dan02gt

I'm starting this thread to give everyone a place to talk about the full Soundgate Powerstage audio upgrade and modifying the Substage. I'm going to copy a few of my posts from the "Kicker Substage (soundgate) on it way" thread.

If you have install questions, which kit questions, or any other question or comments related to the Kicker Soundgate please feel free to post them here.

dan02gt

Regarding door speakers:

I have the full Soundgate system in my 2014 with aftermarket door speakers and it works great. My understanding of it from the research I did was that the tune in the DSP for the factory speakers is Kicker's attempt to make the junk factory speakers sound like they have life to them. I'm sure this is done by boosting the frequencies that the factory speakers may be weak in reproducing. The system also crosses the door speakers over to prevent them from getting to much bass.

I started out with Kicker CSS68 components in the doors and Kicker DSC68 coaxials in the rear doors. I recently got a great deal on a set of JL C3-570 components for the front and C2-570 for the rear doors. Both speakers sounded great with the Soundgate DSP amp with the JLs being smoother and more detailed. I can't image the system sounding better with the garbage factory door speakers.


UPDATE:
I did some testing this weekend with RTA on my phone and some frequency sweep tracks. I found the frequency response to be almost flat with a slight dip around 1k. So it seems even with the upgraded door speakers the Kicker DSP doesn't color the sound to much and there is no reason to not upgrade them.

dan02gt

Replacing the sub amp:

Quote:
Originally Posted by needparts View Post
Can you explain more how you upgraded the amp on the sub please? Or show pics too
Yeah sure. The upgrade is pretty easy.

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

Red and Black are power and ground but at only 14 Ga they are to small to run anything more than the 200 watt amp that comes in the the system. So I bought 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. The sub is basically a Kicker CompVT with dual 1 Ohm voice coils. So I connected the blue black wire to the gray wire to put the voice coils in series for a 2 Ohm load to the amp. The blue wire becomes your sub positive and the gray black wire 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 stripe is negative.

For the amp I went with the Kicker KX400.1. It makes 400 watts RMS at 2 Ohms. According to Kicker the 10" CompVT can handle 400 watts RMS so this is 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 and bass 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 it into the amp.
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 but this will do for now.

dan02gt

Adding bass level control ****:

Quote:
Originally Posted by 5.0_FX2 View Post
I have this system and it would be nice if the bass level could be controlled separately from the deck. All in all it was a significant upgrade from the stock non-sony stereo.


You can install a bass level control in-line with the audio input to the Kicker Sub amp.

This one here will work:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Scosche-RLC-...-/301505733231

You'll have to add some the of speaker wire to RCA adapters to wire it all in but it would be a easy project to do.

needparts

I too will be doing the amp replacement/upgrade to my Kicker system as well. FYI. The rca cable link that's provide in the above post from Amazon. Is no longer good. Seller has quit selling on amazon. Here are the ones I order

SoZoomMe

Thanks for starting this thread. I just installed the replacement speakers, from the complete kit, yesterday. I had planned on doing the entire system this past Sunday, but got frustrated removing the door panels. Did a little research and found out I could use a paint can opener to remove the small piece behind the door handles . . . easy peasy. Now I just have to wait for another halfway warm day and I will install the sub/amp and the dsp/amp.

Beachf150

Has anyone been able to remove the factory head unit without removing the airbag. If not how difficult was it to remove the airbag. Thanks

Beachf150

Sorry dan02gt. I just saw yourpost in the other thread thanks for the help.

SoZoomMe

I haven't made it there yet, but the instructions for the Kicker system (search the matching part number) indicate you only have to remove the screws and lay the airbag on top of the dash. Don't know if this is what you are looking for, but I am going to follow the Kicker instructions.

bnorth

There was a good how to video that showed how to get to the headunit by just working the trim piece out and leaving the airbag alone.