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Kicker Soundgate Powerstage/Substage and mods

I'm not the OP of this, but thought it might help other's out. I have done this mod and can say it's really help out the Kicker sub sound. Also always for better control of the bass

Quote:

Originally Posted by dan02gt (Post 4029542)

Replacing the sub amp:

Quote:

Originally Posted by dan02gt (Post 4029542)

Quote:

Originally Posted by needparts View Post

Can you explain more how you upgraded the amp on the sub please? Or showpics too

Yeah sure. The upgrade is pretty easy.

I cut the wiring harness where it goes into the amp. There are 8 wires inthe harness.

Red and Black are power and ground but at only 14 Ga they are to small torun anything more than the 200 watt amp that comes in the the system. So Ibought a 8 Ga Kicker amp install kit for about $25.00 at Sonic.

The voice coils on the sub are the blue/blue black and gray/gray black. Thesub is basically a Kicker CompVT with dual 1 Ohm voice coils. So I connectedthe blue black wire to the gray wire to put the voice coils in series for a 2Ohm load to the amp. The blue wire becomes your sub positive and the gray blackwire is your negative to the amp.

The green/green black wires are your signal in.

On the wires, the solid color is positive and the one with the black stripeis negative.

For the amp I went with the Kicker KX400.1. It makes 400 watts RMS at 2Ohms. According to Kicker the 10" CompVT can handle 400 watts RMS so thisis a good match on power. I choose the KX400.1 for a couple of reasons:

It can take high and low level inputs.

It has multiple turn on options eliminating the need to run a remote wire.

It is small in size

It comes with the bass level remote and has a nice built in cross over andbass boost system

They can be found refurbished with a 1 year warranty for about $160.00.

The JL XD3001/v2 also has these features and would be a good choice as well.

I bought these from Amazon to turn the signal input into RCAs to feed itinto the amp.

Amazon.com: IEC 18 AWG 6' Speaker Wire Pair with RCA Males -Black/Red: Electronics

You'll wire them to the green/green black wires on the Kicker amp harness.

That pretty much all there is to it.

I'm thinking about making a amp rack and moving it behind the rear seat butthis will do for now.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.f15...06ab354eaf.jpg

Here are my pics of this in my truck

Thanks for the post... I have the Kicker sub stage now and I'd like to run a little more power to it with the ability for the bass knob. I'm just wondering how the plastic enclosure is going to hold up to the extra wattage? I've always ran wooden boxes.

Any input?

Thanks

Quote:

Originally Posted by Staples (Post 4104777)

The plastic enclosure is pretty robust so I don't think you will have anything to worry about. I've been running the 400w Kicker amp for quite a while now and have no issues with the sub or enclosure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dan02gt (Post 4105205)

That's what I needed to know. Thanks a lot.

which method are you using for the remote turn on? i'm ordering the complete soundstage kit and would really like to do this to be able to give the sub its own control knob.

edit: if i were to buy a universal bass knob with in/out rca connections, could one be wired in line with green/green-black signal wires from the subs wire harness using the speaker wire to rca adapters?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ballsfx4 (Post 4116875)

I use DC off-set on the KX400.1 for the turn on and it works flawless. You can wire a bass knob in and it will work just fine. I played around with that exact thing with a old Precision Power knob I had laying around before I upgraded the amp.

The question I have. The Kicker substage gets its signal form a high level speaker connection. If you want to feed from a low level rca is that possible.

I am doing a JL Audio summing device/a cleansweep(dsp)/ amp for the front and rear speakers and want to feed the signal to the kicker substage from the JL cleansweep or summing device.

Make since/possible.

You should be able to do that as long as your low level output has enough voltage. The worst that would happen is that the sub wouldn't be that loud if there wasn't enough input voltage.

You can also upgrade the substage amp to one that accepts low level inputs which is something I would highly recommend.