armoredpig
Well-Known Member
- Thread starter
- #1
Initially, I thought the alpine ktp 445u I had piggybacked onto the stock head unit sounded pretty good, like 7-8/10. If you're not familiar with forscan, and want an add on amp without running much wiring, stop here and get that. Oh, you will get small speaker pops when you use your fordpass modem. It never happens while I'm in the truck though.
The alpine doesn't have load resistors so the Ford head unit thinks that your speakers are disconnected. This cuts off the engine sound enhancement, but also reroutes your warning chimes to the instrument cluster speaker. No biggie and they actually do a better job of getting your attention here.
Now onto the kicker key:
The kicker key has a microphone that it uses to analyze some sample pink noise to enable the DSP to undo the factory tuning; then it adds its own flavor to your audio after the fact. Unfortunately, the factory tuning is actually not that bad and the kicker dsp trying to override it didn't sound good at all to me compared to the alpine. The resulting sound was very colored and unnatural from the sound getting processed by the HU, then unprocessed and reprocessed again by the Dsp. Since the kicker key has the option of adding a dummy load to your speaker leads, the HU thinks speakers are still connected to it, therefore adding the kicker key also re-enables the factory engine enhancement sounds, which really messed with my subwoofer. I don't get any speaker pops with the kicker, though the chimes coming through the amp are louder than before.
After going into forscan and disabling the engine sounds and disabling the factory dsp to get a flat sound curve, I reran the kicker auto analysis, then gave a little bump to mids on the Ford factory head unit and now it sounds great! Super clean sound with realistic highs, mids, and clean tight bass. Highly recommended if you've got the time to work with it. 9/10 with my Rockville under seat sub.
Another note about the factory tuning, it rolls off frequencies below 50khz to protect the cheap factory speakers. Disabling this tuning really helped my subwoofer hit notes that previously weren't sent to it. This will likely kill the stock speakers in short order.
For speakers, I replaced the fronts with rockford fosgate punch 1675-s components, rated at 60w rms. I think they're fantastic! They also really highlight how crappy the rears are so I have rears rockford fosgate prime 6.75 coaxial on the way.
Is it worth 250$ to upgrade from the alpine amp to the kicker? Absolutely not! I was regretting my decision badly until I messed around with settings in forscan. Am I happy now? Definitely. I think it sounds as good as the aftermarket HUs I had in the past, except I can't fine tune the sound as much.
Was the sound deadening worth it? ? Yes. I used only 2ft Sq of kilmat in my front doors and about 5ft on the back of the cab and I definitely notice a difference in exterior noise and the quality of my sound system.
The alpine doesn't have load resistors so the Ford head unit thinks that your speakers are disconnected. This cuts off the engine sound enhancement, but also reroutes your warning chimes to the instrument cluster speaker. No biggie and they actually do a better job of getting your attention here.
Now onto the kicker key:
The kicker key has a microphone that it uses to analyze some sample pink noise to enable the DSP to undo the factory tuning; then it adds its own flavor to your audio after the fact. Unfortunately, the factory tuning is actually not that bad and the kicker dsp trying to override it didn't sound good at all to me compared to the alpine. The resulting sound was very colored and unnatural from the sound getting processed by the HU, then unprocessed and reprocessed again by the Dsp. Since the kicker key has the option of adding a dummy load to your speaker leads, the HU thinks speakers are still connected to it, therefore adding the kicker key also re-enables the factory engine enhancement sounds, which really messed with my subwoofer. I don't get any speaker pops with the kicker, though the chimes coming through the amp are louder than before.
After going into forscan and disabling the engine sounds and disabling the factory dsp to get a flat sound curve, I reran the kicker auto analysis, then gave a little bump to mids on the Ford factory head unit and now it sounds great! Super clean sound with realistic highs, mids, and clean tight bass. Highly recommended if you've got the time to work with it. 9/10 with my Rockville under seat sub.
Another note about the factory tuning, it rolls off frequencies below 50khz to protect the cheap factory speakers. Disabling this tuning really helped my subwoofer hit notes that previously weren't sent to it. This will likely kill the stock speakers in short order.
For speakers, I replaced the fronts with rockford fosgate punch 1675-s components, rated at 60w rms. I think they're fantastic! They also really highlight how crappy the rears are so I have rears rockford fosgate prime 6.75 coaxial on the way.
Is it worth 250$ to upgrade from the alpine amp to the kicker? Absolutely not! I was regretting my decision badly until I messed around with settings in forscan. Am I happy now? Definitely. I think it sounds as good as the aftermarket HUs I had in the past, except I can't fine tune the sound as much.
Was the sound deadening worth it? ? Yes. I used only 2ft Sq of kilmat in my front doors and about 5ft on the back of the cab and I definitely notice a difference in exterior noise and the quality of my sound system.
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