Upgrading the sound system on your Jeep Wrangler TJ
- Thread starter Chris
- Start date
Perfect! I’ll take that into consideration!
Something to look into - Dash pods. They give you the mounting points for the 5.25" upgrade, plus a space to add the rear baffling padding.
Dash Pods
Dash Pods
Screw in plastic pods, no modification needed for '03-'06.
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_663DSHPD03/Select-Increments-Dash-Pods.html
Or these. Helps if one refreshes the thread before posting...
DeltaNu1142
TJ Enthusiast
Screw in plastic pods, no modification needed for '03-'06.
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_663DSHPD03/Select-Increments-Dash-Pods.html
Or these. Helps if one refreshes the thread before posting...
These do help the sound a lot as they offer a full enclosure for the speakers as opposed to the open back design from the factory. With these I did have a pretty big drop at 180 Hz, so I ended up going with pods mounted on top of my dash.
If you aren't as picky as me you'll probably really benefit from these.
It helps if you reinforce these with CLD or even a fiberglass mix.
The crutchfield pods have worked great for me. No more need to front fade a bunch just to hear the front speakers.
I would love to try a DSP to see how good the speakers can sound, but I can't justify going that route for an open air rig.
For the price of those select increments, you could buy a 3D printer and print your own. Just sayin'...
That seems to be the common knowledge on here, I have it working seems like fine wired to the factory harness. Not sure if they all do, but my 05 has a 15A fuse under the hood for a radio and a 10A fuse behind the glove box for a radio as well. I guess the safe thing would be to run a wire straight to the battery. I would rather be lazy and not though. Do you have the ground going to the harness and only have the yellow wire directly to the battery or do you have the ground separate too?
The whole open air design from the factory is wonky, you get so much cancellation. Having those enclosed pods makes such a difference.
Hard to say how much benefit you'd have topless. I run a hard top year-round since my Jeep is my daily. It was a substantial upgrade to audio quality, and you can get a Dayton for under $200.
It was a substantial improvement. I’ve been good for multiple years even at highway speeds.
Previously, it was too heavy from the tower speakers, but now it’s balanced how I like it.
I had a 10” Dayton HO in a previous vehicle for a bit. It was nice, but I was being greedy and switched to two Sundowns. For this rig, I’ve been happy with the kicker subwoofer in the reinforced stock enclosure wired to 2 ohm (powered by the 5-channel amp).
I’ve never had a DSP set up, but I’d like to try that at some point.
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Raptor lined my soundbar black recently as the vinyl spray started to peel, I think it was due to the heat and the softtop rubbing.
Updated the sound system in my LJ a few weeks ago. I replaced the stock in dash pods that I had modded to fit a 4x6" speaker with a set of those store bought 5 1/4" pods and a set of Sony 4 way speakers in the same size. I've already been running 6 1/2" Sony 4 ways in the stock pods on the roll bar for a few years now. To be honest, I can't as it made a great difference in the sound, just a little. But then I'm about half dear from a career in the Navy running very large diesel engines.
While I was updating, I did the Sirius XM add on receiver to my Sony DSX B700 media player. I stashed the receiver unit behind the glove box on top of an A/C vent and mounted the antenna on top of the rollbar under the top.
While I was updating, I did the Sirius XM add on receiver to my Sony DSX B700 media player. I stashed the receiver unit behind the glove box on top of an A/C vent and mounted the antenna on top of the rollbar under the top.
Thedogsbollocks
TJ Enthusiast
A lot of advice here recommending adding closed back pods for your dash speakers. This is wrong. I think many are confusing directing the sound so it emanates as much as possible through to the cabin, for this use speaker ring or simple foam.
All these car speakers are ‘infinate baffle’ speakers, meaning they are designed as open air speakers. If you must used those closed pods the just cut the back out. This will mean they will work as designed.
All these car speakers are ‘infinate baffle’ speakers, meaning they are designed as open air speakers. If you must used those closed pods the just cut the back out. This will mean they will work as designed.
So based on this we should all cut the backs (tops) out of the factory ROPs pods then?
The closed-back pods are too small. But the sides of the speaker mounts are open which means there's almost no baffle. I sealed around the sides and that helped.
Infinite baffle is not the same as open air. Infinite baffle assumes that the baffle, or the mounting surface, is infinite, meaning the front and back waves emanating from the speakers never meet. If you cut a hole in the floor of a sealed vehicle and install a speaker there that would be infinite baffle as the sound waves coming from the front and back of the speaker don't meet (or at least for the most part). Because of this the waves don't cancel each other out. Speakers designed for infinite baffle have a Qts of .7 or lower, which is one of the Thiele/small values you see listed on the spec sheet for a speaker.
Open air is when a speaker has nothing to prevent to the front and back waves from meeting, like when you hang a speaker in the air or, in our situations, you have speakers in the dash that don't have a pod. Open air leads to a lot of cancellation as the front and back waves will meet inside the cab of our Jeeps.
By using pods you reduce or eliminate those backwaves, which will improve clarity and volume.
Infinite baffle is tricky to get right, but can give some incredible low end with the right setup and gear.
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