HK radio and door speaker upgrade

[Kendal]

The Alpine system has 2 ohm speakers, I believe, but the HK has 4 ohms. I’ve only had the rear headliner speakers out so far myself on my HK system, and they were just under 4 ohm.

Good to know thanks

 

[InRoostWeTrust]

I just did mine recently. Front and rear 6x9 on the HK system are the same speaker.
CDT CL69-S 4 ohm are what you want for all four doors.

Scap (or others),
Did you change any other speakers like on the dash?
I'm thinking of doing the same CDT CL69's on all 4 doors with Metra 72-6514 connections, but wondering if the dash needs help too (like the Faital Pro 3FE22's 3" full-range).

Also wanted to ask if the front doors (or rear doors) needed any added spacers or Mounting modification.
This is for a 2022 1500 Big Horn, ANC, 8.4" non-Alpine (4 Ohm).

Thanks for any advice!

 

[Scap]

Scap (or others),
Did you change any other speakers like on the dash?
I'm thinking of doing the same CDT CL69's on all 4 doors with Metra 72-6514 connections, but wondering if the dash needs help too (like the Faital Pro 3FE22's 3" full-range).

Also wanted to ask if the front doors (or rear doors) needed any added spacers or Mounting modification.
This is for a 2022 1500 Big Horn, ANC, 8.4" non-Alpine (4 Ohm).

Thanks for any advice!

I had the Infinity dash speakers in for a couple drives, but ended up removing them and went back to stock. Also, I unplugged the sub and to my ears the system is better than ever.

My current setup is CL69S in all 4 doors.
Wired with the same reverse polarity as stock
ANC is active.
Sub unplugged.
Stock 3.5's in dash.

No modifications needed.

 

[InRoostWeTrust]

As an update on my '22 Ram Base 6-speaker upgrade, I installed four (4) 4-Ohm CD69's in doors and 8 Ohm Faital 3FE22's in the dash with 600 Ohm base blockers - plastic door panels were also treated to a few layers of 80-mil RoadKill because its cheap and the door panels were off.
Before the Faital's were installed the stock dash speakers were hardly heard, but the CD69's really rocked the truck...but there wasn't much for treble. Now that the Faitals are installed they seem to be too loud and don't respond well to trimming volume when treble or mid-range settings are lowered without loosing sound quality.

It almost seems like I need a less efficient dash speaker now or figure out how/what resistor load to add to the Faital's to tone them down volume-wise.

Anyone experience this and/or addressed it successfully?

Thanks!

 

[Ram&CheeseSandwich]

For anyone considering these speaker upgrades, I just wanted to say that I had a horrible experience with using the Metra 72-6514 adaptors in my truck. Made the ANC noise unbearable and the 6x9’s sounded like crap. Changed to Metra 72-6515 and everything is quiet and sounding great now. Not sure how everyone else has used the 6514’s and not had the same issues as me but it was literally unbearable.

 

[Dcam2man]

As an update on my '22 Ram Base 6-speaker upgrade, I installed four (4) 4-Ohm CD69's in doors and 8 Ohm Faital 3FE22's in the dash with 600 Ohm base blockers - plastic door panels were also treated to a few layers of 80-mil RoadKill because its cheap and the door panels were off.
Before the Faital's were installed the stock dash speakers were hardly heard, but the CD69's really rocked the truck...but there wasn't much for treble. Now that the Faitals are installed they seem to be too loud and don't respond well to trimming volume when treble or mid-range settings are lowered without loosing sound quality.

It almost seems like I need a less efficient dash speaker now or figure out how/what resistor load to add to the Faital's to tone them down volume-wise.

Anyone experience this and/or addressed it successfully?

Thanks!

I installed the 4 ohm Faitals and also found them overpowering. I soldered up an L-Pad using Parts Express premium high power audio resistors. Look up L-pad calculators on the internet to get the dB reduction for your eight ohm speakers. A simple L-Pad is just a resistor in line with one of the wires to the speaker, and it doesn’t matter which one. It won’t hurt your amp. My setup is the 12” HK. It took a month for the Faitals to warm up a little. I can’t help you since I have a different set up with different ohm speakers. It is trial and error. Buy two resistors, 4 ohm, 6 Ohm and see if it drops the front bias on one of the speakers enough for you. Then order what you need for the rest of the truck. The Faitals do get better with time. I like them now. Also, buy a speaker polarity checker. It is like $20. The mid range was missing because the front door speakers were out of phase as installed in my truck. Putting them all in phase brought the mid range back up. Good luck.

Home

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[InRoostWeTrust]

I installed the 4 ohm Faitals and also found them overpowering. I soldered up an L-Pad using Parts Express premium high power audio resistors. Look up L-pad calculators on the internet to get the dB reduction for your eight ohm speakers. A simple L-Pad is just a resistor in line with one of the wires to the speaker, and it doesn’t matter which one. It won’t hurt your amp. My setup is the 12” HK. It took a month for the Faitals to warm up a little. I can’t help you since I have a different set up with different ohm speakers. It is trial and error. Buy two resistors, 4 ohm, 6 Ohm and see if it drops the front bias on one of the speakers enough for you. Then order what you need for the rest of the truck. The Faitals do get better with time. I like them now. Also, buy a speaker polarity checker. It is like $20. The mid range was missing because the front door speakers were out of phase as installed in my truck. Putting them all in phase brought the mid range back up. Good luck.

Home

Dayton Audio DPR20-4.0 4 Ohm 20 Watt Precision 1% Audio Grade ResistorDayton Audio's Precision Series Audio Grade 20 watt resistors are designed specifically for use in high-end, no compromise crossover networks. The nickel-chromium winding, a high thermal conductivity tubular ceramic core...

www.parts-express.com

Thanks Dcam,
Without seeing your post, I did order some temporary series resistors to try to tone-down the Faitels... once I find the desired results I will build the proper L-Pad resistors in series/parallel connection to prevent hurting the amp.

My mid-range is still lacking some from the door speakers, but they are wired in stock polarity, sound great, and don't mess with the Hemi ANC system, so I'll decide what to do after I tone-down the Faitels.

When you say 'warm-up' over time, what did you notice after some brake-in... better sound by being 'less shouty' or just better at reproducing sound?
Just curious what you noticed...

Thanks much!

 

[Dcam2man]

Thanks Dcam,
Without seeing your post, I did order some temporary series resistors to try to tone-down the Faitels... once I find the desired results I will build the proper L-Pad resistors in series/parallel connection to prevent hurting the amp.

My mid-range is still lacking some from the door speakers, but they are wired in stock polarity, sound great, and don't mess with the Hemi ANC system, so I'll decide what to do after I tone-down the Faitels.

When you say 'warm-up' over time, what did you notice after some brake-in... better sound by being 'less shouty' or just better at reproducing sound?
Just curious what you noticed...

Thanks much!

Warmer. Not as sharp. Don’t trust the stock polarity. Amazon

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[Edwards]

I wanted to thank @Scap for recommending the CDT Audio speakers. I just installed the CL69S in all 4 doors and it now sounds amazing. And on top of that CDT has them on sale for $110/pr right now.

But, the 72-6514 adapters aggravated my ANC like I told her she looked fat. I've never heard such noises from my truck. So this morning I swapped the pins in all of them to effectively make them 72-6515's and ahh, ANC is back in business but now I have serious punch to my HK system. It sounds so much better and I recommend it to anyone wanting a fairly easy HK upgrade.

I had already put Infinity's in the dash but this fills out the mid's and seems to move the voice soundstage further back toward you instead of it being focused above the dash. I've still got the factory sub connected and this doesn't eliminate that upper bass over tune HK left us with but the CDT's fill in so much missing sound above that frequency that it hardly bothers me now. It's almost like HK did their tuning work and then Ram swapped out the 6x9's for the cheap ones we get now.

The only other problem was on my test drive the driver's door didn't seem to be doing much. Got down there and it was making sound but far less output than the other three. Digging into it, I had a bad Metra adapter. Replaced that and good to go.

I did tighten things up a bit when the door panels were off. Nothing seriously loose - just not as tight as it should have been. And the other surprise was when I removed the 3 bolts on the FR door. The panel just fell off. Not a single snap in was snapped in from the factory - and not a rattle in over 4 years of driving it. Well it's snapped in now.

 

[InRoostWeTrust]

What system do you have - base 6 speaker or 7 speaker?
What ohm (2 or 4 ohm) CDL 6x9's did ya get?

Thx!

 

[chadillac0121]

I wanted to thank @Scap for recommending the CDT Audio speakers. I just installed the CL69S in all 4 doors and it now sounds amazing. And on top of that CDT has them on sale for $110/pr right now.

But, the 72-6514 adapters aggravated my ANC like I told her she looked fat. I've never heard such noises from my truck. So this morning I swapped the pins in all of them to effectively make them 72-6515's and ahh, ANC is back in business but now I have serious punch to my HK system. It sounds so much better and I recommend it to anyone wanting a fairly easy HK upgrade.

I had already put Infinity's in the dash but this fills out the mid's and seems to move the voice soundstage further back toward you instead of it being focused above the dash. I've still got the factory sub connected and this doesn't eliminate that upper bass over tune HK left us with but the CDT's fill in so much missing sound above that frequency that it hardly bothers me now. It's almost like HK did their tuning work and then Ram swapped out the 6x9's for the cheap ones we get now.

The only other problem was on my test drive the driver's door didn't seem to be doing much. Got down there and it was making sound but far less output than the other three. Digging into it, I had a bad Metra adapter. Replaced that and good to go.

I did tighten things up a bit when the door panels were off. Nothing seriously loose - just not as tight as it should have been. And the other surprise was when I removed the 3 bolts on the FR door. The panel just fell off. Not a single snap in was snapped in from the factory - and not a rattle in over 4 years of driving it. Well it's snapped in now.

Just out of curiosity, what made you go with 4x mid/low-range only speakers in the CL-69s?

I have the Alpine system and just ordered:

2x CL-69s for fronts (given the factory cross over)

2x HD-690fx full range coax for the rears (given the rears have full range signal)

Is the HK system not sending full range to the rears like the Alpine?

Or did you only want the dash speakers handling high frequencies?

I was torn on this myself, as even though the rears have full range, I’m not entirely certain I want them handling any highs.

Any info on how you made this decision would be super helpful!

 

[Brunzca]

Just out of curiosity, what made you go with 4x mid/low-range only speakers in the CL-69s?

I have the Alpine system and just ordered:

2x CL-69s for fronts (given the factory cross over)

2x HD-690fx full range coax for the rears (given the rears have full range signal)

Is the HK system not sending full range to the rears like the Alpine?

Or did you only want the dash speakers handling high frequencies?

I was torn on this myself, as even though the rears have full range, I’m not entirely certain I want them handling any highs.

Any info on how you made this decision would be super helpful!

Your mids and highs should typically be coming from the front only (with exception of using the rear headliner speakers for rear fill). If you have them Coming from the rear door, it will jumble the time alignment and prevent the overall sound from being congruent.
When I installed a DSP in my prev truck, I disconnected the rear doors entirely.

 

[Edwards]

Just out of curiosity, what made you go with 4x mid/low-range only speakers in the CL-69s?

I have the Alpine system and just ordered:

2x CL-69s for fronts (given the factory cross over)

2x HD-690fx full range coax for the rears (given the rears have full range signal)

Is the HK system not sending full range to the rears like the Alpine?

Or did you only want the dash speakers handling high frequencies?

I was torn on this myself, as even though the rears have full range, I’m not entirely certain I want them handling any highs.

Any info on how you made this decision would be super helpful!

This thread is for HK systems and that is what they have from the factory. I've read that the Alpine systems use a two way 6x9 but can't confirm.

 

[4breakfree1]

I just installed infinity reference 9632ix 2 ways in all 4 doors of my 22 limited with HK system. It sounds horrible and has engine drone coming through like the ANC is fighting it. After reading a bunch of these threads, it sounds like my polarity is backwards. I used the metra 6514 connectors per crutchfield, but I've seen 6515's and pin swapping mentioned on these threads. I want to confirm that this is most likely my issue before taking my next step. I am leaning towards ordering 6515 connectors, are these confirmed to be opposite polarity to the 6514's? I don't have any experience with swapping connector pins, so I am either going to get the 6515's or just cut, swap, solder and shrink wrap the wires. Please offer up any suggestions. Thanks a bunch!

 

[Scap]

I just installed infinity reference 9632ix in all 4 doors of my 22 limited with HK system. It sounds horrible and has engine drone coming through like the ANC is fighting it. After reading a bunch of these threads, it sounds like my polarity is backwards. I used the metra 6514 connectors per crutchfield, but I've seen 6515's and pin swapping mentioned on these threads. I want to confirm that this is most likely my issue before taking my next step. I am leaning towards ordering 6515 connectors, are these confirmed to be opposite polarity to the 6514's? I don't have any experience with swapping connector pins, so I am either going to get the 6515's or just cut, swap, solder and shrink wrap the wires. Please offer up any suggestions. Thanks a bunch!

Roll down a window and see if it sounds better. That turns off the ANC.

 

[4breakfree1]

Rolling the window down made the drone interference noise go away, but the speakers still didn't sound as good, kind of muffled.

 

[Scap]

Rolling the window down made the drone interference noise go away, but the speakers still didn't sound as good, kind of muffled.

I'd recommend reversing polarity then.

 

[wildh24]

Anyone using the CDT 4" coaxials in the dash on the HK system? Considering swapping out the 3.5s for something with a silk tweeter and the cdts are reasonably priced.

I know the factory location is a 3.5, but I'd assume a 4" could be fitted with some modifications.

 

[Turbo Brian]

Anyone using the CDT 4" coaxials in the dash on the HK system? Considering swapping out the 3.5s for something with a silk tweeter and the cdts are reasonably priced.

I know the factory location is a 3.5, but I'd assume a 4" could be fitted with some modifications.

'22 1500 Limited with HK system

I just replaced the 3 dash speakers with Infinity Reference 3032cfx 3.5" mid/tweet coaxial (3 ohm) and I'm very happy with the result. Everyone's ears are different, tho. Unless you specifically want the CDT's, you can get a 4-pack of the Infinity's (also made by Harmon, so it's remaining loyal, I guess?) from Amazon for under $80 and the Metra 72-7902 adapters (or the Red Wolf copycats).

I considered replacing the rear headliner's with 3032cfx, as well, but they would not fit in the headliner cup without modification due to how the terminal position is offset from the mounting bracket. For sure could make it fit by modifying the mounting bracket. For simple install you need a speaker that has the mounting bracket at 3 and 9 o'clock with terminals at 6 o'clock. I'm also skeptical about the benefit of replacing those. May be better to leave the factory 4 ohm unit.

When I get the motivation to pop door panels, I'm going to try the front doors with Infinity Reference 9630cx 2-way component 6x9. Haven't seen much about people actually replacing the front upper door tweeter, so we'll see how that works out. May keep the factory upper door and just replace the lackluster factory door woofer. Amazon "renewed" for $100. The box I received looked like it was brand new, never been opened.

I have a pair of JBL GX9638 (also Harmon!) 3-way coaxial (2.3 ohm) 6x9's I may try in the rear door. Have no idea what to expect from that. Could be a terrible idea. Backup plan is another pair of Infinity 9630cx's for the woofer only.

I also have a Pioneer 10" 4 ohm SVC shallow-mount sub lying around. It's rated 20-200hz 300w RMS and just under 90db sensitivity. Since the factory HK sub is 6 ohm SVC powered at 204w that math lines up well. Worth a shot. Figured if nothing else, I'd get the factory plastic box out and wrap it in Killamat. The factory box is 9 liter (~0.32 cu-ft). Sub is mounted inverted, too.

Some people may say "don't bother, you should just..." - bah! I like to work creatively with what is there. Try to squeeze out the best possible while keeping it as simple and stock-ish as possible.

 

[Nsm42]

HK system here. I’ve been reading other threads regarding the dash speakers also being out of phase and that reversing the polarity on the Metra 72-7902 provides some benefit. Has anyone come across this?