Question for you car audio guys.

CFLJeeper said:

You will be surprised(in an unpleasant way) how much the sound changes, specifically the bass, with the top off. I even have a soft top, and I can notice a massive difference. Not that it doesn't sound good still, but there is a huge difference. I'm running 6.5 focal coaxials up front, custom fit focal 6x9's in a the soundbar, and a sundown audio 10" sub in a sealed box all powered off an arc audio 900.6 amp, as a frame of reference. The first time I had my top off I thought something had gone wrong with the sub....

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PEACEMAKER1 said:

Well yes of course the bass disappears. But hopefully your speakers still sound great. I would never build a box that big for my jeep to have good bass with the top off because I wouldn't want that much room taken up for just a speaker set-up...but yeah I know what you mean for sure. Sound like you have a sick set-up with the 6x9's. I thought about going that way but decided to stay with the standard 6.5s.

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CFLJeeper said:

Honestly the only reason I shoe-horned in the 6x9's was because they were great speakers and I already had them from a previous vehicle set up. It ended up being much more work than I'd imagined, I had to build custom adapters/spacers so the depth would fit, grind away waay more plastic than I originally felt comfortable doing, modify the grills to fit the adapter rings, etc. If I were purchasing new, I would have gone with component 6.5's in the sound bar as well. 6.5's can arguably produce better sound than 6x9's IMO. One thing that I did that I believe made a huge difference was spray foam insulated the entire sound bar, and also dynomatted the speaker cavities. The JK sound bars are prone to rattle, and this alleviated any rattling what-so-ever. I also used polyfill in the dash speaker pods.

The end result is pretty damn good. Even with the doors and top off I can still hear my music clearly doing 75 down the highway. I had two 10's in the previous vehicle ported directly into the cabin, but opted for only one in the Jeep for the exact reasons you mentioned. I still need to fit all of my camping and wheeling gear in the thing, and wanted minimal space taken up from the stereo. The low end definitely lacks from what I'd really like, but it was a worthwhile sacrifice to have a usable rig.

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45caljeep said:

JL audio rd class d 5ch for mids and high and a w3 8” sub in stock sub inclosure and rd class d 1000 to W7 12” ... wired a switch into stock sub box so daily driving it’s off the. When going out camping and wheeling put the W7 in the garage and flip to switch and have a little bass from the w3 8” in the stock box


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CFLJeeper said:

That sounds awesome, and is a great idea. Question, how do you handle the tuning difference between the 12 and the 8?

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CFLJeeper said:

You will be surprised(in an unpleasant way) how much the sound changes, specifically the bass, with the top off. I even have a soft top, and I can notice a massive difference. Not that it doesn't sound good still, but there is a huge difference. I'm running 6.5 focal coaxials up front, custom fit focal 6x9's in a the soundbar, and a sundown audio 10" sub in a sealed box all powered off an arc audio 900.6 amp, as a frame of reference. The first time I had my top off I thought something had gone wrong with the sub....

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Ruvicon said:

I removed the stock sub and built my own using a JL Audio 12” W2 and stuffed it here out of the way. The box was the perfect dimensions for this sub.
View attachment 320360

It’s driven by an Alpine PDX-V9 5 channel amp. Which still hits hard without the top on, of course not as good as when the top is on. I mounted the amp under front passenger seat.
View attachment 320361

This amp has an option for a quick bass adjustment which I installed on the center console for ease of fine tuning.
View attachment 320362

I also replaced all the speakers with Morel Hybrids up front and Morel Tempos in the soundbar.

It sounds really clean along with my Alpine deck.


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45caljeep said:

View attachment 320417 View attachment 320418 View attachment 320419 View attachment 320420 View attachment 320421 View attachment 320422 View attachment 320423
Here is some pics


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VeruGE*144 said:

I run Alpine PDX5 (discontinued but you can still find it on eBay), mounted under the seat with a home made bracket. There also is a marine version which I wish I have gotten after filling up the tub with water one time. The is amp 500w I believe. 75w x 4ch and 300w x 1ch. You want to match up RMS wattage of the speakers as close as you can to what the amp is rated for. Only look at RMS watts. You want to use component speakers and tweeters will branch of of those. I added tweeters on the sound bar as well. Most tweeters should also fit in the factory dash board with a little finesse. Depending on how far you want to take this, you would also want to replace a head unit and use RCA cables to connect between the head unit and the amp and run all new wiring to all the speakers form the amp. Thicker the wire clearer the sound, I think I used 12ga wire, 100’ roll did the whole Jeep with some to spare. Head unit doesn’t have to be anything fancy since the amp will be doing all the work, just needs to have RCA connection. Then you still need a good power wire to power up the AMP, don’t go cheap on that.
There is ways to wire the aftermarket amp to factory head unit and reuse the factory speaker wiring, I was digging into it but decided it was easier to and less frustrating to upgrade everything. Sounds great in my opinion btw, still plenty of sound with top and doors of.
Let me know you have any questions, I’ll be happy to help.

Here’s what I did to fit the tweeters in the dash, toothpicks and some hot glue [emoji854]
View attachment 319602

Amp fits under the seat nicely, you can tweak it once installed under seat and it even has little cover plate for the adjustment knobs. I made the bracket to where I can drop it without removing the seat.
View attachment 319603
View attachment 319604
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