Low / Medium Cost Audio upgrade

[Storm Breaker]

What do you need to upgrade to the Dayton on the 8 speaker B&O? How easily does the grill cover come off. I haven’t found a video removing it. Is this the speaker? https://a.co/d/0t4ZbpT

yes. thats the speaker. the grill pulls up without too much force. there is no harness for it so i had to clip and hardwire it to the speaker. i sat it in the whole and used thick speker foam around the speaker to keep it in place with pressure. foam like this.

https://www.amazon.com/Speaker-Foam...6610&sprefix=speaker+foam,aps,104&sr=8-6&th=1

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[sajurcaju]

Is the sound notably better? I bought all of the speakers and materials, but the temps outside were getting to be a little too much. I’ll probably wait at least a couple more months at this point

I had the stock (not B&O) sound system. My objection was how bad the bass sounded, just boom boom boom with no pretense of actual notes. All the bass sounded like the same note.

I did the following, in order:
1. Block off plates front/rear from Sounds Good
This noticeably improved, but the bass is still just boom boom
2. Switched to flat response via Forscan
Again, some improvement, but no real notes.
3. Added Alpine S2 coaxials in the front only.
Now bass notes actually sound like notes. The jazz bass player sounds like their notes are from a stringed instrument, actual notes. Big improvement.
I went with front only as no one else is in the truck when I play music, and using the f/r balance the rear speakers had a very small contribution. I'm not interested in lower frequency bass, just more accurate (so no sub).

I suspect the speakers have the biggest impact, though the other changes helped.

Steve

 

[richguy82]

I just saw this on Amazon. https://a.co/d/7z6O7yL. Seems to have a number of mounting points. I wonder if it would work as an adapter.
Also, someone in another forum recommended this as a wire harness for a center speaker? https://a.co/d/5ka2nI8

 

[richguy82]

Over all it does sound better. That's just my subjective opinion with no data to back it up.

I just got my Lightning mid-June and don't have a lot of drive/listening time before the change. The center speaker is still off/overwhelming, so in the fade/balance I have things two "clicks" to the rear.

I didn't add any blocks or other materials. Just replaced the front and rear speakers with the Alpine R2s. Will install the center will it comes in next week and see how it changes things.

I installed mine on Tuesday when it was almost 100 here in MA. Garage was a little cooler than outside, but not by much as I had both garage doors open for light/air.

Did the volume increase after the swap or are you having to adjust the volume higher to compensate?

 

[digitaldad]

I just saw this on Amazon. https://a.co/d/7z6O7yL. Seems to have a number of mounting points. I wonder if it would work as an adapter.
Also, someone in another forum recommended this as a wire harness for a center speaker? https://a.co/d/5ka2nI8

That ended up not being worth the cost & hassle...you have to cut one end off of the new harness, still splice and cut/dremel a piece of the harness off to fit in the plug when center is removed.

To top it off (at least in the case of the one I bought), the polarity was reversed from the new harness to the 3.5 harness...so I had to swap the spliced wires (+/-).

 

[sstevetx]

I just saw this on Amazon. https://a.co/d/7z6O7yL. Seems to have a number of mounting points. I wonder if it would work as an adapter.
Also, someone in another forum recommended this as a wire harness for a center speaker? https://a.co/d/5ka2nI8

That mount adapter might make the speaker too tall causing issues with the dash grill sitting flat. There is a raised circle on the underside of the dash grille to line up with the factory speaker. I 3d printed my own mount adapter as mentioned in my earlier post in this thread and ran into this issue. My suggestion is to just get a few screws and screw it directly into the plastic near the normal mount holes. I did that initially and it was a good solution, but I overthought it and decided to try a 3d printed mount.

 

[digitaldad]

I wanted to use the Dayton too, when I finally decided to puchase that and tweeters, the Dayton had went up in price and no longer available on Prime (that was week 3 of June).

The 3.5" speakers that have the little wing mounts work perfect as far as bolt placement goes but most are 4 Ohm (and also most sold in pairs). I ended up going this route and the sound is what I wanted, less volume/overpowering than OEM and still a good presence. I placed a quart ziploc bag of memory foam polyfill in lieu of a baffle...not sure if it did anything but its pretty cavernous below that area.

 

[richguy82]

I wanted to use the Dayton too, when I finally decided to puchase that and tweeters, the Dayton had went up in price and no longer available on Prime (that was week 3 of June).

The 3.5" speakers that have the little wing mounts work perfect as far as bolt placement goes but most are 4 Ohm (and also most sold in pairs). I ended up going this route and the sound is what I wanted, less volume/overpowering than OEM and still a good presence. I placed a quart ziploc bag of memory foam polyfill in lieu of a baffle...not sure if it did anything but its pretty cavernous below that area.

So you went with something different from Dayton to the mounting wings? I found this harness as a potential fit from digging in an F150 forum if anyone has experience with it. https://ebay.us/m/RD1qdW

 

[digitaldad]

So you went with something different from Dayton to the mounting wings?

I bought these, that have the correct bolt pattern.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0172DWNFC

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