LostBoy
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Hey everyone. I searched this particular forum a good bit when considering upgrading audio but didn't find this exact setup so I figured I'd share to help anyone who was interested. I wanted to upgrade my door speakers and add a small 4 channel amp. I've got a 2021 F150 with a base 7 speaker system, so it wasn't great. I've also got the 12" screen. Audio has changed so much since i did all of this in simpler vehicles when I was a teenager. Now you need line output converters for subs, and you have to consider the factory EQ settings that account for bass roll off, etc.
I chose the Kicker key 200.4 after seeing a lot of success on other F150 forums. I wanted an amp with a built in DSP, due to the fact that i'm not experienced with audio tuning. I was impressed that the kicker key can tune the whole system for you. 5 star audio on youtube was a great resource for me during this project. Very thorough videos. I decided to speak with Bruce Watson with Hush Car Audio after seeing everyone else's success. I considered doing Kicker door speakers, Memphis, Pioneer and a few others. Bruce recommended Morel and told me these were superior in my price range. So i bought the 2-way component 6.5" speakers for the front doors, and the 6.5" coaxial set for the rears.
Several companies make the "plug and play" harnesses for our trucks now where you can taylor them to your needs. I've done wiring for years but I'm not one to cut up my factory harness. The Harness you would need is made by Pac and is around $60, I figured I may as well go ahead and pay Bruce for his plug and play harness that takes into account load generators, so your chimes and tones will work right, as well as provisioning for subs in the future. So he made me a harness that was really impressive, and mostly plug and play. I just had to run Power and ground to the battery for the Kicker key amp, and also run separate wires from the tweeter to the crossovers.
Back in the day I would take all this apart without a care in the world but I tried to be super careful as this is a new truck to me and I didn't want to break any plastic clips, or mess anything up. I see a lot of people like to use Dynomat, or similar to dampen the road/excess noise. Figured since i was in the door panel i may as well. I picked up 15 feet of this "Frost King" stuff for $27 at Home Depot and it's Awesome! It took care of the rear two doors, then I went back and bought another roll for the front two. I went with this stuff because it's easy to remove if you want, compared to some of the kilmat and other amazon alternatives, they can be hard to take off if you ever need to.
Instead of "fast rings" or foam rings I chose the silicone speaker baffles to mate with the door panel. I did have to do some minor trimming on these allow for fit with items inside the door skin. For some reason the rear door window switches were extremely hard for me to get out, while the fronts came right out no problems. Swapping out the door speakers on all four doors was extremely easy.
Putting the amp in was a little tougher. Bruce will make your harness based off where you want your amp to be. Most people run this amp behind the factory radio. I believe that was super common in 2015-2020 model trucks. I chose behind the radio, and I'm seeing now I should've chose behind the rear seats. On the 2021+ you don't have near as much room behind the radio as I imagined. Yes, you can fit the kicker key behind the radio, but the key amp, plus the bulky harness, plus two crossovers is pushing it. Also, there are some wiring and sensors behind the radio and nowhere really ideal to "mount" the amp, and I didn't want it rattling around back there over bumps and stuff. So I chose to connect my plug and play harness behind the radio and feed the harness down through towards the glove box. I didn't want to use my free space above the glovebox for all of this stuff. I removed the glovebox and tried to figure out a way to mount it all out of sight. I chose above the glovebox but below the cubby. There's just enough room for two crossovers, and the Key amp. I had to trim a small amount off the rear of the glovebox, and run wires through the dash (hardest part) for the tweeter wire, and power wire.
For wiring I used KnuKonceptz 12gauge for power/ground both ran from the battery to power/ground on the kicker harness. I used 16 gauge for the tweeters, and I bought a good length of remote wire for a sub amp I'll use one day. The amp comes with an inline fuse holder you can wire in. It was painful seeing my truck in shambles but i felt better about doing this myself. I could've paid a shop to do it but that doesn't mean they will take the same care i will of everything.
I verified each speaker worked and what not before putting each door panel back on, and verified the amp was working before assembling the rest. I ran the tuning process the first time on the key amp and honestly wasn't very impressed. It didn't seem like it had much volume or was much different over factory. I figured I was doing something wrong. I re-tuned it at volume 22 I think? I heard a significant difference that time, so i was sure the amp was working. I set the gains accordingly but noticed during some songs the radio/amp would clip and the LED limiter would light up on the amp at volume 20-22 depending on the bass levels. I finally retuned at volume 15 and this thing came alive!!! Sounded better than ever with a ton of volume, great mids/highs/bass so I called it good after that. Set the gains and I was ready to put everything back together and clean up the mess I'd made stripping wiring, taping, cutting etc..
Overall I'd rate the system a solid 8/10. It's not the nicest system you'll ever hear but it's leaps and bounds better than stock! I didn't bi-amp this like most do, Bruce advised it sounds best with a passive crossover setup and I'll say I'm not disappointed, it really sounds killer. Another tip I can give was I was stuck on what to do for the tweeters. I see people using plumber's strap and other way to secure them in. I pulled the factory mount out and just took a small amount of material off from the inside diameter and I was able to fit my Morel tweeters right in the factory mounts, so I was happy about that. I do believe the sound deadening and the silicone baffles make a difference. I opted to not go with the door block off plates as some forums say they were a bigger improvement from the 15-20 models, maybe ford made some improvements on the 2021+? Not sure, may look at getting them one day.
I apologize for the long post, hope I can answer some questions for anyone wondering about a decent speaker upgrade in their 2021+ trucks. Unfortunately I can't speak for any truck with B&O, or a factory amp setup.
I chose the Kicker key 200.4 after seeing a lot of success on other F150 forums. I wanted an amp with a built in DSP, due to the fact that i'm not experienced with audio tuning. I was impressed that the kicker key can tune the whole system for you. 5 star audio on youtube was a great resource for me during this project. Very thorough videos. I decided to speak with Bruce Watson with Hush Car Audio after seeing everyone else's success. I considered doing Kicker door speakers, Memphis, Pioneer and a few others. Bruce recommended Morel and told me these were superior in my price range. So i bought the 2-way component 6.5" speakers for the front doors, and the 6.5" coaxial set for the rears.
Several companies make the "plug and play" harnesses for our trucks now where you can taylor them to your needs. I've done wiring for years but I'm not one to cut up my factory harness. The Harness you would need is made by Pac and is around $60, I figured I may as well go ahead and pay Bruce for his plug and play harness that takes into account load generators, so your chimes and tones will work right, as well as provisioning for subs in the future. So he made me a harness that was really impressive, and mostly plug and play. I just had to run Power and ground to the battery for the Kicker key amp, and also run separate wires from the tweeter to the crossovers.
Back in the day I would take all this apart without a care in the world but I tried to be super careful as this is a new truck to me and I didn't want to break any plastic clips, or mess anything up. I see a lot of people like to use Dynomat, or similar to dampen the road/excess noise. Figured since i was in the door panel i may as well. I picked up 15 feet of this "Frost King" stuff for $27 at Home Depot and it's Awesome! It took care of the rear two doors, then I went back and bought another roll for the front two. I went with this stuff because it's easy to remove if you want, compared to some of the kilmat and other amazon alternatives, they can be hard to take off if you ever need to.
Instead of "fast rings" or foam rings I chose the silicone speaker baffles to mate with the door panel. I did have to do some minor trimming on these allow for fit with items inside the door skin. For some reason the rear door window switches were extremely hard for me to get out, while the fronts came right out no problems. Swapping out the door speakers on all four doors was extremely easy.
Putting the amp in was a little tougher. Bruce will make your harness based off where you want your amp to be. Most people run this amp behind the factory radio. I believe that was super common in 2015-2020 model trucks. I chose behind the radio, and I'm seeing now I should've chose behind the rear seats. On the 2021+ you don't have near as much room behind the radio as I imagined. Yes, you can fit the kicker key behind the radio, but the key amp, plus the bulky harness, plus two crossovers is pushing it. Also, there are some wiring and sensors behind the radio and nowhere really ideal to "mount" the amp, and I didn't want it rattling around back there over bumps and stuff. So I chose to connect my plug and play harness behind the radio and feed the harness down through towards the glove box. I didn't want to use my free space above the glovebox for all of this stuff. I removed the glovebox and tried to figure out a way to mount it all out of sight. I chose above the glovebox but below the cubby. There's just enough room for two crossovers, and the Key amp. I had to trim a small amount off the rear of the glovebox, and run wires through the dash (hardest part) for the tweeter wire, and power wire.
For wiring I used KnuKonceptz 12gauge for power/ground both ran from the battery to power/ground on the kicker harness. I used 16 gauge for the tweeters, and I bought a good length of remote wire for a sub amp I'll use one day. The amp comes with an inline fuse holder you can wire in. It was painful seeing my truck in shambles but i felt better about doing this myself. I could've paid a shop to do it but that doesn't mean they will take the same care i will of everything.
I verified each speaker worked and what not before putting each door panel back on, and verified the amp was working before assembling the rest. I ran the tuning process the first time on the key amp and honestly wasn't very impressed. It didn't seem like it had much volume or was much different over factory. I figured I was doing something wrong. I re-tuned it at volume 22 I think? I heard a significant difference that time, so i was sure the amp was working. I set the gains accordingly but noticed during some songs the radio/amp would clip and the LED limiter would light up on the amp at volume 20-22 depending on the bass levels. I finally retuned at volume 15 and this thing came alive!!! Sounded better than ever with a ton of volume, great mids/highs/bass so I called it good after that. Set the gains and I was ready to put everything back together and clean up the mess I'd made stripping wiring, taping, cutting etc..
Overall I'd rate the system a solid 8/10. It's not the nicest system you'll ever hear but it's leaps and bounds better than stock! I didn't bi-amp this like most do, Bruce advised it sounds best with a passive crossover setup and I'll say I'm not disappointed, it really sounds killer. Another tip I can give was I was stuck on what to do for the tweeters. I see people using plumber's strap and other way to secure them in. I pulled the factory mount out and just took a small amount of material off from the inside diameter and I was able to fit my Morel tweeters right in the factory mounts, so I was happy about that. I do believe the sound deadening and the silicone baffles make a difference. I opted to not go with the door block off plates as some forums say they were a bigger improvement from the 15-20 models, maybe ford made some improvements on the 2021+? Not sure, may look at getting them one day.
I apologize for the long post, hope I can answer some questions for anyone wondering about a decent speaker upgrade in their 2021+ trucks. Unfortunately I can't speak for any truck with B&O, or a factory amp setup.
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