I can no longer take the sound of the Sony system. I've browsed here, diyma and the regular F150 sites a ton and I think I have things nailed down. My reasons for upgrading are the same as everyone else. I've found the Sony premium system to be less than premium. It is muddled, cold sounding and for my ears way too harsh/bright/fatiguing. Seriously fatiguing. I've found this assessment to be highly dependent on the source material. The type of music and the quality of the original CD make a huge difference. Some artists/mixes are tolerable while others are seriously abrasive. I've also noticed a difference between using my iPod Classic (320kbps AAC) and a regular hard drive with WMA (Lossless avg. around 900kbps) files on it. The iPod sounds better despite the lower bitrate. This might be due to the HU EQ as the volume the iPod puts out is much stronger than the hard drive. Listening to the iPod at 50% volume is equal to 75% volume when using the hard drive as a source. I've messed with all kinds of bit rates, formats, and volume leveling, but I don't think I'll ever get what I want without the upgrade. I'm looking for something comparable to my last system which was this:
F350 CC
Avic Z1 HU
JL XR650-CSI's up front (Woofers in the doors/tweeters up on the dash)
JL XR650-CSI's in the rear (stock location)
JL 300\4 v1 driving the 650's
JL Stealthbox (front center seat model with the 10" sub)
JL 250/1 driving the Stealthbox
I was extremely pleased with this system. I could drive from SoCal to Tahoe with absolutely no fatigue and the volume up. Very smooth and very powerful. Source was my iPod Classic with a mix of rock/pop/country/electronica/rap/classic. A rather diverse mix and it all sounded good. Duplicating this is my goal.
Proposed system
HU will be the stock Nav
C5-570 for the front (bought and partially installed. The tweeters/crossovers are in and the woofers are up next)
C2-570x for the rear doors (bought but not in yet)
Stock center speaker (not sure whether this one should be upgraded to a decent 3 1/2" coax)
Subwoofer will be a custom box with either a JL 10TW3 or an Alpine SWR-T10. I have the Ford under seat storage so this box will have to fit where the Sony sub now fits. Something similar to Cayenne's build. The Alpine requires less volume in the box so I'm leaning this way, although I'd like to stick with JL based on past experience.
JBL MS-8 for signal processing and EQ. I'd like to use Logic 7, so I'll use the MS-8 to drive the rear doors and the dash speaker
HD 900/5 driving the front C5's in active mode(I'll pull the crossovers out) and the sub driven off the 5th channel
Full dynamat extreme on the inside and outside of the front doors. Smaller speaker size dynamat extreme around the rear C2's.
I'm doing the C5's and C2's myself. Kudos to birdman for the very helpful tutorial. The only issue I had when doing the tweeters was figuring out the second clip on the driver's door pillar. I eventually figured it out, but it took a while to figure out exactly how it was holding the trim piece. The rest of the install will be by someone with more skill then me. I'm still looking into installers. So far I've put Method Sound or JT Audio on the list of possible installers. There are some dealers local, but I couldn't find enough information on them to make me comfortable.
Anyone see any major issues? Anyone have a good dealer in the SoCal region (50 mile radius around SW Riverside County)?
F350 CC
Avic Z1 HU
JL XR650-CSI's up front (Woofers in the doors/tweeters up on the dash)
JL XR650-CSI's in the rear (stock location)
JL 300\4 v1 driving the 650's
JL Stealthbox (front center seat model with the 10" sub)
JL 250/1 driving the Stealthbox
I was extremely pleased with this system. I could drive from SoCal to Tahoe with absolutely no fatigue and the volume up. Very smooth and very powerful. Source was my iPod Classic with a mix of rock/pop/country/electronica/rap/classic. A rather diverse mix and it all sounded good. Duplicating this is my goal.
Proposed system
HU will be the stock Nav
C5-570 for the front (bought and partially installed. The tweeters/crossovers are in and the woofers are up next)
C2-570x for the rear doors (bought but not in yet)
Stock center speaker (not sure whether this one should be upgraded to a decent 3 1/2" coax)
Subwoofer will be a custom box with either a JL 10TW3 or an Alpine SWR-T10. I have the Ford under seat storage so this box will have to fit where the Sony sub now fits. Something similar to Cayenne's build. The Alpine requires less volume in the box so I'm leaning this way, although I'd like to stick with JL based on past experience.
JBL MS-8 for signal processing and EQ. I'd like to use Logic 7, so I'll use the MS-8 to drive the rear doors and the dash speaker
HD 900/5 driving the front C5's in active mode(I'll pull the crossovers out) and the sub driven off the 5th channel
Full dynamat extreme on the inside and outside of the front doors. Smaller speaker size dynamat extreme around the rear C2's.
I'm doing the C5's and C2's myself. Kudos to birdman for the very helpful tutorial. The only issue I had when doing the tweeters was figuring out the second clip on the driver's door pillar. I eventually figured it out, but it took a while to figure out exactly how it was holding the trim piece. The rest of the install will be by someone with more skill then me. I'm still looking into installers. So far I've put Method Sound or JT Audio on the list of possible installers. There are some dealers local, but I couldn't find enough information on them to make me comfortable.
Anyone see any major issues? Anyone have a good dealer in the SoCal region (50 mile radius around SW Riverside County)?
