I will preface my question by saying that I have read through the first 30 pages of this section as well as stickies to try and find an exact answer.

2005 2Dr 4x4 LS

Today I installed a Kenwood 419 HU to the stock speakers, no amp. I mainly wanted bluetooth and satellite radio so an amp was not first on my priorities. The install was pretty easy and I powered it up and got decent sound.

First thing I noticed was that the rears were not working when I set my fade all the way back. Did some research and found that it is possible they were blown from the new HU. Doesnt really bother me and I dont feel like taking out the interior to replace them right now.

So this brings me to my question:

Is there any way to replace both the front door and dash speakers without worrying about 2 Ohm impedance from the parallel setup. Would I just wire my rear inputs to the stock front and run new speaker wire from the dash speakers to the front?

And if I wanted the rears:

How do I get 6 aftermarket speakers to run on a HU with the crossover setup?

I may be adding an amp and sub in the spring when I have time to tear everything apart but for now I just want a decent working setup.

Thanks for the help and ask if you need any clarification on my problem.

 

If your rear speakers were working before the new HU install then I would imagine they're still fine unless they were really that ready to die. The actual power output from a factory unit and an aftermarket HU really aren't that different. Ultimately the aftermarket HU's can produce considerably more power output but not until reaching audible levels of distortion, not that it stops most people.

Basically, I doubt that just because you changed the HU it caused the speakers to blow, again unless they were already on their last leg. If that was the case you would have heard them cutting out, rattling, or something noticeable like that while they were still being powered by the factory unit.

Now, you kind of answered your first question in your post there. If you wired your dash speakers to the front outputs and the front door speakers to the rear outputs everything would be just fine. You'll have to run your own speaker wire from the outputs to one set of the speakers and the easiest to do that with would be the dash speakers.

Later, if you wanted to connect up all six speakers there's a few different ways to do so. For one, you could buy dash and front door speakers that were both 2 ohm speakers to start with (yes they're available) and connect them in series to each other on the front outputs of the HU, then just connect the rear speakers to the rear outputs when you got them put in.

Another way to do it would be to just connect the dash and rear door speakers to each other in series for an 8ohm load on either the front or rear channels (whichever you wanted to use on them). They wouldn't be as loud, but they would be usable that way.

Another route would be to build or buy passive crossovers like THESE and install them on the speakers. If you put a 150hz high pass on the dash speakers and a 150 or 100hz lowpass on the rear speakers the amp in the HU would still only see a 4 ohm load because the speakers would never be playing the same frequencies. It's more expensive and not the most sensible way to do it, but it is doable. The one advantage is that it would help keep the little 4x6 dash speakers from distorting real easy as they wouldn't be trying to play bass frequencies at high volumes.

The last solution would be to put a 2 channel amp on the front door speakers and run the dash and back door speakers on the HU. Another more expensive solution, but a good bit more usable than all those passive crossovers. Although, if a person were to go this route I think they would be much better off, and money better spent to buy a nice set of components and a 2 channel amp in the first place and forget about the dash and rear speakers. A good set of components on a reasonable amount of power with proper installation (solid mounting baffle, sound deadening, etc) has the potential to get louder and sound worlds better than any of those other options.

That's a lot to read, but they're all viable ways to reach a solution to your inquiry. The biggest thing to remember is that every setup depends 90% on it's installation and only 10% on the equipment being used. Crappy speakers in a near perfect installation will pretty much always sound better than really good expensive ones in a really crappy installation.

 

Thanks for the great response. You could definitely write a sticky regarding all of the ways to update stock audio.

What I am thinking for right now is to check the wiring and replace the rear 6x9s and the door 6.5s with something decent and just disconnect the dash speakers.

Do you think this would sound fine and any recommendation on the types of speakers I should get? I saw some rear kenwood 6x9s that had 3 smaller speakers on it as well.

I think this should set me nice if I want to install a single channel amp in the future.

 

What kind of budget are you trying to work with? That will help the most with what I can recommend. If you went with a decent set of components for the front you can put the mid in the door, install the tweeter in the dash (where the factory tweeter is generally located) and get a little better imaging and sound stage than you would with a coaxial in the door. The only issue with them is you'll have to run your own speaker wire to each of those speakers from the passive crossover that's included with them. It's a little extra work but well worth it IMHO for the end results. Also, the 6x9's really don't need to be more than a 2-way coaxial setup.