turn that off so all the speakers get full range. This is different than the normal Bass/Mid/Treble sliders in Sync - it's more like a digital version of a bass blocker. Your Key sub amp can only amplify from the signals it gets, and by default it should have a low pass and will block all the high stuff. Without unlocking the factory radio via Forscan the amp can't get the full signal; the bass signal is already gone from the head unit, and the amp is stripping out the high stuff the sub can't play anyway, there won't be much signal left.

I don't mind doing Forscan myself. I do have an iPad but not a Windows laptop. But I hear the iPad app doesn't work properly and I don't want to buy a Windows laptop for this purpose.

The iOS and WIndows apps are different. You can see stuff but can't make any changes with the iOS app - makes it decent for running as a monitor while you are driving down the road. But yeah, you need the Windows version to write changes.

Really this is a puzzle to me, why all these audio people insist on bass blockers.

Every speaker brand is a bit different - very likely bass blockers ~do~ help with many brands. It's just the Infinities don't really need them (in my opinion) to sound good. I have heard of blowing subwoofers without having a low pass (your Key likely has one internally), but I've never heard of damaging a tweeter or midrange with too much bass signal - other than just the standard "You are running it too loud". If the speaker needs a bass blocker, it will tend to sound muddy and not very clear.

I also agree with your sentiment about Crutchfield. One of my favorite places to purchase from, and extremely good (one of the best I'd say) with after-sales support and making sure you get everything you may possibly need to have your installation be successful.

 

[Area51BS]

Factory only limits bass to rear channels. Defeatable with Forscan. Front is full range with no bass removed except OEM bass blockers on dash speakers.

 

[SixGDoubleB]

The enclosure is the box the subwoofer is mounted into.

The trick is sealing the hole without changing the internal volume of the box too much.

Got it, I understand now. Thanks.

The Factory radio has a sort-of built-in Equalizer, and by default it limits the sound to the 4" speakers. Forscan can turn that off so all the speakers get full range.

Clear now, thanks.

The iOS and WIndows apps are different. You can see stuff but can't make any changes with the iOS app - makes it decent for running as a monitor while you are driving down the road. But yeah, you need the Windows version to write changes.

OK, understood.

Every speaker brand is a bit different - very likely bass blockers ~do~ help with many brands. It's just the Infinities don't really need them (in my opinion) to sound good.

OK.

I also agree with your sentiment about Crutchfield. One of my favorite places to purchase from, and extremely good (one of the best I'd say) with after-sales support and making sure you get everything you may possibly need to have your installation be successful.

Right on. If necessary, I will pay a premium (as long as it is reasonable) for vendors like Crutchfield. In my case, across two purchases, the salesman spent 1.5 hours on the phone. Sweetwater is similar in my experience.

I thoroughly read three or four other threads on this subject before I began this project. If all this information was in those threads, I did not digest it. I hope this thread will provide a more succinct resource.

Thank you for your time and knowledge.

 

[FreddieLee]

People really need to stop implying that Forscan changes result in "full range" because it simply does not.

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