andys04

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I'm new to the f150 forums and to F150s and I'm in search of some direction when it comes to building a full system upgrade.
I currently have a 16 Screw with Sync 3 and the basic stereo. I had a full custom JL system on my previous truck and the F150 needs an upgrade ASAP.

Looking for suggestions as I would like to keep the factory usability and interface with upgraded amp, components front & rear, and subwoffer. I'm not sure what components will fit and what I will need to maintain the factory usability?

I will be dynamiting (or soundproofing if anyone has suggestions as to where to get the material that would be helpful too) the doors and possibly the back of the cab and floor. I am handy with wiring so I will install the system myself.

What do I need? What would you guys suggest I use? Where should I buy it from?

BrianSomething

As for where to get stuff, most everyone on here will tell you to contact Bruce (HushCarAudio) on this site. He's known to be friendly, honest, very informed and best prices around. He carries or can order a good majority of the popular brands.

Some guys here run rear fill in the back, but the top dogs all recommend ditching the rear speakers and putting in a dsp to tune it all.

I went with Focal for my components but have a while till install. Many here love Audio Frog, Morel, Focal, JL or Hertz. All good stuff.

Skip dynamat brand and do a little searching on this site for other brands and the testing that has been done on all of it. Tons of good info on this site and always good tips/hints from guys here. There's extensive testing over on diyma on sound treatment.

andys04

Wow they ditch the rears all together? I've been toying with the idea of going with a DSP but don't know enough about it.

Just what I was looking for, I'll reach out to Bruce. Seems to be the right guy for the job!
Thank you!

dhmcfadin

A DSP is an absolute necessity. Rears are ditched because music is recorded in stereo left and right. Not front and rear. A DSP allows you create a sound stage wider than your truck and deeper than you dash. When properly tuned, music will envelope you. Your ears will be tricked into thinking rears are present. A tune is required to achieve this but it is a breathtaking experience once you hear it.

andys04

I just can't imagine ditching the rears wouldn't having more speakers add to the "sound stage"

Kanadian-kaos

Keep rears if you have people in the back that listen to music.

Trust me. I have ran it both ways. With no rears, the sound for rear passengers is pretty bad. Keep the rear speakers low enough, or fade them when not in use. Without rear speakers, my kids mostly heard bass (given how close they were to the subs), and then I would have to turn the subs down and volume up so they could hear the music which ended up sounding bad up front.

Yes, without rears, the front stage does sound better... but most people buy Supercrews because they have rear passengers.

BrianSomething

Yep, I picked up matching Focal 6.5 coaxials for my rears as well and intend on fading them out when no kids in back.

papermaker

You may want access hole covers as well, Bruce has them. And the harness to make PnP....

nineball

you can head over to crutchfield.com, enter your truck info and it will show you everything that will fit into your vehicle. crutchfield has the absolute best support in the industry and no one can hold a candle to them. i bought a fairly expensive headunit some years back and had a problem with it. i checked everything first, eventually called them and explained the problem. they sent me a new headunit over night, FOR FREE, and included a return shipping label for the bad one. no one else will do that for you in car audio, and it doesn't matter if they are huge like sonic or a small mom and pop shop or even just some random person on the internet. sure their prices may not be the absolute rock bottom available online but the customer service that they offer is worth the small price increase. on top of that their site is amazing and they offer free shipping on just about everything, and they are fully authorized to sell every brand they carry which not all online retailers can say. for example sonic will sell you anything but they are not authorized sellers of everything, so when a warranty issue comes up you are screwed.

check them out, you won't be disappointed.

dhmcfadin

No, it's only adds sound for rear passengers. Rears actually detract from the sound stage and skew the image. Rears are simply a processed copy of the front channels. You don't need more speakers to have a better listening experience. You need proper tuning. A step most people fail to complete.