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H/K audio upgrade - VAST Improvment

The wattage isn't really what determines the volume, the wattage is in the amp, and it's set in a factory system. Most any of the aftermarket speakers will handle the factory amp wattage... thus how much wattage the speakers will handle will have little effect on the volume. The volume is determined by the sensitivity and the resistance of the speaker, which is why all the speakers we have been testing are higher in sensitivity and of the correct resistance so that we don't over-drive the amp. We've no issues improving sound quality with the factory system by swapping out speakers.

The factory system does not need more power to play loud... it's plenty loud in these trucks. Now... if you grab a speaker with low sensitivity, such as the JL Audio that I tested, this is a speaker that needs more power to sound it's best, and to produce the same SPL as the factory speakers. The JL is not designed for lower power like the Infinity, FaitalPRO, Hertz, Kicker and maybe a few others that are used frequently in factory replacement speaker systems. Most of us don't want to have to change out our headunit, as we like the factory unit, and we like the factory look. Recommending replacing the headunit is a serious no go for most of us, not to even get into the fact hardly anyone makes anything that would not require some very serious custom work to make it fit and look halfway respectable. Then you have a WHOLE lot more going on with the factory headunits than a radio... you have vehicle settings involved as well... you just can't replace the headunits in these new vehicles. Factory headunit to aftermarket amp... yes... that works and many of us do that... which is completely different.

What happens in some cases by those that don't do any research, they think that just because a speaker will handle more power, it will be louder, which again, has very little influence on how loud the system will play. However, I don't know any anyone in this forum that isn't doing their homework. These guys are smart and they are researching what is needed. They want a higher sensitivity speaker and the correct resistance (ohms) to match the factory system... and it's been working for us all very well.

I see that you have some knowledge here, but your wrong about speaker wattage, totally. Have you bothered to turn a speaker over before and looked at the mass on the backside of the basket... that's a magnet. Depending on the size of the magnet, will determine how much power is required to move it. Thats where its power requirement and handling capacity in watts comes in. A speaker can have a small magnet structure and in turn require less energy to power it or a big one and need more. The larger the magnet the higher the wattage it can handle because the magnetic field increases with magnet size therefore creating magnetic resistance which eats up power trying to move the coil/cone assembly(mass). Not going into that any further.

Sensitivity is going to as a result of the cone material and the surround, how light the cone is and the elasticity of the surround.

This is all a fairly simplified explanation because I am not an engineer and wont detail it like one.

And as I said the analogy of the radio replacement was a generalization of typical radio plus speaker systems not incorporating amplifiers such as most base model oem systems and primarily older vehicles.

And I am aware of the output of the amplifier in our trucks but there is indeed a correlation of a speakers magnet structure size in relation to audio output given a set amount of power when comparing speakers of the same diameter or size/shape.

I am not trying to get into a pissing match here but I am not some dope that just wandered into this field yesterday and received my expertise by exchanging parts almost randomly in my vehicles. In fact after having worked at many retailers, owned my own company for over 20 years and also having worked for a well known competition speaker/amplifier manufacturer, I am sure I have a knowledgeable grasp on what I am talking about.

But pardon my 2 cents since you seem to know it all.
 
Oh and I will mention that I am not going into ohms law, coil design, or anything else not really relative to my original comment... well because why bother. If you cant comprehend the extreme basics then it's a pointless discussion.

But I will add this tidbit... concert loud speakers dont have giant triple magnet structures, most have single, modestly sized magnets. Now given that the ohm load is 8 ohms vs 4 ohms like in an automobile, they are also powered by a/c powered amps vs 12 v ones in an automobile. The available amount of amperage available in an automotive system vs a practical a/c powered amp is a factor in the reason for the difference. But aside from that, a concert speaker with a modest sized magnet still has a great amount of sound even being pushed by less power. Free air vs enclosed. It's all relative. Now I am just rambling...
 
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I'll just bow out of the conversation since apparently I don't "know it all"... and I never claimed to, simply stating facts. Unsubscribed / unwatched... no time to argue.
 
I'll just bow out of the conversation since apparently I don't "know it all"... and I never claimed to, simply stating facts. Unsubscribed / unwatched... no time to argue.
[/QUOTE/] He worked at retailers like best buy
 
Wrong, never worked at BB... in fact only ever worked at one big box store ever, all the rest were actual car audio stores. In fact BB did not even exist when I started installing. But nice try...
I was putting car audio in when most of you weren't even born. Back when in order to put speakers in the front doors of pickups, you needed an air hammer. There were no "kits" or wiring harness adapters. Back when you actually had to fabricate and modify. You had to build your own boxes because there wasnt anything available except for angled 6x9 boxes. Back when the wires coming out of the radios did not all match, they were not standardized yet. You had to remember all the different wiring colors to every vehicle made. Back when idiots would bring in cars that they "installed" a radio themselves that didn't work and you would find they used blobs of duct tape to secure their connections. Back when NACA was the gold standard of competitions(and even before that). Back when stuff was actually made in Japan, before pretty much all the brands were made in China or Taiwan. Back when you actually could buy a car without a radio, speakers and an antenna! Because that's how they came...
 
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Thanks for the information, iwill do some digging and see what I can find. I'll go with the tuning option first-time see how good Ivan make the stock stuff sound, but most likely will go to a minimum of a floor mounted sub instead of the current one. Just not really wanting to get into running extra power wire at the moment. Trucks only 4 weeks old.
You can easily use a PAC AmpPRO to get signal from the headunit and add an aftermarket amp that takes the place of the factory amp. Bunches of folks have done this. I've done it on my last two RAM trucks. However, if I'm going to the trouble of adding an amp, I'm going to upgrade the speakers. These speakers are fine with the factory amp, provided you treat the doors properly and the rear wall, then disconnect the sub, or treat it like many others have with stuffing and dampening material. The door speakers don't need more power to sound good, they need the truck treated for resonant vibrations. The dash speakers... a different story... they can be improved on by replacement... but adding more power to the dash speakers is just going to make them worse, if anything, unless you use a DSP with the amp to tune them, then I still would be spending the money on an amp and DSP without replacing the speakers. At least not in my fully subjective opinion.
 
I got my H/K test box installed over the weekend .. totally different than the stock plastic.
The stock amp does clip out on a 2 ohm at good volume but the bass is much deeper.
With this setup (disconnected the stock sub over on the pass side), the mids and highs are WAY overpowering now. I'd love to see the schematics of that amp itself. Just disconnecting the stock sub didn't "improve" the mids/highs and I didn't want to get into replacing all the highs with the Alpines just yet.

Next box is going to be 4 inches wider ..

1596510288993.png
 
Oh don't worry about that... I also have some Hertz on order. I'm going to try several speakers. It's fun, and all of these are returnable, although in some cases it might cost me shipping or a small restocking fee.
Did you ever get around to trying anything from Hertz? Last I saw you kept with your Legatia's, but not sure I want to venture that deep. I was thinking maybe the ML 700.3 would work decently since it's only 1 dB less efficient than the 3FE22's I'm currently using.

 
I got my H/K test box installed over the weekend .. totally different than the stock plastic.
The stock amp does clip out on a 2 ohm at good volume but the bass is much deeper.
With this setup (disconnected the stock sub over on the pass side), the mids and highs are WAY overpowering now. I'd love to see the schematics of that amp itself. Just disconnecting the stock sub didn't "improve" the mids/highs and I didn't want to get into replacing all the highs with the Alpines just yet.

Next box is going to be 4 inches wider ..

View attachment 64299
i did the same as you.i built my own.since no one made it to the size we need. sorry if my vid is a bit to long but will give you and idea that i had to go the route you did......
 
Did you ever get around to trying anything from Hertz? Last I saw you kept with your Legatia's, but not sure I want to venture that deep. I was thinking maybe the ML 700.3 would work decently since it's only 1 dB less efficient than the 3FE22's I'm currently using.

I never did... since I went the Legatia route. However... I did put the Legatia speakers in my wife's Lexus and have not replaced mine just yet. I have the FaialPRO 4" in the dash right now, and they sound pretty good ... better than factory. I have a miniDSP with an amp to connect... just haven't had a chance to do it yet. I'll likely go back to the Legatia speakers.
 
I never did... since I went the Legatia route. However... I did put the Legatia speakers in my wife's Lexus and have not replaced mine just yet. I have the FaialPRO 4" in the dash right now, and they sound pretty good ... better than factory. I have a miniDSP with an amp to connect... just haven't had a chance to do it yet. I'll likely go back to the Legatia speakers.
you must have one hell of a system :love: (y)
 
Well I did until my wife stole it from me... but I do plan to reinstall it again.
 
Those Legatia's are a bit too rich for my blood (~$1,000 per speaker?), plus I didn't want to power them with an aftermarket amp. Only 1 day with the Hertz 700.3 ML's and so far I'm pretty pleased with them and they do just fine on the stock HK amp. May be worth trying!
 
The Legatia X3 is $979 for the pair. They are by far the best sounding dash speaker I've ever heard. I would definitely not try to run these off of the factory power. With a good quality aftermarket amp and DSP for timing, they are magical.

I've ran Hertz in a couple of my vehicles in the past and always liked them as well, and they are quite a bit more affordable, that is for sure. You can also run them off the factory amp, which saves you even more. These are perfect for those that don't want to spend a fortune for better sound.
 
For anyone reading this thread that doesn't want to go the extra mile like some are, if you just unplug your sub on the stock H/K system it's like a 100% improvement in sound. With the POS sub out of the picture the door 6x9's have plenty of bass and you can actually use the bass slider on your EQ. Just sayin.
 
The Alpine setup on my 2020 Laramie was vastly improved withe a set of the dash

Infinity Reference REF-3032cfx....snaged these from Crutchfiled with the harness for $48. Took 5 minutes to install and the front stage was improved vastly!!! It blows my mind the OEM speakers on a $60G truck can be improved so much for probably no extra cost. I was in the same boat on my Gen 4, it took $180 worth of kicker speakers to make the standard 6 speaker system sound like it should...Big 3 should hire a Best Buy installer to consult them on the audio systems​

 
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I never did... since I went the Legatia route. However... I did put the Legatia speakers in my wife's Lexus and have not replaced mine just yet. I have the FaialPRO 4" in the dash right now, and they sound pretty good ... better than factory. I have a miniDSP with an amp to connect... just haven't had a chance to do it yet. I'll likely go back to the Legatia speakers.
I've followed your posts pertaining to the HK audio system over a number of threads here and I feel you have a good grasp on the deficiencies of the HK RAM design. I hope you don't mind if I pass a few things by you as well as everyone else.

I'm a long-time audiophile and have built many home and vehicle sound systems, so I have a lot of experience in this area and a good ear. I just traded in a 2019 Subaru Ascent SUV for a 2021 RAM 1500 Limited. I was horrified to see that my Limited came with the HK sound system. This is because it's basically the same system that's used on the Ascent Premium models and sounds just as bad to my ears. Over on the Ascent forum, it's a huge topic of discussion and it's almost universally despised. When I got the RAM and started playing with its HK audio, it was Deja vu all over again. It sounds virtually identical to the Ascent's HK sound system.

However, the flaw, as I perceive it, is not only that the bass is too boomy (I could almost live with that), but rather that the mid-bass is way too weak, the upper mid-range is too pronounced, and the higher treble frequencies are incredibly harsh. Snare drums sound like they're being hit on paper skins, and guitar riffs and horns are almost painful. Overall, to my ears, it sounds like the equalization is incredibly skewed. At first, I thought it was just me, maybe my hearing is not as good as it used to be and perhaps, I was losing some mid-frequencies, but everyone I demo the sound to feels the same way. On the Ascent forum, this was the primary complaint, the boomy bass was a secondary topic. Yet on the RAM forum, the boomy bass is the primary complaint and I'm not reading about the issues with the weak mid-bass and harsh treble, which I find strange because it's so prominent. Who cares about only the bass if the damn thing sounds so bad across the more critical frequencies where most of the music is?

Additionally, no one here seems to be complaining about the astounding lack of a multi-band equalizer which is commonly found even on low to mid-level vehicle audio systems. With the equalization so far out of whack, a decent multi-band equalizer could go a long way to help correct things, but with only 3 very wide bands, this is simply not possible. I can't boost the mid-bass and lower the deeper bass at the same time, nor can I correct for the harsh treble without killing the other critical upper frequencies that are needed, and I can't correct for the tinny upper mid-range without ruining the vocals. The system is a nightmare. I have no idea how anyone at HK or RAM could think this was in any way acceptable.

I'm assuming that the amplifier's power is fine as it sounds clean enough even at high volumes with no undue clipping, and also that the OEM speakers are adequate enough to produce decent enough fidelity. Therefore, this could all possibly be resolved via a proper software upgrade. HK could remove whatever bizarre equalization they've hard programmed into the DSP and/or replace the ridiculously inadequate 3 band tone controls with a proper 10-band equalizer so at least we could correct for it ourselves for our own individual hearing and tastes.

So, without a software fix, I don't know where to begin fixing this thing via only the hardware. I've read about what some have done here, but I'm reluctant to duplicate that because it involves primarily the bass correction and doesn't seem to address the other critical frequency issues, unless I'm missing something.

I'm simply looking for a nice flat response across the frequency spectrum. That's really hard to do without a proper equalizer. You could play with different speakers and dampening methods forever and still not get it right. It's simply a hit or miss methodology, there must be a better way.
 
I've followed your posts pertaining to the HK audio system over a number of threads here and I feel you have a good grasp on the deficiencies of the HK RAM design. I hope you don't mind if I pass a few things by you as well as everyone else.

I'm a long-time audiophile and have built many home and vehicle sound systems, so I have a lot of experience in this area and a good ear. I just traded in a 2019 Subaru Ascent SUV for a 2021 RAM 1500 Limited. I was horrified to see that my Limited came with the HK sound system. This is because it's basically the same system that's used on the Ascent Premium models and sounds just as bad to my ears. Over on the Ascent forum, it's a huge topic of discussion and it's almost universally despised. When I got the RAM and started playing with its HK audio, it was Deja vu all over again. It sounds virtually identical to the Ascent's HK sound system.

However, the flaw, as I perceive it, is not only that the bass is too boomy (I could almost live with that), but rather that the mid-bass is way too weak, the upper mid-range is too pronounced, and the higher treble frequencies are incredibly harsh. Snare drums sound like they're being hit on paper skins, and guitar riffs and horns are almost painful. Overall, to my ears, it sounds like the equalization is incredibly skewed. At first, I thought it was just me, maybe my hearing is not as good as it used to be and perhaps, I was losing some mid-frequencies, but everyone I demo the sound to feels the same way. On the Ascent forum, this was the primary complaint, the boomy bass was a secondary topic. Yet on the RAM forum, the boomy bass is the primary complaint and I'm not reading about the issues with the weak mid-bass and harsh treble, which I find strange because it's so prominent. Who cares about only the bass if the damn thing sounds so bad across the more critical frequencies where most of the music is?

Additionally, no one here seems to be complaining about the astounding lack of a multi-band equalizer which is commonly found even on low to mid-level vehicle audio systems. With the equalization so far out of whack, a decent multi-band equalizer could go a long way to help correct things, but with only 3 very wide bands, this is simply not possible. I can't boost the mid-bass and lower the deeper bass at the same time, nor can I correct for the harsh treble without killing the other critical upper frequencies that are needed, and I can't correct for the tinny upper mid-range without ruining the vocals. The system is a nightmare. I have no idea how anyone at HK or RAM could think this was in any way acceptable.

I'm assuming that the amplifier's power is fine as it sounds clean enough even at high volumes with no undue clipping, and also that the OEM speakers are adequate enough to produce decent enough fidelity. Therefore, this could all possibly be resolved via a proper software upgrade. HK could remove whatever bizarre equalization they've hard programmed into the DSP and/or replace the ridiculously inadequate 3 band tone controls with a proper 10-band equalizer so at least we could correct for it ourselves for our own individual hearing and tastes.

So, without a software fix, I don't know where to begin fixing this thing via only the hardware. I've read about what some have done here, but I'm reluctant to duplicate that because it involves primarily the bass correction and doesn't seem to address the other critical frequency issues, unless I'm missing something.

I'm simply looking for a nice flat response across the frequency spectrum. That's really hard to do without a proper equalizer. You could play with different speakers and dampening methods forever and still not get it right. It's simply a hit or miss methodology, there must be a better way.
We’ve been discussing the lack of a multi-band EQ as a major disappointment since 2018. You’ll find some (very) long old threads on this topic.

Some of us (myself included) had the amplifier TSB applied early on and have been more or less satisfied, albeit with bizarre EQ settings.

Others have taken a ‘brute force’ approach—swapping speakers, adding (or removing) subs, and of course doing additional processing.
 
I've followed your posts pertaining to the HK audio system over a number of threads here and I feel you have a good grasp on the deficiencies of the HK RAM design. I hope you don't mind if I pass a few things by you as well as everyone else.

....
How long have you had your limited? It took mine almost a month and a half to break in. I unplugged my sub a week after I got it.
 

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