Ever since I bought my 2018 Jeep compass Trailhawk, I have started tweaking the sound system by replacing the speakers. Crutchfield being a reliable source for fitment, still misses out lot of good speakers in their listing. I have bought and returned several speakers as I was never happy with the outcome.
I was not expecting a ground breaking audio out of the UConnect system, it was okay from the factory and should satisfy most of the listeners. But driving back and forth,my other BMW H/K system, always itched me to tweak the Jeep system. And after several tests and lot of online research, I was finally somewhat satisfied with Alpine S-69 , Kenwood Excelon 3.5 on the dash and 8 inch Kicker Hideaway subwoofer. Well, not for long !
I noticed the Uconnect system frequency curve is not exactly flat and the equalizer does not give you much flexibility. So it never sounded clean.
I did not want to spend a lot on the after market DSP and amp. KEY is what I thought I would give it a try.
Reasons for choosing KEY :
Note- Uconnect refused to play music without the load resistors. So if you are planning to get another after market amplifier, please take a note.
Current Setup :
-Infinity Reference 3.5 inch DashSpeakers
-Alpine S-69 Front Door
-JBL Stage Rear Door
-Kicker Hideaway 8 inch sub under driver seat
-Kicker Key 180 watts amp under driver seat
Wiring
-I did not have the patience to look for the T-harness so to avoid lot of splicing of wires. But it was easy to splice few wires from the Uconnect plug and routed them under the driver seat. There's lot of space to tuck the wires away.
-As the dash speakers and front door speakers are basically sharing the same output, I had to connect a fresh new wire to the dash speaker. If you refer to the diagram, it will be easier to understand.
-For power, I routed the wire from the battery through the firewall. Ground is available near the driver seat.
- I did NOT use the remote turn on wire. Initially, I tapped on to Cigarette lighter 12V but then realized when the vehicle is started, the music stops as the accessories power is brought down that time. So I simply use the " DC offset" feature- it detects the high level speaker inputs and turn itself ON. works flawlessly.
Kicker Key configuration :
The door speaker and dash speaker is so apart that a component setup would have been impossible or unrealistic. So for the front sound stage, I wanted to retain the factory 3.5 inch dash speaker location. I did not want to custom fit tweeters on the A Pillars as well.
Bi-Amp mode is what I needed. I feel 2 way door speakers and 3.5 inch full range dash speakers will be too much detailed and will take away the listening experience. Bi-Amp mode does create a crossover network by automatically detecting that there is a wide range dash speaker ( front channel of Key) and woofer ( rear channel). The auto EQ process was easy and completed without any drama.
It detected that I have a wider speaker and applied high pass frequency of 320 Hz. The infinity references were very happily playing this range.
For the doors, it applied Low pass frequency of 640 Hz. I wish I had the option to tune this one as I feel it could have been around 2 Khz to cover the entire midrange through the door speaker rather than just midbass.
I then applied the overall high pass filter from the amp as 120 Hz.
The kicker hideaway 8 inch sub set up play below 120 Hz (LPF).
I must say, the 10 band per channel auto equalizer is fantastic. It removes the harshness and kind of tame down the dash speakers. The stock radio plays lot of mid and high tones which does not sound great and causes ear fatigue very soon. The auto EQ flattens the EQ curve and balances pretty well- I mean really really well.
Time delay sounded little strange to me so I switched that off.
Overall, now I have the sweet little system that I can enjoy various genres of music without ear fatigue. The sound stage is amazingly lifted to the front.
I feel like listening to my favorite songs again
Note- The woofer frequencies that are sent to the door speakers could have been more wider. I will get to know more later if that alters the sound anyways.
I was not expecting a ground breaking audio out of the UConnect system, it was okay from the factory and should satisfy most of the listeners. But driving back and forth,my other BMW H/K system, always itched me to tweak the Jeep system. And after several tests and lot of online research, I was finally somewhat satisfied with Alpine S-69 , Kenwood Excelon 3.5 on the dash and 8 inch Kicker Hideaway subwoofer. Well, not for long !
I noticed the Uconnect system frequency curve is not exactly flat and the equalizer does not give you much flexibility. So it never sounded clean.
I did not want to spend a lot on the after market DSP and amp. KEY is what I thought I would give it a try.
Reasons for choosing KEY :
- Compact size
- Radio- Detect feature ( Load resistor)
- In built DSP
- Time Alignment
- Bi-Amp mode ( Tweeter/Woofer crossover)
Note- Uconnect refused to play music without the load resistors. So if you are planning to get another after market amplifier, please take a note.
Current Setup :
-Infinity Reference 3.5 inch DashSpeakers
-Alpine S-69 Front Door
-JBL Stage Rear Door
-Kicker Hideaway 8 inch sub under driver seat
-Kicker Key 180 watts amp under driver seat
Wiring
-I did not have the patience to look for the T-harness so to avoid lot of splicing of wires. But it was easy to splice few wires from the Uconnect plug and routed them under the driver seat. There's lot of space to tuck the wires away.
-As the dash speakers and front door speakers are basically sharing the same output, I had to connect a fresh new wire to the dash speaker. If you refer to the diagram, it will be easier to understand.
-For power, I routed the wire from the battery through the firewall. Ground is available near the driver seat.
- I did NOT use the remote turn on wire. Initially, I tapped on to Cigarette lighter 12V but then realized when the vehicle is started, the music stops as the accessories power is brought down that time. So I simply use the " DC offset" feature- it detects the high level speaker inputs and turn itself ON. works flawlessly.
Kicker Key configuration :
The door speaker and dash speaker is so apart that a component setup would have been impossible or unrealistic. So for the front sound stage, I wanted to retain the factory 3.5 inch dash speaker location. I did not want to custom fit tweeters on the A Pillars as well.
Bi-Amp mode is what I needed. I feel 2 way door speakers and 3.5 inch full range dash speakers will be too much detailed and will take away the listening experience. Bi-Amp mode does create a crossover network by automatically detecting that there is a wide range dash speaker ( front channel of Key) and woofer ( rear channel). The auto EQ process was easy and completed without any drama.
It detected that I have a wider speaker and applied high pass frequency of 320 Hz. The infinity references were very happily playing this range.
For the doors, it applied Low pass frequency of 640 Hz. I wish I had the option to tune this one as I feel it could have been around 2 Khz to cover the entire midrange through the door speaker rather than just midbass.
I then applied the overall high pass filter from the amp as 120 Hz.
The kicker hideaway 8 inch sub set up play below 120 Hz (LPF).
I must say, the 10 band per channel auto equalizer is fantastic. It removes the harshness and kind of tame down the dash speakers. The stock radio plays lot of mid and high tones which does not sound great and causes ear fatigue very soon. The auto EQ flattens the EQ curve and balances pretty well- I mean really really well.
Time delay sounded little strange to me so I switched that off.
Overall, now I have the sweet little system that I can enjoy various genres of music without ear fatigue. The sound stage is amazingly lifted to the front.
I feel like listening to my favorite songs again
Note- The woofer frequencies that are sent to the door speakers could have been more wider. I will get to know more later if that alters the sound anyways.