[County98]

Mods can move to Electrical, but it has to do with new JKU specifics, so...

So I upgraded front speakers to Infinity 6500cx components, the soundbar to Infinity 6502ix coaxials, and the sub to the popular Kicker CVR 8" dual 2 ohm.

I have the Premium Audio since she's a Rubi, and the 430N. I plan later to keep stock head unit (I actually like it!) and add a processor and amp later. It's just not in the budget for now. So, just have to do it in stages. Speakers and prep now, amp and re-wire later.

I looked at many speakers and am a fan of the Polk's and Alpine, etc., but wanted to try something different and tailor it to running with both stock amp for now and more power later.

These infinity's are nice! I chose them because they are 3 ohm (couldn't find a straight answer on the factory Ohm's, especially the front components, but more on that later). Also they have a 93 sensitivity so will pick up nicely.

Infinity REF-6500cx 6-1/2" 2-Way Reference X Component Car Speakers

Infinity REF-6502ix 6-1/2" 2-Way Reference X Coaxial Car Speakers

Kicker 10CVR82 (10CVR8-2) 8" Dual 2 ohm CompVR Car Subwoofer

I also ordered up some dynamat (4 12x36" sheets), and 2 8" spacer rings for sub (they come in a 2 pack for like $6)

Soundbar:

I took it out of Jeep very easily. 6 10mm bolts I think and the connector on the passenger side. Was lighter than I thought and I just let it rest on headrests and it was no biggie to do by myself.

Dynamatted some strips on the outside where no one could see, put a little foam gasket around the dome light, and dynmatted and polyfilled inside the ends. I actually took some dynamat and made dams inside the soundbar, closing off the end pods.

The premium system didnt sound terrible to me and it's because the speakers arent that bad! I was expecting paper cone crappola's, but they have decent weight to them and the cones are poly.

Pic limit...Cont

 

[County98]

Cont...

New Infinity's:

Soundbar feels more solid and I dont have any rattles..yet. The factory amp seems to roll off the lows around 150hertz or so, so no major bass from these guys and volume is limited. Volume doesnt bother me much since it's just for fill anyway, and the highs picked up nicely. It's trebly and low volume, but much more crisp and clean to me.

Fronts:

MANY posts on how to do, so wont recap it all, but wasnt as bad as I feared. I pulled both pods, dynamatted the crap out of the outside for rattel a rigidity, and put in a little polyfill. The Infinity's come with a bazzillion adapters for stuff, so bolted right up with trimming a tab here and there and using good gaskets between adapter ring and speaker and adapter and pod. It came with gaskets, but I also had leftover dynamat so made gasket rings from that also.

Side note: There are many wiring color charts, and they're not all right for the 2013's. I used a pinout diagram I found somewhere. Also, the pigtails inside the pods are NOT the true wire colors, use the colors on the dash wiring for polarity.

Where I guessed:

Tons of "Do I use crossover threads". Everybody thinks they're correct, and all seem different. 3 choices- 1) amp crosses over, dont use speaker xovers and bolt right in. 2)use speaker xovers on tweeters only. 3) take full range signal and use speaker crossovers only and dont use factory tweet wires. Never found a good answer.

I went with option 1 and didnt use the speaker crossovers at all and let the amp do it. The only reason I wasted so much time on this was that even though I was on board with the factory amp taking care of the high pass, there is a little resistor on the factory tweeters. If it's a bass blocker I was worried. I will of course wire them in when I upgrade to new amp. I took the factory tweet wires and ran to a little home theater speaker and only heard highs. SO...speaker crossovers still in the box for later, bolted everything in as is, and sounds fine! I was really muddled about the fronts for phase with the xover/xover combo, Ohm's of each part of component without xover, etc. Dont worry about it. If using factory amp, just bolt speakers to factory wiring and call it a day.

Infinity tweets:

They look great, sound good, and match the interior since they have a little accent ring that matches the vents. HOWEVER...even with all the spacers and adapters, they were just a hair small in the tombstones. The trim ring covers, but the body was loose in there. Since I need access to them for later, I didnt want to glue, etc. I went ghetto and wrapped the bodies in electrical tape until I built up enough for a good solid friction fit. No worries at all.

Sub:

Used the post on "Replacing with CVR8", and it was very helpful. Only thing is that I THINK the note on the polaritys is backwards. (The grays/greens), dont remember exactly, but I want to say the pinout showed the colors the other way. Just double check and never use only one source.

The trim ring fits perfect and since it fits behind Kicker rin and does NOT exact fit to the outside of mount hole, I didnt go get black felt or anything. Went the lazy way and just wrapped the whole ring in black electrical tape. Cant hardly see it and it's in the back anyway. Dynamatted the sh!t out of the inside of sub enclosure and used a little polyfill.

Overall, it sounds good and it will really wake up when it gets more power later. On stock amp, not louder, but not noticibly softer. Just sounds more clear and more "tonal". Like everything has a job it's doing and it's not a big muddy mess. Very happy with stage 1, and cant wait to add proccessor and amp later. Should be all set now.

Didn't matter to me since I used factory wiring for now, and maybe since they're built to be a factory replacement kind of deal it explains it. The Infinity's came with TONS of stuff for mounting, but no speaker wire whatsoever. Just be aware if you're wiring to a new amp (I think they'll sound fantastic), you will need wire.

As always, everybody's taste is different and sound is HUGELY subjective. YMMV.

Cheers!

 

[Lowerumble]

Thanks for the writeup. Saving for future... :wavey:

 

[JohnAgan]

Dynamatted the sh!t out of the inside of sub enclosure and used a little polyfill.

Interesting comment. I swapped mine out with a JL Audio 8 and it sounds good, but if I turn it up, there is crazy rattle. I had it professionally installed, but I know my way around the electronics.

How hard is it to dynamat and polyfill behind it? Any pics?

(Just to clarify, I upgraded the whole system and have an upgraded JL Audio amp pushing it)

 

[County98]

I don't have any pics behind it. It wasn't too hard to dynamat in the enclosure. Not a big space so didn't take much. I just used smallish pieces and covered as much of the inside plastic as I could to cut down on the resonance and keep it from flexing the plastic as much as possible. Not the "end all-be all", but helped a lot. The part with the 12v outlet seems to be a culprit.

Also, I'm still using stock amp for now, so the little guy isn't pounding like it will with an aftermarket amp. Works for now, and definitely helped some. ANYTHING will be better than if your installer left it hollow plastic.

There are some folks on here that have done lots of really cool stuff including a guy that (I think), actually fiberglassed the inside. Looks stock from outside, but completely rigid.

Good luck!

 

[GoodGuy2k2k]

Did this - sounds awesome

Thanks for the writeup.
I purchased the Infinity 6502ix speakers (coax for back) and the component versions for the front.
Just installed the coax in my JK Wrangler 2011 soundbar. AWESOME sound.
Will be installing the fronts, an 8" sub box in trunk area and a 5 channel amp eventually.
Did some dynamat (a cheaper copy actually worked great) and polyfilled the soundbar.
Unfortunately, the infinity speaker covers didnt really cover enough of the tabs of the speaker adapter and looked a bit off. So I reused the original Wrangler 3 tab speaker covers - still looks great.
I had the base radio with base speakers (no Alpine) and it wounded really flat and bland. WOW - Just the infinity speakers alone add SO MUCH high and low end it is amazing. Cant wait to install the front components, sub and amp. Crazy what a 1000% improvement it makes to get good speakers. Awesome. Awesome Awesome. IT almost as if you dont need a sub they sound so good off the crappy 140 standard radio BUT they get overdriven and moving the low frequencies to the sub will really help fill out the sound without the need to overdrive the coaxials (or components). These speakers are an amazing upgrade - highly recommend.